Netanyahu, Iraq, and Steve McNair

Haaretz today publishes a fascinating, very disconcerting report on what seems to be the utter turmoil surrounding Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu . . .Netanyahu's paranoia extends to 'self-hating Jews' Emmanuel and Axelrod - Haaretz - Israel News

The Knesset has never been known as a warm and fuzzy place - it's common for members to heckle each other, and the premier as well when he or she addresses them - but this piece indicates an especially poisonous atmosphere there now. And when the PM's own advisers and spokespeople despise each other and undercut their boss . . . .

The message here is that Netanyahu is paranoid, angry, flailing, desperate for more respect both within Israeli political circles and from the Obama administration. Historically, paranoia and desperation have not tended to be wise god-parents of policy-making. And if there's anywhere on the planet where rational, cool-headed decision-making is needed, given the stakes, it's Israel. . . .

. . . and, of course, the US, where Mr. Obama is facing - besides a steady drip-drip-drip of military and civilian casualties in Afghanistan - continued bombings in Iraq - Wednesday, in Mosul, Tell Afar (in the north), and Baghdad. And note the wording ("Elsewhere in Iraq . . .") and placement (last paragraph) of the NY Times' report:

Elsewhere in Iraq on Wednesday, two car bombs exploded near Shiite mosques in Mosul, killing 12 people and wounding 30 others, the police reported. In Hilla, south of Baghdad, the police said, a suicide bomber struck at a wedding party, killing 3 people and wounding 20.

Horrific carnage, as footnote.

What's all over the broadcast news in the US? The never-ending Michael Jackson death saga, and the sordid story of the former NFL quarterback-hero whose mistress shot him (and herself), evidently because she'd just learned about his other mistress. (Never mind the wife and 2 kids.)

Afghan Forces Missing From Helmand Offensive?!

Whoa, now, hold on here . . . .Afghan Forces Missing From Helmand Offensive - NYTimes.com Did someone miss something here? How could US + NATO commanders have been counting on "success" in Afghanistan if they couldn't be sure there'd be enough Afghan boots on the ground? And how are they supposed to materialize now?

Is this when commanders appeal to the president for more troops? Another Maxwell Taylor/William Westmoreland/Lyndon Johnson moment in the works?

Iraq's rebuff of US has element of posturing

Hamza Hendawi points out here, The Associated Press: Iraq's rebuff of US has element of posturing- that despite the tone of defiance from his government (i.e., the supposed rebuff of Joe Biden's semi-ultimatum that the Iraqis had better get their contending factions reconciled, and soon), al-Maliki still needs the US on his side - to help organize and fund Iraq's reconstruction, and to train and support Iraq's security forces. But al-Maliki needs to burnish his nationalist-centrist credentials as elections approach (scheduled for January 2010).

One major area where reconciliation is needed is, as Hendawi notes, the chasm between Maliki and the Kurdish leadership on the issues of oil and territory. That a Maliki aide says that they want the US to suspend the Kurdish constitution (thereby rejecting Kurdish territorial claims) does not augur well. It surely suggests that the two sides are making no headway on the issue, and that the Arab-Baghdad-centrist side feels it has no better resort than to ask the US to force the Kurds' hand somehow. Hardly a way to treat the group in Iraq that has sided the most consistently with the US over the last almost 20 years. And can anyone really expect the Kurds to abandon their constitution simply on a US dictate? Whatever leverage the US has is likely to be more than counter-balanced by decades of Kurdish nationalist striving as well as paranoia about the intentions of outsiders -be they Arabs, Turks, Persians . . . or Americans.

Another arena in which reconciliation is a must is the struggle between the Shiite parties that are the basis of Maliki's support and the Sunnis who once called the shots in Baghdad (including Baath party sympathizers, many of whom seem to be resurgent in the al-Hadba Sunni-Arab party that now controls local government in Ninewa province, which the Kurds want). What does it say for the progress of reconciliation when Maliki's government dictates that it will allow no more "organized" visits to the tomb of Saddam Hussein? There would seem to be no need for such an order if there wasn't still significant reverence for him as an unabashedly strong, anti-US, nationalist leader of what was once a strong and sovereign Iraq. By issuing such an order, al-Maliki only ties himself even more tightly to his American patrons - and undercuts his own standing as a legitimate nationalist.

