Seven Generational Ruminations

"[i]Look out -- here they come again!

There's a lot of will-he-or-won't-he going on in terms of whether or not the U.S. and/or the world is being prepared to attack Iran. Here's two extremes ...

Why Bush won't attack Iran describes some of the inner dance going around the Administration -- and describes that Condoleeza Rice's job is to develop a third alternative between the bomb-or-do-not-bomb-Iran pair of options. Rather, that's what she has been doing, but the time has run out.

The threat of war in Iran is looming even larger than ever. For example, France warning of war with Iran is very interesting considering France's opposition role leading up to the Iraq invasion.

The Neocons who talked us into the Iraq war with their lies and deceit are preparing us for a war with Iran. The fools.

http://www.stopiranwar.com/ is about stopping this incipient war.

All Americans want to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons and interfering on the ground inside Iraq. Yet President Bush’s saber rattling gives the US little additional leverage to engage and dissuade Iran, and, more than likely, simply accelerates a dangerous slide into war. The United States can do better than this.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad marked the 28th anniversary of Iran's revolution on Sunday pledging to maintain the country's nuclear program but saying he wanted to remain within international rules.

...His comments had prompted talk Iran might say it had begun installing 3,000 centrifuges at its Natanz uranium enrichment plant, defying a U.N. sanctions resolution which gave Tehran until February 21 to suspend enrichment or face more measures.

In Background material for the second Gulf "War" and Is Syria (or Iran) next? and Next: Iran? and Er... What's this about threatening Syria? I long ago noted that the launch of the Iraq invasion was exactly in line with the strategy outlined by the Project for a New American Century way back in the mid 1990's. All through the invasion of Iraq the administration has been demonizing both Syria and Iran, making not-so-idle threats, etc. The pattern of the administration in the past has, before launching a war, to demonize the designated target so that by the time you're ready to launch the war your populace already has a dim view of the target.

Blood borders offers an interesting take on the conflicts in the Middle East. Essentially we're seeing regional ethnic conflicts between ancient tribal areas .. for example Kurdistan is the home of the Kurdish peoples and spreads between Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and whatever the country is to the north. The Kurds in Iraq have managed to create for themselves an semi-autonomous region and at the same time the Turkish government has been squashing their Kurdish minority.

The borders in the Middle East, and in Africa, were drawn by outsiders during the Colonial times. In the case of the Middle East the borders were created following World War I when the Ottoman Empire crumbled to dust. The outsiders didn't have in mind the interests of the locals, but instead their interests was the most effective control of the region from the outside.

Anti-war Democrat has ties to U.S.' prewar Iraq claims talks about a surprising winner of Pennsylvania's 10th district. The winner, an "Anti-War Democrat", had worked in the Pentagon office that produced the cooked evidence that helped the Administration lie us into the war. Somehow he found his way to being an "Anti-War Democrat" which the newspaper finds odd and confusing.

The Democratic win in the 2006 elections has changed the discussion about the war in Iraq. Part of the mandate won by the Democrats was to change, radically, the direction we, the U.S.A., will approach the situation in Iraq. Clearly I believe we should have not gone into Iraq in the first place, but we are there and it's a very interesting question what should be done given the situation that exists today.

Iran. Nuclear weapons. Sigh. Iran is part of the so-called axis of evil, which included Iraq and North Korea. North Korea has been pronounced to be a threat, they recently set off a small nuclear weapon of some kind, and this week Pres. George W. Bush was reported to have repeated the statement that growth of nuclear capabilities in North Korea is a major problem. Ditto the growth of nuclear capabilities in Iran.