GARDINER: Actually, Jim, I would say - and this may shock some - I think the decision has been made and military operations are under way . . . The Iranians have been saying American military troops are in there, have been saying it for almost a year. I was in Berlin two weeks ago, sat next to the ambassador, the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA. And I said, "Hey, I hear you're accusing Americans of being in there operating with some of the units that have shot up revolution guard units." He said, quite frankly, "Yes, we know they are. We've captured some of the units, and they've confessed to working with the Americans." The evidence is mounting that that decision has already been made.

Will a preemptive strike too soon by Israel or the United States -- which is carefully studying such an option, according to recent reports -- simply consolidate the Iranian extremists' hold on power and lead to a new war?

"Preemption means simply, we get the bad guys before they get us, and that sometimes could be a good thing," Dershowitz said in a recent TV interview. "But there are tremendous risks involved, because we can get the wrong people, we can get them too early, we can provoke an attack. So it's a knife that cuts both ways."

Military action against Iran could provoke an array of potential responses, experts said. The United States would have to prepare for an aggressive campaign of suicide bombings or other terrorist reprisals from such groups as the Iranian-linked Hezbollah. Oil prices might spike, either because of an Iranian cutoff of exports to world oil markets or harassment of shipping in the Persian Gulf. Iran could launch missiles - potentially armed with chemical weapons - against Israel, Arab allies of the U.S. in the Persian Gulf region or U.S. troops based in Iraq. Violence in Iraq probably would increase, particularly in the Shiite-dominated southern regions that so far have been relatively calm. A strike against Iran would antagonize Shiite militias, which have close ties to Iran, and cleric Moqtada Sadr, who leads one such militia and has twice mounted uprisings against U.S. troops. Sadr already has threatened a revolt if Iran is attacked. A broad network of Iranian intelligence agents now in Iraq also could instigate or assist with attacks against U.S. troops. U.S reprisals against Iraqi counterattacks, analysts suggest, could lead to a cycle of response and counter-response. "You have to be ready for an open-ended war with the Iranians. This is a very big deal. It's not a simple matter of an easy strike," said Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst and National Security Council official who was an influential advocate of the Iraq invasion. Mike Dorning, Chicago Tribune Friday April 14/06

how hard is it to be more creative and imaginative and appealing than an extremist nutcase?

To George Bush, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, I offer a quote from someone who still enjoys my respect:

While a cowardly and comatose Congress continues to ignore what could be Bush's biggest folly, a panicked junta has already moved Burma's capital to remote Pyinmana, 200 miles to the north, after their Chinese allies warned of radioactive fallout from attacks on Iran's nuclear power reactors and production facilities dropping in deluges of radioactive rain over Rangoon. According to Wayne Madsen's intelligence review, "Thousands of government workers were given only two days' notice to pack up and leave Rangoon for the higher (and dryer) mountainous Pyinmana."

Weather maps also predict a "hot" monsoon poisoning populations in Dhaka, Calcutta, Mumbai, Chennai, and Colombo.

The prospect of this radioactive cloud crossing the Pacific to "bring the war home" to the United States does not faze White House fundamentalists personally protected by their own religious projections. More...

An attack by Israel is tantamount to one by the U.S., at least that is how Iran would see it.

The only people in the whole world who would not see it that way would be American wingnuts.

Iran is building a high security uranium enrichment facility using gas centrifuges near Natanz. This site is about 40 kilometers southeast of Kashan and about 150 kilometers north of Isfahan. The IAEA has characterized the centrifuges at this site as sophisticated and the culmination of a large, expensive effort. ... Because of the nature of this site, a large military strike would be necessary to destroy these undergound buildings. Other information about Iran's centrifuge program suggests that even if the Natanz site was destroyed militarily, Iran's decentralized gas centrifuge program could not be bombed out of existence, meaning that Iran could relative rapidly build a small gas centrifuge facility that would be extremely difficult to detect. ... advanced countries, such as Japan, have encountered difficulties in building reliable centrifuges on such a large scale, meaning that Iran may fail in its bid to build such a large centrifuge plant. ... Recent media reports have stated that Natanz is intended to house only 5,000 centrifuges. This number may reflect an interim goal for this site, perhaps the capacity Iran wants to achieve in the next few years. -----

Despite all the sloppy and inaccurate headlines about Iran "going nuclear," the fact is that all President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday was that it had enriched uranium to a measely 3.5 percent, using a bank of 180 centrifuges hooked up so that they "cascade." The ability to slightly enrich uranium is not the same as the ability to build a bomb. For the latter, you need at least 80% enrichment, which in turn would require about 16,000 small centrifuges hooked up to cascade. Iran does not have 16,000 centrifuges. It seems to have 180. Iran is a good ten years away from having a bomb...

