[lbo-talk] Chomsky on Hersh & the leaked info he reported

Mike Ballard swillsqueal at yahoo.com.au
Wed Apr 19 00:20:21 PDT 2006


B posted:

Z Sustainer Matt Grinder: "Do you think it is likely that the Bush Administration will attack Iran? I thought they would be reluctant to fight someone who can put up resistance, but I guess they could do some air strikes without losing any troops?"

Noam Chomsky: My assumption all along has been that they would not attack Iran, and I strongly suspect that the Pentagon and US intelligence (and their British counterparts) are trying to leak dire warnings in the hope of cutting it off at the pass.

I suspect that's the basis for what Seymour Hersh recently reported, and other reports like it at about the same time. You might be interested in an article in the Atlantic Monthly, Dec. 2004 (online), a wargame about attacking Iran, which has quite an authentic feel to it. Participants were high level, and genuine. The final conclusion after running through many options (including several variants of what you mention) was expressed by General Gardiner, who runs Pentagon war games of this kind:

"After all this effort, I am left with two simple sentences for policymakers," Sam Gardiner said of his exercise. "You have no military solution for the issues of Iran. And you have to make diplomacy work."

But that doesn't mean that Cheney-Rumsfeld-Bush will follow that advice. They have created a major catastrophe in Iraq, not only for Iraqis but even for themselves, and they may be desperate to prevent what could turn into a real nightmare for them. A man-eating tiger in your backyard is not very pleasant. A wounded one is a lot worse.

*********************

I think oil was over $70 a barrel today. Cui bono? Schrub's Texan oilman pals? Even scuttlebutt about sanctions is doing the job. Leaks help. That's one part of the puzzle.

Regards, Mike B)

Read "The Perthian Brickburner": http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal

__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list