Iran's moves are opposed by the IAEA, the UN and the most of the civilized world. And Iran with nuclear weapons makes the whole world a more dangerous place. The whole world has a stake in making sure that doesn't happen. The whole world. We need some serious diplomacy and the kinds of carrot and stick approach that major trading and economic powers can bring to bear on a crisis.
The US is being unilateral again in it's approach. This is the disaster. It is also about the United States of America and how the country has been revamped in order to wage aggressive pre-emptive war with as little opposition as humanly possible. The President is assuming all power to declare war and make earth-shattering decisions (and this would be an earth-shattering decision) without consultation with Congress. This is very, very bad and makes Bush not just a King, but an infallible Emperor of the Earth. (He is giving himself power that no one else in the history of the planet has accumulated.)
Read this part of Sy Hersh's Iran column from this week's New Yorker:
The new mission for the combat troops is a product of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s long-standing interest in expanding the role of the military in covert operations, which was made official policy in the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review, published in February. Such activities, if conducted by C.I.A. operatives, would need a Presidential Finding and would have to be reported to key members of Congress.
“ ‘Force protection’ is the new buzzword,” the former senior intelligence official told me. He was referring to the Pentagon’s position that clandestine activities that can be broadly classified as preparing the battlefield or protecting troops are military, not intelligence, operations, and are therefore not subject to congressional oversight. “The guys in the Joint Chiefs of Staff say there are a lot of uncertainties in Iran,” he said. “We need to have more than what we had in Iraq. Now we have the green light to do everything we want.”
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/arti... Rumsfeld has brought intelligence gathering operations inside the military. He did so IN ORDER to evade Congressional oversight and make that a private matter of the military. This is in line with the Bush Admin's desire to acquire the absolute right to do anything it wants without oversight, including starting a nuclear war. Who will contradict Rumsfeld's version of what is going on? The CIA is out-of-the-loop and their function to be eyes and ears on the ground and report that back through a structure that includes Congress has been usurped by a military that wants NO OVERSIGHT. This is a silent coup in the US.
Be afraid, be very afraid. This is the dismantling of Constitutional Government and the growth of The Empire.
