The Regime change commission within the Bush Administration has unofficially elucidated its case for turning Iran into the new Iraq.

Robert Gates, the new Defense Secretary and member of the Iraq Study Group, who many thought would make significant moves to end America’s current quagmire will instead make Iran "the target of US military moves in the Persian Gulf." The media has responded admirably in maintaining the assertions made by Bush et al that ‘Iran is the actual enemy and one that is fighting against our troops in Iraq’.† The arrest of Iranian government liaison officers in Northern Iraq facilitates this assertion and provides the oil to fuel this fire!
(No pun intended!)

However, there are two sides to any tale, unless it is about real life and then you have so many angles that it is hard to know where to initiate or terminate the examination! So just like a fairytale this article will examine the pros and cons of a possible war against Iran.

Speaking as an ancillary of neo-conservative thought one can rationalize the argument that in the not too distant future Persian Iran will become the hegemonic power in the midst of the Arab Middle East. The only deterrent preventing Iran from asserting its overt influence on the pitiful Arab states is the fear of a direct conventional attack from powerful European and American allies (and Israel). If Iran were to become a nuclear power then the threat of conventional deterrence becomes nullified. Thus this autocratic, theocracy will eventually subsume its weak and vulnerable neighboring states. The other dangers posed along with this scenario are, according to Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post, "…permitting nuclear weapons to be acquired by religious fanatics seized with an eschatological belief in the imminent apocalypse and in their own divine duty to hasten the End of Days. The mullahs are infinitely more likely to use these weapons than anyone in the history of the nuclear age. Every city in the civilized world will live under the specter of instant annihilation delivered either by missile or by terrorist. Against millenarian fanaticism glorying in a cult of death, deterrence is a mere wish. Is the West prepared to wager its cities with their millions of inhabitants on that feeble gamble?"

These are all credible and considerable concerns that could justify war and military action if the world was painted in black and white!

The Bush Administration is utilizing these concerns as said by Charles Krauthammer "that the US is not winning in Iraq because of Iran." Robert Gates who has effectively replaced Rumsfield as the agent provocateur insists that "The Iranians are acting in a very negative way".

There seems to be a certain amount of deja vu. In shifting focus and attention from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein the same arguments and techniques were used to justify the war in Iraq! Thus one must query the rationale in attacking Iran when Iraq and Afghanistan are proving to be an embarrassment and a gaping wound on the Bush Administration’s record. There is no reason to suggest that the US and its nominal allies will ever be able to occupy Iran. President Bush has publicly admitted the shortcomings of the war in Iraq; his public profile is fast becoming associated with tyrants and sycophants. President Bush needs a victory and Iran, according to Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury to Reagan, will let him have it in order to gain the long-run victory.

The former bureaucrat believes that "Bush will be able to claim victory over Iran, because Iran will avoid responding militarily. Iran will not use its Russian missiles to sink our aircraft carriers, to shut down oil facilities throughout the Middle East, or to destroy US headquarters in the "green zone" in Baghdad.† Instead, Iran will adopt the posture of another Muslim victim of US/Israeli aggression and let the anger seep throughout the Muslim world until no pro-US government is safe in the Middle East."
This could be wishful thinking or an astute long-term strategy, only time will tell but history certainly backs this observation.

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