[lbo-talk] Are We Going to Attack Iran?

[Robert Wrubel]

Reese Ehrlich spoke at an ill-attended Northern
California anti-war meeting last night and delivered
some entirely believable reports of US special forces
operations inside Iran.  He believes, along with
Seymour Hersh, Scott Ritter and others, that an attack
is likely to  occur while Bush is in office.
Does this view really make any sense?

I have only heard three explanations of why the US
would contemplate such a move: 1) a last desparate
attempt by the neocons to implement their grand
design; 2) a desparate attempt by the Bush admin to
cover their failure in Iraq; 3) pressure from Israel
to implement their own grand design (essentially, the
same as 1) above).

These fantastic, minority and parochial interests seem
hardly enough to explain such an important and risky
foreign policy move.  Can anyone suggest a plausible
strategic vision that would be served by this plan? 
For example, I can see that the Atlantic group might
be worried about a Russian-Chinese energy alliance
that included Iran, but normally the way to counter
that would not be by attacking one of its members.