And, by the way, as if Iraqis - especially former supporters of Saddam and the Baath - needed another focus for resentment of the US, here's a little news piece that will likely draw some ire: one of the prized exhibits of the new George Bush Library in Dallas is going to be . . . Saddam Hussein's very own pistol. Seems to be one of Dubya's favorite toys.

One-day Afghan death toll of U.S. troops hits 7

And so it begins. . . . Los Angeles Times: One-day Afghan death toll of U.S. troops hits 7

And how it's going to end, no one really knows; but it's safe to say that it's not going to end for quite a while, especially against locals who learned their tactics fighting Soviet forces - and who are not especially inclined to trust the Marines to begin with. And take note of the statement by a former deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia:

"If you start to see evidence that things are getting better, as opposed to worse, then that will make it that much more realistic to expect the political support will remain."

By political support, she's referring to US popular support in the face of higher U.S. casualties.

Prepare yourselves for an avalanche of good news from the front.

U.S. wants Iran to know it can be attacked

Aluf Benn in this morning's Haaretz - U.S. wants Iran to know it can be attacked - Haaretz - Israel News - says that Biden's thrice-repeated statement to George Stephanopoulos that, as far as the US is concerned, Israel has the prerogative to bomb Iran was designed to hold Iran's feet to the fire more than anything else. Perhaps. A good friend thinks that perhaps this is the US's way to signal Israel and other US "friends" that you indeed have the prerogative, but then you need to accept the consequences of your actions and not expect the US to bail you out. Again, perhaps - but I have to believe that if Israel were to launch airstrikes against Iran, and Iran were to retaliate, virtually every member of Congress would be demanding that the US military be sent to "rescue" our "little" friend and ally.

What frightens me most in this piece is Benn's assertion that it was John Bolton's recent WaPo op-ed (which I blogged about a few days ago, here) that brought the entire scenario back to the center ring . . . and that Bolton has now become the chief foreign-policy voice of the Republican party. That, my friends, is a frightening, and very sobering, assertion. Bolton has no patience for diplomacy, or for a world in which the US calls all the shots, all the time.

For a more sensible approach to Iran, once again, Rami Khouri is on-target.

Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel - Be very afraid

The situation in Iran is taking some interesting turns, while at the same time the US and Israel are ratcheting up the pressure on the regime.

Mr. Moussavi and his allies have published evidence of massive fraud in the June elections, and they now have the support of a major organization of higher clerics based at the holy, prestigious seminary city of Qom. Whereas the Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and the "re-elected" president Mahmud Ahmadinejad can vilify Moussavi and his allies (including the reformist former president Muhammad Khatami) to their hearts' content, they cannot treat the Qom clerical establishment that shabbily.

Since the election, the bulk of the clerical establishment in the holy city of Qum, an important religious and political center of power, has remained largely silent, leaving many to wonder when, or if, the nation’s senior religious leaders would jump into the controversy that has posed the most significant challenge to the country’s leadership since the Islamic Revolution.

With its statement Saturday, the association of clerics came down squarely on the side of the reform movement.

While the government could continue vilifying the three opposition leaders, analysts say it was highly unlikely that the leadership would use the same tactic against the clerical establishment in Qum.

There is, then, a major split in Iran's religious leadership. And the stakes are huge. If the ultra-hardliners succeed in maintaining control, it may clear the way for the imminent rise to the Leadership (given the reported illness of Khamenei) of the Ayatollah Yazdi, an ally of Ahmadinejad who would prefer to see eliminated any remaining vestige of democratic process in Iran in favor of a system in which the Leader would wield almost exclusive power.

All this at a time when the US is ramping up its threats against the regime, and US allies perhaps helping to set the stage for a military strike. Joe Biden stated today on George Stephanopoulos's ABC show that it is entirely up to Israel to decide whether it wants to launch a bombing strike against Iran's nuclear sites (and this even though Joint Chiefs chair Admiral Mullen has real concerns about the impact of such a strike). And the Saudis have apparently informed Israel that they would allow an Israeli air-force flyover of Saudi territory for such a raid, provided that the Israelis don't make a huge deal of it.

