> So Doug, I don't think that your position is really so different from
> Carrol's. If Big Capital was really antiwar, they would be putting great
> pressure on the political class to stop the war. As far as I am aware,
> there have been no committees of "wise men" coming to the White House to
> tell Bush to cool it on Iran.
================================
There have been no delegations, but there's been a din of criticism,
expressed through op-ed pieces and news show interviews, about opening up a
new front with Iran. The idea is widely considered to be daft, including
within the US military and foreign policy establishment - pressures which
Gates and Rice are transmitting openly.
In fact, the gist of the criticism is not so much that Bush will order air strikes - no one seriously believes that is in the cards - but that what the New York Times editorial below calls "trash-talking" by "the crazy American government", which is presumably intended to pressure the intermediaries (EU, Russia, China) to pressure Iran, is counter-productive. Frank Rich's piece in the Times yesterday argues that you also have to see the fear-mongering over Iran in the context of Republican electoral strategy.
I think this general skepticism about the possibility of war is widely shared on Wall Street, hence its apparent complacency to join in what is already a big ruling class chorus about the administration's failed policy in Iran and the Mideast generally. Corporate execs normally stick to their own knitting, and communicate their views more discretely when they come into contact with their political representatives. Let me amend that. Wall Street has joined the debate in the way it customarily does - but letting its money do the talking. It is massively directing its contributions towards Clinton and the DP, who more faithfully reflect ruling class opinion, that towards the Republican candidates, who are pandering to its fearful and jingoistic popular base.
Of course, someone could point out that the markets also shrugged off the possibility of WW I until it was upon them, and they would be right.
* * *
October 29, 2007 New York Times Editorial Trash Talking World War III
America's allies and increasingly the American public are playing a ghoulish guessing game: Will President Bush manage to leave office without starting a war with Iran? Mr. Bush is eagerly feeding those anxieties. This month he raised the threat of "World War III" if Iran even figures out how to make a nuclear weapon.
With a different White House, we might dismiss this as posturing - or bank on sanity to carry the day, or the warnings of exhausted generals or a defense secretary more rational than his predecessor. Not this crowd.
Four years after his pointless invasion of Iraq, President Bush still confuses bullying with grand strategy. He refuses to do the hard work of diplomacy - or even acknowledge the disastrous costs of his actions. The Republican presidential candidates have apparently decided that the real commander in chief test is to see who can out-trash talk the White House on Iran.
The world should not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, but there is no easy fix here, no daring surgical strike. Consider Natanz, the underground site where Iran is defying the Security Council by spinning a few thousand centrifuges to produce nuclear fuel. American bombers could take it out, but what about the even more sophisticated centrifuges the administration accuses Iran of hiding? Beyond the disastrous diplomatic and economic costs, a bombing campaign is unlikely to set back Iran's efforts for more than a few years.
The neocons pushing an attack on Iran admit that a prolonged bombing campaign would be necessary and would likely only delay Iran's program. But it is still worth it, they say, and if everybody gets lucky maybe the attacks will unleash that popular uprising against the mullahs they've been promising for years.
That is the same kind of rose-petal thinking that was used to sell Americans a fantasy about the invasion of Iraq. Large numbers of Iranians are fed up with their government's corruption and repression and with being branded a pariah state. Rain down American bombs, however, and the mullahs and Iran's Holocaust-denying president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are more likely to be turned into national heroes than hung from lampposts. And that's not even calculating the international fury or the additional mayhem Tehran could wreak in Iraq or what would happen to world oil prices.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is the other great hope (after Defense Secretary Robert Gates) for holding off a war. She still wants to give sanctions and diplomacy a chance. But, as with everything else she does, there's nowhere near enough follow-through. If the stakes are really that high - and they are - then Ms. Rice and her boss must tell Moscow, Beijing and the Europeans that relations will be judged on whether they are willing to place a lot more pressure on Iran.
They also need to offer Iran a credible way back in from the cold - and clear rewards and security guarantees if it is willing to give up its nuclear ambitions. If it's really that important - and we believe it is - then it's time to send somebody higher ranking than the American ambassador in Baghdad to deliver the message.
For this to have any chance, Mr. Bush will have to tone down the rhetoric. Sure, a lot of these countries are letting greed cloud their judgment, when they balk at restricting trade with Iran. But it's a lot easier to justify when they say they're not giving the crazy American government an excuse for another war.
Maybe the country will get lucky and Mr. Bush will listen to the exhausted generals. But this isn't just about surviving the rest of his presidency. Fifteen more months of diplomatic drift will bring Iran 15 months closer to figuring out how to make a nuclear weapon.