Americans Get A Chance To Vote On War Or Peace In November

Few people would argue against the proposition that the concerted U.S. and Saudi aid to the muhajadeen, meant to destabilize the Soviet Union, has had some extremely grave, unforeseen consequences. The rise of the Taliban may even have been foreseen. 9/11 wasn't. Bush was able to use that, though, as an excuse-- as far fetched as it was-- to attack and occupy Iraq and to tighten the grip of the Military-Industrial complex around the throat of American democracy itself. But what have we-- American citizens and our congressional representatives-- learned from this whole misadventure? Apparently not very much.

A couple weeks ago the New Yorker published an essay by Seymour Hersh about what the Bush Regime-- with congressional approval-- has been up to in Iran. It's like the Afghan tragedy never happened. "Last year," Hersh begins, "Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations." That means they are trying to stir up religious and ethnic hatreds-- the Ahwazi Arabs and Baluchis are Sunnis in overwhelmingly Sh'ia (and paranoid) Iran.

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.

But they still went along with them-- and not just the reflexive rubber stamps like Boehner, Pat Roberts and McConnell but also Pelosi and Reid. And I have no doubt that Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Silvestre Reyes (R-TX) were overjoyed to sign on to a plot backing violent regime change. As Hersh emphasizes, "In other words, some members of the Democratic leadership-- Congress has been under Democratic control since the 2006 elections-- were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while the Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy."

It appears that some congressional Democratic leaders preferred McCain's "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran" approach than Obama's call-- which even Bush apparently has heard-- for diplomacy. "The Democratic leadership’s agreement to commit hundreds of millions of dollars for more secret operations in Iran was remarkable, given the general concerns of officials like Gates, Fallon, and many others. 'The oversight process has not kept pace-- it’s been coöpted' by the Administration, the person familiar with the contents of the Finding said. 'The process is broken, and this is dangerous stuff we’re authorizing.'"

Remember this was being done right when McCain was shrilly and hysterically denouncing the National Intelligence Estimate from December which found that Iran hasn't been working on nuclear weapons since 2003. And even today Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen said he's got his hands full just fighting 2 Bush wars without having to worry about a third one. And Mullen (and ex-CentCom head William Fallon) aren't the only ones in the Pentagon trying to head Bush off at the pass. Even his own Secretary of Defense has been warning Democrats to stop Bush's, Cheney's and McCain's insane and relentless drive to force us into a war with Iran.

Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a preëmptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, “We’ll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America.” Gates’s comments stunned the Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was speaking for Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. Gates’s answer, the senator told me, was “Let’s just say that I’m here speaking for myself.”

Each passing day brings more and better clarity to the differences between McCain's utter Bush-like unsuitability for public office and Obama's excellent and steady, reasoned judgment. But as Howard Fineman pointed out on Chris Matthews' show yesterday, there are reasons-- very powerful ones, why members of the Bush Regime will do all in their power to make sure McCain winds up in the White House.

FINEMAN: If you’re in this White House, you want another Republican administration to follow. You don’t want a Democratic administration coming in there while the evidence is still fresh, so to speak. To look at it the way…

MATTHEWS: With the subpoena power…

FINEMAN: With the subpoena power and looking through all the records and looking at all the decisions that were made. You want to cover over your two terms with a third term the way Ronald Reagan did with George HW Bush.

Meanwhile, the U.S. base of operations against Iran, is making it clearer by the day that-- despite McBush denials-- they want U.S. forces out of their country no later than 2010, something they see eye to eye on with the American public... and the next president.