IRAN ANALYSIS

"The Pentagon Preps for Iran" is the Arkin piece... Arkin imagines his article reaching Iran, affecting this stern tone:

Iran needs to understand that the United States isn't hamstrung by a lack of options. It needs to realize that it can't just stonewall and evade its international obligations, that it can't burrow further underground in hopes that it will "win" merely because war is messy.

Expect nasty, nasty blowback. Just because the Iranians can be guaranteed a lost war doesn't mean the US will win anything in the bargain. "So how close is a showdown over Iraq?" is the Observer piece...This piece shows the US government imagining Iran as having a weak government:

The real US policy, enunciated by a senior State Department official close to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, revolves around a belief that Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is weaker than his bellicose attitude might suggest and is vulnerable to the pressure of international sanctions.

Ahmadinejad may be weak without US pressure -- expect US pressure to strengthen his hand. Meanwhile, the experts issue a warning -- which only makes it to al Jazeera.

Okay, what do we know?

1. We know that Bush has plans to use nuclear "bunker busters" against Iran.
2. The weapons Bush plans to use might send fallout more than 1,000 miles downwind
3. The Iranians are threatening the US with suicide squads if anything bad happens to the nuclear facilities, but that's not credible -- they will all be killed in the general holocaust.

So there it is -- the quickest route to ending the world's dependency on Mideast oil. The US nukes Iran, fallout spreads throughout the Middle East, and nobody can reach the oil without getting radiation poisoning. That'll work. Thanks to Disco Destroyer for citing the first source...