Meanwhile, US Marines in Afghanistan are finding out that their efforts against the Taliban are facing obstacles not just from the locals, but also from the Pakistani forces based along the Afghan-Pakistan border, who have no kind regard for the Afghan troops with whom the US forces are working.

Link Between Iraq Violence and Troop Withdrawals Is Considered(?!)

The link is considered!?

Link Between Iraq Violence and Troop Withdrawals Is Considered

And WTF is Pete Mansoor talking about?:

"If Sunnis and Shiites continue to work through their differences politically, Iraq will survive. If not, there is no way it will hold together," said retired Col. Pete Mansoor, who served as a senior aide to the top commander in Iraq in 2007 and 2008.

Continue to work through their differences?! Pardon me, but exactly when did they start to?

Afghanistan: 2 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Taliban Attack

As we celebrate our Independence Day, let's not forget to mourn the passing of these young Americans, 2 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Taliban Attack - NYTimes.com, hardly the first in what's probably going to become America's next lost war (although, as in Iraq, when the time comes to pull out of there, many at the American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, and Washington Post editorial board will resort to various and sundry rationalizations to declare us "victorious").

Mr. Obama, welcome to your very own war. The Taliban are chipping away at the US presence . . . and already we're reading of complaints from locals in Helmand (the location of the Marines' Operation "Dagger Thrust" - or Khanjar) that soldiers are forbidding them from leaving their houses and are driving their tanks through their farm fields, ruining their eventual harvests (which are their livelihoods, which support their families, keep them from starving . . . you know, stuff like that)

“Our entire village is surrounded,” said Sefatullah, a resident of a village in Nad Ali called 31 West. “The foreigners are driving their tanks in our fields. They will not let anyone come out of their houses.”

A resident of Nawa had a similar tale.

“There are more than 60 tanks in our fields,” said Sher Agha. “Why can’t they drive on the roads? Do they think they are going to find Taleban in our fields? They are causing enormous damage.”

The Taleban have offered little resistance so far, although some residents reported the sound of heavy machine-gun fire, and one said that a few rockets had landed on his village in Nawa.

“There is no fighting yet, but…there have been a huge number of airplanes patrolling,” said Sharafuddin, in Nawa. “I can see the Taleban. They are sitting on the riverbank, just watching, and preparing themselves for the fight. . . ..”

A resident of Khosrabad, who did not want to give his name for fear of the Taleban, confirmed that there was now a heavy insurgent presence in his village.

“The Taleban are telling people to leave, to get out of their houses,” he said. “This is the opposite of what they usually do. They used to make people stay, to use them as shields.”

The Taleban, for their part, say they are preparing for battle.

“We will fight until our last breath,” said Mullah Abdullah, a local Taleban commander in Helmand, who returned to Nawa just a few days ago. He was seriously injured in a skirmish with international forces in May, and had gone to Pakistan for treatment. He is now back, and ready for jihad.

“This operation will not have any result. The Taleban will never let the Americans and these other kofirs (infidels) control the villages. We will fight until our last breath.”

The Taleban have already claimed at least one victim: press reports indicate that one marine was killed and several others wounded or injured during the first day of fighting.

Helmandis, meanwhile, are a bit puzzled about all the hardware. The Taleban cannot be defeated with a frontal assault, they say. Guerrilla warfare, or so-called asymmetric combat is hard on the larger army, and on the civilians caught in the middle.

“The foreigners are bragging that they will get rid of the Taleban. Give me a break!” said one angry resident in Nad Ali. “They could bring 70,000 soldiers, [but] they still would not be able to do it. One Taleban fighter attacks them from inside a house, then he escapes. The Taleban are never going to get together all in one place, to have a major fight. The only thing they will be able to do is kill civilians.”

Political analyst Wahid Muzhda, who worked as a civil servant under the Taleban regime, is also sceptical about the success of Operation Khanjar.

“With all the soldiers and hardware, it is not going to be difficult to gain control of the areas,” he told IWPR. “But how long are they going to stay? This is the rule of guerrilla warfare: if the guerrillas are facing a decent army, they are not going to stay and fight. They will flee, and come back once the army has left.

“Let’s wait until the end of this operation. If the Americans set up bases after gaining control, then it is clear that [President Barack] Obama’s strategy for resolving Afghanistan’s problems is going to be implemented. If not, this invasion is just a tactical move. It’s nothing more than a propaganda campaign for the new general.”