'Despite the chaos and destruction a US nuclear attack would unleash on the world, President Bush and his rubberstamp Republican Congress would undoubtedly enjoy a significant increase in the power they hold over America. ' Martial law anyone?

The wingnuts will all get priaptic and drooling over bush doing this, however.

Now, if some Iranian commits a suicide bombing against a U.S. target, it would appear to have been carried out at the behest of the Iranian government, making it a clear act of war, and the U.S. would be within its rights to respond with force.

Dr Hassan Abbasi, head of the Centre for Doctrinal Strategic Studies in the Revolutionary Guards, said in a speech that 29 western targets had been identified:

The boys too. Gonna be a lot of frustrated girls up there.

Physicians for Social Responsibility claims the direct death toll from a strike on the Esfahan could be even higher - three million. And even the low-ball estimate, from the Oxford Research Group, forecasts 10,000 immediate deaths and the outbreak of all-out war in the Middle East. By just about anybody's definition - except maybe Hermann Goering's - this would qualify as mass genocide. Even I don't believe George W. Bush would deliberately and knowingly order the murder of three million people. But I'm absolutely terrified by the thought that a popular novelist (or Dick Cheney) might waltz into the Oval Office and convince the president of the United States that all the scientific experts are wrong and that a tactical nuclear strike on Iran would only make the flowers there grow a little faster.

Which takes more courage in your book jp: suicide bombing or dropping a nuke from 10,000 feet in the air?

I think that is a more than legitimate and justified concern given Bush's record of actions and decisions where scientific thought and findings is concerned.

As Congressman Henry Waxman reported nearly three years ago:

George W. Bush, as the American Humanist Association has frequently pointed out, regularly ignores or willfully obstructs science that contradicts his evangelical beliefs or hinders his powerful friends in industry.

He has taken numerous actions to distort or suppress legitimate findings in spite of the costs they inflict on solid scientific research. "The current administration's reliance on what can only be called Bush Science is leading our country in the wrong direction on a number of critical issues...

And as Lee Salisbury at Axis of Logic writes in his April 12/06 article "George Bush's Faith Based Thinking Has Proven Delusional and Divisive", Bill Moyers has also commented with this observation:

"One of the biggest changes in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of the power in Washington."

Salisbury goes on in the same article to say of Bush:

For Bush, or the neocons, or both, regime change in Iran not only may appear doable, it may also look like the only way out of the spectacular mess they have created in Iraq. The logic is understandable, if malevolent. Instead of creating a secular, pro-American client state in the heart of the Middle East, the invasion of Iraq has destroyed the front-line Arab regime opposing Tehran, installed a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad and vastly increased Iranian influence, not only in Iraq, but throughout the Shi'a world. It's also moved the Revolutionary Guard one step closer to the Kuwaiti and Saudi oil fields - the prize upon which the energy security of the West depends. By the traditional standards of U.S. foreign policy, this is a fiasco of almost unbelievable proportions. ... In other words, the administration, and the Pentagon, have gotten themselves into one hell of a jam - militarily, strategically and politically. As desperate and reckless as attempted regime change in Iran might seem to us, to the Cheneyites it may look like the only move left on the board.

I rememeber days in the sixties and seventies when, having bought into all the terrorizing and fearmongering of those time, I would sometimes kind of furtively glance up wondering when the Soviet bombs were going to light up the sky, and hoping that when they did I'd be standing at or very close to ground zero. I never thought that the people who would be crazy enough set off such a cataclysm would be in power in Washington

Anyone who believes in an after life is automatically disqualified from being honored for acts of bravery.

William Arkin, a former US Army intelligence officer, defended that an extended war plan against Iran, including the occupation over land, missile attacks and naval operations, was prepared before the Iraq war. According to Arkin, known for his realistic estimations in relation to the Iraq issue, the name of the planned operation was TIRANNT, an acronym for "Theater Iran Near Term". ... "According to military sources close to the planning process, this task was given to the Army General John Abizaid, now commander of CENTCOM, in 2002," wrote Arkin.

"When We Have The Confrontation" With Iran, "The Price of Oil Will Come Down"

OIL leapt to $US70 a barrel for the first time in 7½ months yesterday, extending strong gains made last week as tension mounted between Iran and the West over Tehran's nuclear ambitions. "The drama over Iran's face-off with the West, the rise of insurgency in Nigeria and gasoline supply concerns in the US ahead of the driving season are keeping a high floor under oil," said Victor Shum at consultancy Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. US May crude oil futures rose US66c to $US69.98 a barrel at midday, having touched $US70 earlier, its highest since Hurricane Katrina battered the US Gulf Coast in late August last year, sending US prices to a $US70.85 record high.

