Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Real wimps go to Tehran via Baghdad

By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times

"No matter how many "rightsized" United States boots remain on Iraqi ground after the purported withdrawal at the end of the year, the "how to nail Iran" gambit looms large. One neo-conservative plan - and is it that unlikely? - would have Americans used as bait for an Israeli attack....

The record shows that Washington in fact has thrown almost everything in this book at Iran. The only "strategy" missing is a unilateral Israeli strike (the neo-conservatives are dying for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to go for it) which would be met by an Iranian retaliation, thus dragging in the US and opening up the possibility for a ground invasion (doomed from the start, but why should these authors care?)

Predictably, the ideal scenario for these and other Beltway armchair warmongers is for Tel Aviv to launch a sneak attack, with "retreating" US troops in Iraq offered as bait/sacrificial victims for a vicious Iranian retaliation. There couldn't be a more ideal pretext for dragging Washington into an uwinnable war - all over again.

Yet the bottom line, which Washington neo-conservatives will never process, is that the US lost the Iraq war, period....."

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