Vietnam, Part deux?

Carlotta Gall reports for the NYT that "U.S. Faces Resentment in Afghan Region."

Hmmm, let's see. The country has a US-installed puppet government that's extremely corrupt. The locals don't like us all that much, in part because our planes have been dropping bombs on their villages and wedding parties over the last few years. And many of the locals see the "insurgents" as locals, not too different from themselves, and will help the "insurgents" if the US troops start to raid their villages.

How soon before some Marines whom General Petraeus (our genius of counter-insurgency) instructed to protect the villagers and make nice to them get fed up when a few of their comrades get killed by locals? How soon before Marines start "taking out" villages - or villagers - somewhat randomly in order to "save" them?

How soon before Mr. Obama decides not to allow media cameras on-board US transports bringing Marines home in metal coffins?

How soon before Iraq heats up again, and Afghanistan begins to swirl the bowl, and people like John McCain and Dick Cheney jump all over Obama for wasting the sacrifices made by the US military?

How soon before we begin to hear calls for a draft? Or shall we all shut our eyes while Obama and Gates quietly hand Blackwater (or whatever Erik Prince calls his merry band of mercenaries these days) a big, fat contract to scour the globe to sign up recruits to fight for the US in Afghanistan?

July 3, 2009

U.S. Faces Resentment in Afghan Region

By CARLOTTA GALL

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan — The mood of the Afghan people has tipped into a popular revolt in some parts of southern Afghanistan, presenting incoming American forces with an even harder job than expected in reversing military losses to the Taliban and winning over the population.

Villagers in some districts have taken up arms against foreign troops to protect their homes or in anger after losing relatives in airstrikes, several community representatives interviewed said. Others have been moved to join the insurgents out of poverty or simply because the Taliban’s influence is so pervasive here.

On Thursday morning, 4,000 American Marines began a major offensive to try to take back the region from the strongest Taliban insurgency in the country. The Marines are part of a larger deployment of additional troops being ordered by the new American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, to concentrate not just on killing Taliban fighters but on protecting the population.

Yet Taliban control of the countryside is so extensive in provinces like Kandahar and Helmand that winning districts back will involve tough fighting and may ignite further tensions, residents and local officials warn. The government has no presence in 5 of Helmand’s 13 districts, and in several others, like Nawa, it holds only the district town, where troops and officials live virtually under siege.

The Taliban’s influence is so strong in rural areas that much of the local population has accepted their rule and is watching the United States troop buildup with trepidation. Villagers interviewed in late June said that they preferred to be left alone under Taliban rule and complained about artillery fire and airstrikes by foreign forces.

“We Muslims don’t like them — they are the source of danger,” said a local villager, Hajji Taj Muhammad, of the foreign forces. His house in Marja, a town west of this provincial capital that has been a major opium trading post and Taliban base, was bombed two months ago, he said.

The southern provinces have suffered the worst civilian casualties since NATO’s deployment to the region in 2006. Thousands of people have already been displaced by fighting and taken refuge in the towns.

“Now there are more people siding with the Taliban than with the government,” said Abdul Qadir Noorzai, head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission in southern Afghanistan.

In many places, people have never seen or felt the presence of the Afghan government, or foreign forces, except through violence, but the Taliban are a known quantity, community leaders said.

“People are hostages of the Taliban, but they look at the coalition also as the enemy, because they have not seen anything good from them in seven or eight years,” said Hajji Abdul Ahad Helmandwal, a district council leader from Nadali in Helmand Province.

Foreign troops continue to make mistakes that enrage whole sections of this deeply tribal society, like the killing of a tribal elder’s son and his wife as they were driving to their home in Helmand two months ago. Only their baby daughter survived. The tribal elder, Reis-e-Baghran, a former member of the Taliban who reconciled with the government, is one of the most influential figures in Helmand.

The infusion of more American troops into southern Afghanistan is aimed at ending a stalemate between NATO and Taliban forces. The governor of Helmand, Gulab Mangal, said extra forces were needed since the Taliban were now so entrenched in the region that they had permanent bases.

