1
1
1
Bush: "Iran has made rapid strides in its missile program, and Iraq persists in a race to do the same."
While PNAC was more upfront than Bush about U.S. economic interests in the Gulf as the main motive for establishing permanent bases there, the targeting of Iran and Iraq is clearly part of the geopolitical play for power that PNAC/Bush envisioned all along. Notice that the PNAC/Bush plan had Iraq in its scope well before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The 2000 "RAD" did not mince words about this. "While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification," it stated, "the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."
PNAC/Bush Brigade Cannot Afford to Lose Power in Midstream
PNAC: "Over the first seven years of the Clinton administration, approximately $426 billion in defense investments have been deferred, creating a weapons procurement 'bow wave' of immense proportions."
Bush: "The last seven years have been wasted in inertia and idle talk. Now we must shape the future with new concepts, new strategies, new resolve."
It is obvious that the PNAC/Bush administration does not want to hand over power to an administration that does not share its ideology. How far it will go to stop an Obama administration from coming to fruition remains to be seen, but clearly it is strongly motivated and has already gone too far to graciously bow out.
The situation is therefore a precarious one. Logistically, the PNAC/Bush brigade's "plan A" is undoubtedly for McCain to be elected. Just how he is "elected" may be less important than whether he is. For example, widespread election fraud such as inserting malicious code into voting machines in battleground states, throwing out ballots, "caging" and other illegal election practices may be sufficient to tip the vote tally in favor of McCain. Such actions aren't unlikely given the high stakes and the irregularities that occurred in the past two presidential elections.
But what will happen if McCain loses?
This is a power-craving administration that will do what it can to retain power. It has invested billions of dollars in R&D and in building the infrastructure to carry out its mandate to militaristically "preserve an international security environment conducive to American interests and ideals." It has invested billions of dollars and sacrificed thousands of lives in fighting a war to fulfill its mandate of setting up permanent bases in Iraq, and it deems the Democratic option of setting a timeline for troop withdrawal antipathetic to this goal. It has not yet capitalized on its efforts to further U.S. economic interests in the Persian Gulf, and it still aims to thwart any efforts by Iran to counter such schemes. It has already had eight years of interruption by the Clinton administration in actualizing its "military revolution" and has good reason to believe that the old guard which began this incredibly complex ideologically driven venture may fall out of favor and thereby lose the opportunity to finish what it started. It has weapons systems currently in limbo such as the Strategic Defenses, which is a major budget item in defense appropriations and would probably be cut by an Obama administration just as it was by the Clinton administration. Such a cut in defense spending would also have effects on powerful corporate interests such as Lockheed Martin, which is a major supplier of components for the missile defenses involved in the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Consider, also, that the PNAC/Bush administration greatly enhanced the powers of the executive branch, which can now spy on and imprison Americans at will. The architects of such powers are unlikely to want to hand them over to the opposition.
Add to these reasons the frustration at perhaps seeing an ideological vision dashed after almost two decades, and it is clear that the PNAC/Bush administration is not likely to simply swallow an electoral loss.
The consequences of such defeat are and should be a matter of deep concern to us all. Much will depend on the resolve of the American people and their collective commitment to democracy and the rule of law. We must stand firm against fear mongering, propagandizing, bogus legal challenges, attempts to declare the election invalid by fiat, and other tactics aimed at interrupting the constitutional transfer of power.
This shall indeed be a period of consequences.