  These contingencies seem familiar to us because we faced a similar situation as National Security Council staff members in the mid-1990's. American frustrations with Iran were growing, and in early 1996 the House speaker, Newt Gingrich, publicly called for the overthrow of the Iranian government. He and the C.I.A. put together an $18 million package to undertake it.

Poor guy. Must be a drag to not be able to look anyone in the eye.

Intelligence and military officials around the world are also bracing for the results of a U.S. attack on Iran. This includes the distinct possibility of a major Shia retaliatory attack in Iraq, the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, and Afghanistan against U.S. military, diplomatic, and economic targets in the region. Radioactive fallout from a conventional or tactical nuclear attack on Iran will result in major problems with Pakistan, India, China, Russia, Japan, and other downwind countries in Asia and the Pacific Rim, possibly including the fall of the Pervez Musharraf government in Pakistan and replacement by a radical Islamist regime having possession of nuclear weapons. That would provoke a military response from nuclear power India. In a counter-attack, Iran would immediately launch its Shahab I and II missiles at the U.S. Green Zone in Baghdad, the Al Udeid airbase in Qatar, the US Navy base in Bahrain, Camp Doha base in Kuwait, Al Seeb airbase in Oman, Baghdad International Airport, the U.S. base in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Iran would also launch its long-range Shahab III missiles on the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beersheba, Eilat, and the Israeli nuclear complex at Dimona. Iranian missiles would also be launched at US naval ships in the Persian Gulf and oil installations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The virtual end of NATO as a viable defense organization may also result from an attack that will drive a final wedge between Washington and Europe. And China may elect to respond financially and militarily against the United States since Iran is China's second largest source of imported Middle East oil after Saudi Arabia and plans to use an Iranian terminal for the export of natural gas from Turkmenistan. [China now imports 60 percent of its oil needs, and Iran represents 17 percent of those imports].

ppj - If the 9/11 attackers did it only in order to ascend to paradise, then they're crazy not brave.

Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. There's not a point you can't miss. We were pointing out just how STUPID the duck and cover drills were

It appears our long national journey towards complete idiocy is over. We've arrived. Idiots, of course, don't need a reason to be idiots. ...it is probably naive to expect the American public to react with horror, remorse or even shock to a U.S. nuclear sneak attack on Iran, even though it would be one of the most heinous war crimes imaginable, short of mass genocide. Iran has been demonized too successfully - thanks in no small part to the messianic delusions of its own end-times president - for most Americans to see it as a victim of aggression... Why should anyone or anything change? When a culture is as historically clueless and morally desensitized as this one appears to be, I don't think it's absurd to suppose that even an enormous war crime - the worst imaginable, short of outright genocide - could get lost in the endless babble of the talking heads. When everything is just a matter of opinion, anything - literally anything - can be justified.

The lunatic is in the hall The lunatics are in my hall The paper holds their folded faces to the floor And every day the paper boy brings more...

Matthews: Does the President of the United States have the authority to attack Iran? Biden: No, not without congressional support, authorization I should say. Matthews: Is that a consensus in your body? Biden: "No. I don't think it's a consensus among Republicans or Democrats at this time..."

It is only the doctrine of Western "exceptionalism" (see here and here, for example) that permits this lunacy to go largely unremarked. We believe that we have the ultimate solution to human history, and that it is our right and obligation to share it with the rest of the world -- by military might, as required. Since we have identified ourselves as inherently noble and virtuous, nothing we do can possibly be wrong. We might make a few regrettable errors -- engage in a little torture here and there, for example (even though the systematic use of torture is now indisputably official U.S. policy) -- but we are always on the side of the angels. And those we have identified as our enemies are inherently evil. ... This apocalyptic crusader perspective suffuses the West, and the United States in particular. It need not be religious in nature, although these days it often is. The West has also embraced the secular version of this psychology, in the form of the "Idea of Progress." Note that, to date, not one major voice in the United States or in the West has denounced in absolute, unmistakable terms the moral depravity and monstrousness of an attack on Iran in the current circumstances. ... We should not be surprised, whatever may happen now. A lunatic ideology rules us, and almost everyone takes it for granted. And practically no one is protesting against it in any serious manner at all.

We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who Comes on at five She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam In her eye ... You don't really need to find out what's going on You don't really want to know just how far it's gone ... Dirty little secrets Dirty little lies We got our dirty little fingers in everybody's pie

Them Jews is way to touchy about people claiming to want to annihilate them. They should get over it.

Biden is probably right. There will be no consensus until the nukes start to fly.