Last year an American Marine Expeditionary Unit of 2,400 men secured a small but critical area in the district of Garmser in southern Helmand, choking off Taliban supply routes from the Pakistani border while reopening the town for commerce. The operation had a crippling effect on Taliban forces operating farther north in neighboring Oruzgan Province, according to Jelani Popal, who oversees local affairs for President Hamid Karzai’s government.

This year military officials hope to replicate that operation in more places, according to Lt. Gen. James Dutton, the British deputy commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The extra forces will be critical to create confidence among the locals and persuade insurgents to give up the fight, said Mr. Mangal, the Helmand governor. Yet he and others warn that there will be more bloodshed and that the large influx of foreign forces could prompt a backlash.

In parts of Helmand and Kandahar, resentment and frustration are rampant. People who traveled to Lashkar Gah from the districts complained of continued civilian suffering and questioned American intentions. “They come here just to fight, not to bring peace,” said Allah Nazad, a farmer.

People from Marja said that foreign troops carrying out counternarcotics operations conducted nighttime raids on houses, sometimes killed people inside their homes, and used dogs that bit the occupants.

“The people are very scared of the night raids,” said Spin Gul, a local farmer. “When they have night raids, the people join the Taliban and fight.”

“Who are the Taliban? They are local people,” interjected another man, who did not give his name. One man, Hamza, said he would fight if foreigners raided his house. “I will not allow them,” he said. “I will fight them to the last drop of blood.”

Many do not side with the Taliban out of choice, however, and could be won over, community leaders said.

Fazel Muhammad, a member of the district council of Panjwai, an area west of Kandahar, said he knew people who were laying mines for the Taliban in order to feed their families. He estimated that 80 percent of insurgents were local people driven to fight out of poverty and despair. Offered another way out, only 2 percent would support the Taliban, he said.

Yet mistrust of the government remains so strong that even if the Taliban were defeated militarily, the government and the American-led coalition would find the population reluctant to cooperate, said Hajji Abdullah Jan, the leader of the provincial council of Helmand. “These people will still not trust the government,” he said. “Even if security is 100 percent, it will take time because the government did not keep its promises in the past.”

More from the "Liberators" of Iraq

From a member of the crew that brought you the "liberation" of Iraq - that lovely charmer of a diplomat, John Bolton, now one of those many sage denizens of the American Enterprise Institute who are always oh-so-eager to see US or Israeli air-power in action:

In short, the stolen election and its tumultuous aftermath have dramatically highlighted the strategic and tactical flaws in Obama's game plan. With regime change off the table for the coming critical period in Iran's nuclear program, Israel's decision on using force is both easier and more urgent. Since there is no likelihood that diplomacy will start or finish in time, or even progress far enough to make any real difference, there is no point waiting for negotiations to play out. In fact, given the near certainty of Obama changing his definition of "success," negotiations represent an even more dangerous trap for Israel.

Those who oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons are left in the near term with only the option of targeted military force against its weapons facilities. Significantly, the uprising in Iran also makes it more likely that an effective public diplomacy campaign could be waged in the country to explain to Iranians that such an attack is directed against the regime, not against the Iranian people. This was always true, but it has become even more important to make this case emphatically, when the gulf between the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the citizens of Iran has never been clearer or wider. Military action against Iran's nuclear program and the ultimate goal of regime change can be worked together consistently.

Otherwise, be prepared for an Iran with nuclear weapons, which some, including Obama advisers, believe could be contained and deterred. That is not a hypothesis we should seek to test in the real world. The cost of error could be fatal.

Ron Kampeas at JTA, blessedly, offer some pointed comment on Bolton's idiocy.

Iran has turned upside down, no one has any real sense of how this will turn out, but John Bolton thinks we should bomb the place anyway. This is a public diplomacy campaign I'd like to see. I'm thinking the likes of Slim Pickens riding in on the misslles screaming "Pardon my bombs!"

With Iran as close as it is to a nuclear device, and with support for such a capability widespread, the most realistic likelihood of neutralizing the threat would seem to be a friendly -- or at least a not-hostile -- regime. I'm not sure how bombing helps.

I just wish Kampeas had a taller pulpit than Bolton's. OK, so Bolton is a former US rep to the UN. I don't care. Fear-mongering is fear-mongering. Enough is enough. The Washington Post editorial board ought to exercise better judgment than to publish Bolton's screeds.

