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you know, i'm not naive enough to imagine that there are no significant geopolitical problems that the bush people, in their fumbling and bumbling way, were trying to work out how to confront, and that they confronted them in the way that worked best for them, by distorting information, creating a fradulent threat and floating it out there in order to soften up consent for whatever fumbling and bumbling direction they chose to take.
but the idea that there was ever a serious possibility of invading iran seems absurd. invading iran would have made iraq look like a walk in the park on a peaceful sunday afternoon, like something from a seurat painting. they knew it.
so it's hard to avoid the conclusion that there was never any serious intent to "do something" about iran.
there is a problem.
the bush administration created it when they chose to invade iraq.
they have no idea what to do.
not wanting to concede regional power status to iran is probably one of the main geopolitical rationales for continuing the grind in iraq, talking about an endless presence blah blah blah.
fine.
its horrifying when you think about what this actually means, but fine.
but they also had a legitimacy problem to handle domestically, not only because they invaded iraq, but all the more because of the false grounds that they chose to float--for expediency's sake (remember wolfowitz's explanation?)----the theater of the "iranian threat" seems to me to have mostly been about maintaining a veneer of legitimacy internally by creating another Enemy.
if there had been a nuclear program, if there had been targets to bomb, i expect these clowns would have done it and justified it later.
but there werent any targets.
because there was no program.
rationalize this as you like, but this interpretation seems hard to get around.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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