Just as President George W. Bush conditioned Americans for the eventual attack on Iraq with fearsome tales of doomsday weapons and Saddam Hussein's threat to the Middle East, Bush is now demonizing Iran with similar inflammatory rhetoric about nuclear bomb-making and bootlegging arms to insurgents in Iraq to fight American troops. He's also characterizing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as head of a terrorist country.
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh writes in the current New Yorker magazine that the groundwork for an attack on Iran has been laid.
Despite White House pooh-poohing, Hersh is believable. He exposed the scandalous treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib, which the White House at first denied, but then ate crow when photos of GIs abusing Iraqis were published.
An attack on Iran, even a limited air assault, would be suicidal in many ways.
Iran would unleash ground troops to attack U.S. forces in Iraq. Al-Qaeda could stir up more recruits for suicide service on the streets of Baghdad.
And, there would be other consequences. American forces are nearly broken from the Iraq operation. Asking the American military to take on another war would be folly.
Right now, 22 percent of U.S. forces in Iraq are National Guard personnel. These citizen soldiers were taken from their jobs and families for virtually permanent duty, some deployed to Iraq three and four times. Troops now serve 15 months in Iraq before home leave, instead of 12 as before, simply to maintain enough forces. Troops are exhausted. Equipment is shabby.
Iraq war costs are nearing $1 trillion. Record U.S. debt cannot tolerate more billions for another war.
Even now, American forces are spread so thin and committed in such large numbers in Iraq that if a major military attack erupted elsewhere in the world, respected military experts say the United States would be unprepared to respond.
Former Joint Chiefs chairman Colin Powell: The Army "is about broken."
Former CentCom commander Gen. John Abizaid: "This is not an Army that was built to sustain a 'long war.' "
Retired Gen. Kevin Ryan: "With all units either deployed (to Iraq), returning from deployment or preparing to deploy, there are none left to prepare for other contingencies."
Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey: "The ground combat capability of the U.S. armed forces is shot."
Army Chief of Staff George Casey: "The tempo of our deployments are (sic) not sustainable."
An attack on Iran is unthinkable. It surely would be an impeachable act.
