Plan B from NeoCon space

Some of you might be familiar with the old Ed Wood “classic” Plan 9 From Outer Space. It is a incredible mish-mash of a movie with aliens and zombies and zero production values. The Bushies might be trying to out-do old Ed with there own plan, the plan to bomb Iran.

Things were not going to swimmingly for deadeye Dick Cheney’s mission of destruction. Despite suckering in the ever-gullible Senate into the Kyle-Lieberman resolution, Darth Cheney was encountering heavy flack from the Pentagon. His good buddy Don Rumsfeld was offered up as sacrifice to the angry heathen gods after the 2006 elections. In Rummy’s place was a Robert M Gates and Gates was not interested in yet another war in the Mideast. Mr. Gates had all the war he could handle and then some in Iraq.

Gates and the CentCom commander Admiral Fallon started a counter-insurgency against the VP’s office. This put the Dark Lord of the Sith in a pickle. The last time he did an end-around normal channels, the so called White House Iraq Group or WHIG, he used the Defense Department as the means to stovepipe intelligence and market the war against Saddam. This time, the Brass Hats were pushing back with help from the new civilian team. The CIA was also back, and it was adding to Cheney’s gloom.

Cheney and the NeoCons have always despised the CIA. The enmity goes back to the Cold War days—the CIA was always raining on the NeoCons parade as far as the Soviet Threat was concerned. That is when Cheney and his happy bunch of pirates got the idea for the “B team” in the first place. The “B team” was constantly putting out “intelligence” that painted a much grimmer picture of Soviet intentions and abilities. The B team always argued for a much harder line on the Soviets than the establishment CIA types. Small problem for the B team, they were almost always wrong, they almost always overestimated the Soviet threat.

But that did not stop them when they came back into power with George W Bush. The NeoCon PNAC crowd was gunning for Saddam Hussein well before 9/11 dropped into their laps. They once again stove piped raw intelligence, manipulated and fix the intelligence around the policy of Iraqi Regime change. It was a classic “B team” operation. Cheney et al did a huge end-run around the CIA and got George W and Colin Powell to sign off on the package. George Tennant was also ever so helpful with his “slam-dunk” analysis. Of course the whole affair collapsed into a tottering wreck right after shock and awe. Ambassador Wilson was the first to call foul and then others started to note the copious lack of any type of WMD in Iraq. When Iraq started its long, slow slide into chaos the B team was looking more like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.

In 2006 the unwashed masses weighed in. Two years into the war the voting public gave a huge raspberry to Bush and Cheney. The GOP lost both houses and Bush got “Thumped” In the ashes of 2006 began Operation Kick the Can down the Road. Bush’s goal became to hold in place long enough to will the Iraq war to his successor. With the surge Bush’s mission of foisting his most egregious error on to the next POTUS has been an unqualified success.

However nothing succeeds like failure in the Bush administration and the V.P. has been squawking about the need to hit Iran. The rational for the bombing has shifted about, first to Nukes then to the Al Qudes forces and EFPs and back to nukes. The main question finally settled on how soon the Mad Mullahs might be making a device. Cheney was desperate to have the mushroom cloud be coming sooner rather than later. With the NIE saying “eh, maybe 2015 at the earliest assuming the Iranians restart right now” Cheney’s excellent bombing campaign in Iraq lost its reason to exist.

Never fear though, our stalwart allies the Israelis are coming to the rescue. They had there intelligence that was so much better than the 18 US agencies that contributed to the NIE. It is shocking, no doubt about it, but the Israelis still think that bombing the Iranians might be a good idea. The Likudites in the American establishment were more than willing to offer aide and assistances. The Usual suspects from the usual NeoCon think tanks were making the usual noises. A new team B could be forming with help from the NeoCons and the Israelis. Once again contrarian “intelligence” that paints a much scarier portrait of the enemy de jour will be offered. It may be just enough of a fig-leaf to cover yet another war of aggression.

Unfortunately for Dick Cheney, his Team B in forming got sideswiped. The big story is the torture tapes. Odd, but this may finally be the straw that breaks the camels back. Hard to say, this particular Camel should have been crushed a few scandals ago. The tail of the tapes has even Republicans hopping mad. We are only a month away from Iowa and our excruciatingly long election seasons. The tapes scandal may be the item that causes the Elephants to stampede away from Bush. They are pols and they want to be reelected. With the tale of the tapes the smoldering fury of the electorate might just erupt. This may just be one scandal too many. Biden’s threat may become stated policy. This time it could be the GOP that tells the shrub “if you bomb Iran you will be impeached, so don’t even think of it.” Again it is hard to say. In a weeks time the ReThugs might return to being good little Germans again. We will see how the tale of the tapes plays out. If it somehow gets tamped down, look to see the resurrection of Plan B and the march toward the bombing of Iran.