Dick Cheney And His Next War

Dick Cheney and His Next War

http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/edito...asp?NewsID=309

By Brian Morache
Staff Writer
10/3/2007

Now that Iraq is – as the President seems to believe – so secure, the Bush administration is turning to their next target: Iran. With the president of Iran visiting New York, the administration’s rhetoric has been raised to a new level. Despite their stated goal of seeking a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, President Bush, who was in New York to address the United Nations, chose not to meet even informally with Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

Add to this the report by Newsweek that Vice President Dick Cheney has been mulling over a plan that would involve Israel provoking a war with Iran so that the United States would have an excuse to attack. The plan involved the Israelis launching a missile attack against suspected Iranian nuclear targets. Once Iran responded, the United States would have the excuse to launch an attack. This all might seem a bit far-fetched, except that the Pentagon has suggested a much larger troop withdrawal from Iraq than the Bush administration is considering. The Pentagon would like to see as many as 100,000 troops return home so that they can be available to respond to any “situations.” An invasion of Iran seems like a pretty obvious “situation.”

With so many Americans opposed to the war in Iraq, one has to wonder what the Vice President is thinking, and if someone who clearly is driven to war should be one step away from the White House. Is Dick Cheney out of control? Is this why impeaching George Bush would be a bad idea? After all, that would make Cheney president! Given the attitude of the Bush administration, it is not hard to see why President Ahmadinejad has concerns over Iran’s security. While the rest of his beliefs, including those about the Holocaust and homosexuality, may be quite warped, his view of the Bush administration seems to be pretty accurate.

It could be that talk of an invasion of Iran is just that – talk. Certainly it is the job of the Pentagon to have plans and to prepare to enact any policy the White House requires of it. However, one cannot turn a blind eye to the similarities between the rhetoric leading up to the Iraq war and what is being aimed at Iran, nor can one ignore an old adage among servicemen: “Believe 99 percent of the bad rumors and one percent of the good ones and you’ll win most of your bets.”

The administration has stated that Iran will not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons; to what extent President Bush will go becomes unclear in light of Vice President Cheney’s plans. The Bush administration has insisted Iranians are supplying both Hezbollah and Iraqi insurgents, thus they are a nation that, in the eyes of the United States, supports terrorism. They could use this as a basis to attack, and the War Powers Act would give the President the ability to do so without consulting Congress.

Does this scare anyone besides me? Just how much power should one man in Washington D.C. have? Somehow, I don’t believe that this is what the founding fathers had in mind.