Within a month, hundreds of stories in the US corporate media reported all about these "Special Groups", almost without exception identifying them as Iranian trained and fielded. The NYTimes reported by April 24, 2008 that, "73 percent of fatal and other harmful attacks on American troops in the past year were caused by roadside bombs planted by so-called 'special groups.'” according to "Senior officers in the American division that secures the capital." As far as can be determined no credible or even plausible evidence for such groups has been presented by the US Military command in Iraq, let alone by any independent verification of such claims. Instead, in a pattern similar to the run up to the invasion of Iraq, questions about these claims, when raised, are ignored and "answered" with repeated or additional claims.
By the time General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker testified before the US Congress in early April, the "special groups" were an established element in the alternative reality maintained by official Washington and corporate media. In addition, the ever compliant Congress allowed the two to testify for just a single day before the Senate and another day before the House committees in a mockery of oversight, during which not much was made of the question as to whether these claims about "special groups", even if true, legally justified attacking Iran under international law.
It is highly likely arrests of "Iranian agents" and weapons store seizures of "Iranian weapons" will continue, along with operations along the Syrian and Iranian borders with Iraq as well as possible naval incidents. So now the Bush administration has several hair-trigger items poised to "provoke" the US into "defending" itself by attacking Iran. By the time time the attack comes, the US corporate media will be asking why it took the US so long to "react."
Timing of Attack on Iran
From our April 7, 2006 report: "Nothing, including a collapse of the Iraqi government, is likely to change Bush's determination to "hit" Iran, although the depth and duration of the attacks might be attenuated by a set of early failures. In fact, attacking Iran could very well lead to the collapse in one or more governments in the region, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Israel."
While the attack on Iran might well depend on chance, logistics, weather, and Russian acquiescence, we believe a key element relates to the nature of the new Imperial Governance of the United States, wherein Bush will make a personal decision when to attack, and he is not likely to attack before the wedding of his daughter on May 10, 2008. Of course, he might arrange the triggering incident to take place shortly after the wedding in a further pretense at "surprise" on his part. Whatever other elements need fall into place, it is unlikely Mrs. Bush would put up with her husband ruining her daughter's wedding with a war she knows her husband alone will decide to start and can well put off.
Since we continue to believe the attack will likely come before the end of May, or, at the latest June, we think it is likely the attack will come between May 11, 2008 and June 30, 2008. If not, then with near certainty before the US elections in November. Should the attack not come before Bush leaves office, the chances of a major attack on Iran would be greatly diminished, no matter which of the three remaining major candidates takes office in his place, even if potential war provoking incidents between the US and Iran were to occur. And this is why the Israel Lobby is pressing Bush to act before it is "too late."
There is, of course, the possibility that this build-up is part to a bluff to intimidate Iran, but we consider this unlikely. Most fundamentally, what is the demand the US is making upon Iran as part of such a bluff? Iran's nuclear program, whatever its pretenses, is so far from the weapons grade enrichment US nuclear weapons experts can assure US policy makers is required: The 90% plus enrichment required for nuclear explosive devices of minimal yield efficiency, compared with Iran's claimed but unlikely 3% enrichment, indicates that "threat" is baseless and the bluff is pretense.
On the other hand, an example of this gaming of war fears recently occurred, as reported by Agence France-Presse (AFP) on April 13, 2008 when Bush joked about fears of a war between the US and Iran, while at the same time issuing the usual litany about "all options being on the table" and "first effort is to solve this issue diplomatically", exactly the same phrases used before the invasion of Iraq. One need only recall this is the same man who, as governor of Texas, was reported to have jokingly mimicked the pleas for mercy from a death row prisoner days before for her execution.
Nature of Attack on Iran
The nature of the expected attack on Iran is unknown, as is the likely Iranian response. While such attacks have be long planned, it is likely the limitations on US resources, objections by corporate and financial interests, by the EU and especially by Russia, as well as the private intentions of Bush and Cheney will interact in ways not fully understood, even by those nominally in-charge. The US Congress is not expected to play any significant role in the decision.
Given a decision to attack, two fundamentally different starting points seem equally plausible: 1) a minor casus belli and then a sudden, massive US attack on a wide range of Iranian industrial and military targets, followed by a US call for a cease fire; 2) a series of escalating attacks, first against "special group" support areas along the Iran-Iraq border or Iranian naval assets, depending on the casa belli selected, followed by series of US actions and Iranian reactions, leading eventually to attacks on a wide range of Iranian industrial and military targets, followed by a US call for a cease fire.
These attack "options" have at their core the baseless assumption, apparently held by the administration, that events can be controlled once hostilities commence, whereby the neo-con ideologists hope to leave office with the US at war with much of the Middle East, without having to actually fight a real large scale, resource depleting, continuing global struggle, while at the same time using the rhetoric of the global war on terrorism and disruptions cause by the US-Iran conflict to justify the establishment of an increasingly repressive police state in the US, relentlessly undermining civil liberties and thereby intimidating the US population into accepting the policies demanded by the "war on terror.".
The main objective of all this appears to be a fait accompli, leaving the next administration with a region-wide tar baby, with Israel the only remaining "friend" in the region, otherwise populated with outright enemies or alienated former allies. With Israel positioned to attempt an alliance with the Kurds upon the expected partition of Iraq, following an inevitable US withdrawal. Again, as with the invasion of Iraq, the US planning is front loaded, focused on the mechanics of military operations, with little or no thought given to what happens next, let alone second or third order consequences, except the general intention to take maximum political advantage of the resulting crisis.
Coup d'état by National Emergency
While the following prediction is admittedly both extreme and disheartening, it seems the most likely consequence of the Bush administration's taking maximum political advantage of the crisis they created: A major US attack against Iran will ignite a US-Iran war, which in turn will almost certainly result in grave global economic and political consequences as well as the most serious political and economic destabilization of the United States since the Civil War. As part of which the Bush administration can be expected to undertake a coup d'état by national emergency, declaring martial law in the US and rounding up thousands of domestic political enemies into detention camps. The legal, extra-legal and other institution elements are now in place for such an action, and logistical preparations for martial law continue. We expect the declaration of a national emergency to occur with a month or so of the outbreak of war with Iran, possibly following mass protests, economic destabilization, or other convenient pretext.
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