Wurmser the traitor

by Xymphora - Oct 5, 2007

The comment “Why Bush won't attack Iran” is still marred by a lack of appreciation of the effects of globalization on the thinking of the strategists, and misses the Big Plan with respect to oil, but is still much better that just about anything else you’ll read on the subject of ‘Iran talk’.

I like the fact he gave Bush a little credit:

“To try to discern what the president himself thinks, however, is very difficult. It's particularly hard when Bush is trying to convince Iran that the military option is real, and that if Iran doesn't work out a mutually acceptable deal with the U.S., he will launch a strike.

To date, however, nothing suggests Bush is really going to do it. If he were, he wouldn't be playing good cop/bad cop with Iran and proposing engagement. If the bombs were at the ready, Bush would be doing a lot more to prepare the nation and the military for a war far more consequential than the invasion of Iraq. There is also circumstantial evidence that he has decided bombing may be too costly a choice.”

and:

“Even if Bush wanted to make the Iranians believe that he could go either way – diplomacy or military strike – Bush would not so clearly knock back one side in favor of the other to the point where the ‘bad cops’ in a good cop/bad cop strategy would tell anyone on the outside that they did not enjoy the favor and support of the president.”

If Bush is trying to bluff the Iranians, it would make no sense to reveal his bad hand. Unfortunately for Bush, the Iranians know his ‘tell’, and have called the bluff. In fact American belligerence has made it more difficult to deal with Iran, which is one of the reasons why we should all can the ‘Iran talk’. While we can give Bush a little credit, we shouldn’t give him too much.

Clemons also catches Wurmser – wasn’t he supposed to be gone by now? – in a little treason (oh, and here’s Glenn Greenwald catching Ledeen out on another treason):

“One member of Cheney's national security staff, David Wurmser, worried out loud that Cheney felt that his wing was ‘losing the policy argument on Iran’ inside the administration – and that they might need to ‘end run’ the president with scenarios that may narrow his choices. The option that Wurmser allegedly discussed was nudging Israel to launch a low-yield cruise missile strike against the Natanz nuclear reactor in Iran, thus ‘hopefully’ prompting a military reaction by Tehran against U.S. forces in Iraq and the Gulf. When queried about Wurmser's alleged comments, a senior Bush administration official told the New York Times, ‘The vice president is not necessarily responsible for every single thing that comes out of the mouth of every single member of his staff.’”

There is no way around it. Wurmser, within the White House, is advocating a conspiracy to trick his President and the United States – I was going to write ‘his country’, but his country is Israel – into a monumentally disastrous war.

Shouldn’t he be arrested for treason?