Persian Mug

A new article in the New Yorker by award winning investigative reporter Sy Hersh says Iran is next on the Bush administrations hit list. Hersh says the pentagon is drawing up plans for strikes on that country’s nuclear, chemical and missile industries. Plans are also being developed for a full-out military invasion according to Hersh. None of this is particularly surprising to me. However, I was struck by this:

The immediate goals of the attacks would be to destroy, or at least temporarily
derail, Iran’s ability to go nuclear. But there are other, equally purposeful, motives at work. The government consultant told me that the hawks in the Pentagon, in private discussions, have been urging a limited attack on Iran because they believe it could lead to a toppling of the religious leadership. “Within the soul of Iran there is a struggle between secular nationalists and reformers, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the fundamentalist Islamic movement,” the consultant told me. “The minute the aura of invincibility which the mullahs enjoy is shattered, and with it the ability to hoodwink the West, the Iranian regime will collapse”—like the former Communist regimes in Romania, East Germany, and the Soviet Union. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz share that belief, he said.

That’s just stupid. That’s the same simplistic, immature view of another nations politics we got when we were told the Iraqi’s would greet us a liberators, showering the troops with rose pedals while the woman ran up to kiss their heroes. Like something out of Paris 1944. (It’s been a contention of mine that the world view of most Neo-Cons, and indeed many Americans, is hopelessly warped by viewing everything trough WWII colored glasses –but that’s a discussion for another time).

Go read the whole thing.