What's Not on Cheney's Table for Iran

The Dick Cheney Road Show travelled to Sydney, Australia today where the Worst Vice-President since Burr met with the Guinness World Record holder for the only person still supporting the War in Iraq--Prime Minister John Howard of Australia.

Speaking about Iran, Cheney claimed that"all options are still on the table."

Yawn, . . . another lie from the Dick Cheney Delusion and Deception machine.

What Cheney meant was that the U. S. might still go to war with Iran over either its nuclear program or its ties with the government in Iraq. The lie is that there are any other options. Attacking Iran is the only option on the Bush administration's table for Iran. It's just a question of whether and when the Bush administration can find a semi-plausible pretext for launcing an attack.

What's not on the table is any effort by the Bush administration to stop being stupid. Given that we've removed two of Iran's major enemies from power, the Bush administration could have accepted the support offered by the Iranians. The Bush administration could also have woven a web of mutual understanding around the need to support the new Shiite government in Iraq. But Bush has refused to talk with Iran and kept up a drumbeat of insinuated threats to either attack Iranian nuclear facilities or invade. Today, there was a report about the U. S. letting the Israelis use Iraqi air space to attack Iran.

Far from deterring Iran, the Bush administration's pursuit of this idiotic policy has pushed the Iranians into accelerating their nuclear program and building their own system of cooperation with the Shiite political parties and militias inside Iraq. Given that the Iranians are also Shiites, it was inevitable that any Shiite government in Iraq would be closer to Iran than us. However, the Bush administration's thoughtlessly hostile toward Iran has guaranteed that Iran will quickly displace the U. S. in Iraq as soon as American troops leave. If the Bush administration actually does attack Iran, they will be stabilizing the Iranian regime for another generation, creating a creating a crisis in Iraq, and undermining their own influence over the Iraqi government.

Not that such considerations would deter the Bushies.

The Bush administration can't help being dumb because the stupidity of a mindless will to dominate and thoughtless aggression is hard-wired into the neo-conservative mind-set.

Unfortunately, not being stupid will never be on the tale.