Esquire has an amazing article up.
It's long, and it's not just another, 'hey, there's a possible war with Iran' article. It lays out the last four years.
I'm giving you a few paras -- then go read.
You know how in your worst imaginations, you worried the Bush Administration was really much worse than you thought they were, that Cheney was TRULY crazy?
Turns out, he really is.
Also turns out, the whole war with Iran thing? Iran has been begging us since the day after 9/11 to negotiate unconditionally, everything on the table. Their nuclear program. Iran telling us specifically where all of the terrorists in the middle east were, during our war with Iraq. Anything we wanted. All of it, on the fucking table, over and over again.
We're talking a literal negotiating table. Talks were held. Actual talks.
The Office of the Vice President turned EVERYTHING down. He and people in his office refused everything Iran offered the United States.
Why?
Because it isn't enough for Iran to offer all this in exchange for anything. Got that?
It isn't enough for us to WIN. Our opponent has to LOSE. AAAAAAARGH!!!!!
In Dick "INSANE GUY" Cheney's world, the Iranians had to see the light and do everything because "it was the right thing to do."
No, I'm truly not kidding. That is why we turned down the offer from Iran to give up their nuclear program, to identify all terror activity in the middle east, and a bunch of other shit, really anything we wanted. We lost it all because it wasn't offered with absolutely no strings attached like they were the fucking British helping their best friends in the whole world.
Welcome to the Axis of Evil.
Esquire*shudders*
The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know
This is what Leverett and Mann fear will happen: The diplomatic effort in the United Nations will fail when it becomes clear that Russia's and China's geopolitical ambitions will not accommodate the inconvenience of energy sanctions against Iran. Without any meaningful incentive from the U.S. to be friendly, Iran will keep meddling in Iraq and installing nuclear centrifuges. This will trigger a response from the hard-liners in the White House, who feel that it is their moral duty to deal with Iran before the Democrats take over American foreign policy. "If you get all those elements coming together, say in the first half of '08," says Leverett, "what is this president going to do? I think there is a serious risk he would decide to order an attack on the Iranian nuclear installations and probably a wider target zone."
This would result in a dramatic increase in attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, attacks by proxy forces like Hezbollah, and an unknown reaction from the wobbly states of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where millions admire Iran's resistance to the Great Satan. "As disastrous as Iraq has been," says Mann, "an attack on Iran could engulf America in a war with the entire Muslim world."
Mann and Leverett believe that none of this had to be.
Go. Read.
Frankly, I'm starting to think Treason is the operative word here. We're long past High Crimes. This isn't simple incompetence or an ideological point of view. I have to start wondering if Dick Cheney isn't intentionally setting the middle east afire from one end to the other to send oil to $300-$400 a barrel, in order to make his own portfolio and that of his patrons blow through the roof. Halliburton would triple in value as would oil stocks. It's time to ask a Special Prosecutor to look at Dick Cheney on the grounds of Treason.
In the meantime, the Joint Chiefs and The President of Russia hold the line against a madman occupying the office of the Vice President, and his buddy-pal, yet another sociopath in the Oval.
Let us hope we make it fourteen months to the election -- and another four beyond that to the inauguration, without a genuine constitutional crisis. Because it ain't like it's past these fuckers to let the election happen, then start a full-out war during the 100 days of the President-elect. You know, just for kicks.
Come on JCS... hold the goddamn line.
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