For my money, the Iranian government is not nearly as much a threat to world peace as is the American Enterprise Institute.

The US "Liberation" of Iraq

Now that US troops have "withdrawn" (hardly, actually - just redeployed outside the cities), commentators are crawling out of the woodwork with reflections as to what the US impact has been, now that Iraqi "sovereignty" has been restored. The assessments run the spectrum. Michael Gerson (formerly of the Bush administration) writes in the WaPo our "gift" of "liberation" to Iraq - that we've done all we can do, bless our hearts, now it's up to the Iraqis to take this country of theirs that our invasion cracked apart and put it all back together. After all, Gerson says, nobody was expecting Jeffersonian democracy. Actually, I don't believe Bush's people (including Gerson at the time) had any idea what to expect when the US went in. They just wanted Saddam out. Well, they got that, but now theyve helped spawn a new Saddam perhaps, in Mr. al-Maliki.

Ivan Eland, on the other hand, writes of the "coming train wreck" in Iraq (closer to the mark, in my view), but also declares that Iraq will get nowhere without a long, bloody civil war, because the country can be held together only by force. Basically, he's arguing for partition, which is something that people like Joe Biden, Leslie Gelb, and Peter Galbraith have been endorsing for a few years now.

This is a dilemma of huge proportions. A unitary Iraq is going to be an Iraq nonetheless very badly divided internally for the foreseeable future. The propects for sectarian and ethnic reconciliation are as dim now as they were five years ago. It may well be that a strongman wielding a preponderance of internal-security power (yes, a la Saddam) may be all that can keep Iraq together, but at this point the Kurds in the north and northeast - having had the sweet taste of autonomy since 1991 - are not going to accept dictates from Baghdad, and they have the military to back that up. On the other hand, partition - even a so-called soft one - opens up even more cans of worms. Turkey and Iran would be forever injecting themselves into the affairs of Iraqi Kurdistan, feeling the need to keep their own Kurdish populations from starting down their own roads to autonomy. Iran would be working to cement its influence in the largely Shiite south of Iraq. Iran still sees itself as the standard-bearer of a political Islamism rooted in Shiism, and influence in southern Iraq endows them with a connection with the great Shiite shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala, as well as Iraq's massive, largely undeveloped oil fields in its south.

Of course, that Iran might edge closer to controlling a major portion of Iraq's oil would send the US's blood (or oil?) pressure through the roof. The Saudis would likewise rail against such a development as (1) an Iranian threat to Saudi oil dominance, (2) a Persian threat to the Arabs of southern Iraq (not to mention those many Arabs who inhabit Iranian Khuzistan, in Iran's southwest - nice leverage, that), and (3) a threat from "heretic" Shiites of Iran to the traditional Sunni dominance and prerogatives in the mostly Arab Middle East.

All of these lovely dilemmas brought to the foreground, of course, courtesy of Mr. Bush's sense of his own being destined for greatness after 9/11 - which, of course, gave him the opening, and the supposed moral leverage (to save us all from evil), to shock and awe that WMD-toting, al-Qaeda-loving Saddam Hussein into submission.

Except, of course, that Saddam wasn't about either of those things. The FBI interviews with the Iraqi dictator (now dead two and a half years) make it pretty plain: he had no WMDs, but wanted Iran to think so, because he hated Iran's mullahs, and he feared and distrusted Iran more than he did the US (which, he said, was not Iraq's enemy), and he viewed Osama bin Laden as a religious zealot.

Am I glad that Saddam is no longer oppressing the Iraqi people? Yes. But, on balance, did the US's "liberation" of Iraq leave the Middle East, or the world, more secure, or save more lives, in the short term? I'd say, no. Will it have contributed to a happier situation, say, 50 years from now?

A Final(?) Dispatch from Tehran

And thus winds down Iran's post-election trauma of June 2009 . . .

Informed Comment: Coda: Final Dispatch from Tehran

This dispatch drips with sadness, cynicism . . . almost hopelessness. Who knows at this point how deeply the seeds of future protest have been planted, or if they'll germinate? But you can bet that some neocon think-tankers in DC are thinking, "Gee, if we just used US righteous might to give Iran a little shove . . ."

Not a good idea, gents. The last thing the world needs is another "success story" like Iraq.