Hersh on Bush’s Nuclear Ambitions in Iran
I’m not sure how seriously to take Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker piece on Bush’s desire to launch a nuclear war on Iran: The Iran plans. Hersh gets good information, I realize, but I think he has a tendency to go too far in the direction of the worst-case scenario. I’m thinking of Abu Ghraib, I guess: Yes, the reality of what the Bush team did there was awful, but not quite the apocalyptic end-of-the-nation-as-we-know-it stuff that Hersh portrayed.
Gah. That sounds like I’m defending the Bush administration’s use of torture as an instrument of government policy.
Okay; start over. Bush sucks, and his use of torture (and, to the extent that he’s contemplating it, his contemplation of using nuclear weapons in a bid to go after the Iranian nuclear program) is at the heart of the ways in which he is the most disasterously unqualified person to hold the presidency I have ever seen, or ever want to see.
But with that said, Hersh’s arrangement of the detail in his stories leaves me thinking that he misses a truer context, sometimes. In his Cassandra-esque keening about the evil he’s uncovered, I think he gets a bit carried away. I think that might be part of what’s happening with this story.
At least, I seriously hope so. Because the alternative is horrifying and depressing.
April 9th, 2006 at 10:40 am
For me the question is, when has this administration showed willingness to pursue anything but the worst-case scenario? We all know now, as if we didn’t know then, that “diplomacy” in regard to Iraq was completely false. What reason do we have to believe that things have changed?
April 9th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
I applaud your restraint in not hyperventilating over this “bombshell” story of doom. I wish some of your fellow Bush bashing bloggers had the same broader view of it.
It shouldn’t shock anyone that ALL Administrations put together a variety of action scenarios to deal with real and potential problems around the world, and many of these scenarios are military ones. This is an example of such regular military planning as part of an array of alternatives, some much less likely than others, to deal with the issue.
Hersh seems to have solicited the musings and opinions of various anonymous worker bees within the DoD, and Administration so-and-so’s, and then constructs a vision of the Bush war machine chugging to its inevitable one-trick pony answer to a threat.
As connected as Hersh seems to be within political/military circles in order to pull out some of his prior incriminating nuggets of evidence of misdoings, he still likes to play the boogy-man, telling stories in the dark, with a flashlight in his face, to get a more dramatic response to his stories.
All this being said, those who think this would be just one more nation to hold nuclear weapons, should really think again. For all the hand-wringing about Bush creating a Theocracy out of the U.S., you had better be rightfully afraid of a REAL living and breathing Theocracy with some very radical views about the outright extermination of a People, let alone a nation, that gets ahold of the “Ace of Spades” of WMD.
I mean, North Korea isn’t to be lightly dismissed either, since a leadership that is a little bit nutty and a whole lot paranoid about the world can’t be counted on to handle nuclear destruction with proper forethought and responsibility either.
But history has shown that there have been those who take it upon themselves to know the mind of God or in this case, Allah, and would feel compelled to act out some divine truth in the extermination of a race of people or nation. And we all know how well those ambitions have turned out!
Those who want to pursue the Bush is Hitler/Satan/Anti-Christ will continue to do so, based on Hersh’s story. But a little worldly and historical perspective by those who aren’t slaves to that tunnel vision would be refreshing to hear.
April 11th, 2006 at 11:35 am
Seems to me Hersh has been pretty on-point with what he’s reported so far. Does anyone really believe that Abu Ghraib was just the unsanctioned actions of a few bad apples?
If Hersh is the boogy-man, we need more boogy-men.
April 12th, 2006 at 7:36 am
Yeah, he may be a little dramatic, but he has some serious connections on the inside, which is quite evident by his writings, past and present.
That being said, I don’t think even Bush has the balls to take on Iran.
April 13th, 2006 at 4:57 am
I think Glenn Greenwald, as usual, says it well:
“But does it really matter what any of us, pundits included, have to say about Iran? We are all running around engaged in a debate about how best to approach this situation, presumably laboring under the assumption that we are going to collectively decide this democratically, as a nation. But if the war-mongering radicals in the Bush administration convince The President that some sort of surgical strike, military attack or, decapitation assault against Iran is something we ought to do, will the Administration think that it needs any sort of Congressional authorization to engage in whatever war actions it desires? Very doubtful.”