Russ McBee

President Bush gave a speech before the American Legion today (perhaps one of his few remaining supportive audiences) in which he begged for patience on "progress" in Iraq. He ran through a dingy, moldy laundry list of reasons why we should stay in Iraq, all of which we've heard before:

• We have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here (the long-since discredited "flypaper" theory).
  
• Extremists will control all the oil if we leave (as if they don't already).
  
• Iraq will descend into chaos if we leave (as if it hasn't already).
  
• Ad nauseum.

I wouldn't ordinarily pay much attention to Bush's tired and threadbare song and dance if it weren't for the saber-rattling toward Iran contained in an otherwise redundant, miasmic, and horribly written speech. Among the litany of excuses on Iraq, Bush laid out this bit of classic GOP fear-mongering:

And Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? That line must have been written by the same person who penned Condi Rice's infamous "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" line.

Bush also said this:

We seek an Iran whose government is accountable to its people -- instead of to leaders who promote terror and pursue the technology that could be used to develop nuclear weapons.

Frankly, I wish we had an accountable government in this country, instead of one that promotes terror and pursues nuclear weapons. But never mind that.

Here's where it gets interesting:

Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people. Members of the Qods Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are supplying extremist groups with funding and weapons, including sophisticated IEDs. And with the assistance of Hezbollah, they've provided training for these violent forces inside of Iraq. Recently, coalition forces seized 240-millimeter rockets that had been manufactured in Iran this year and that had been provided to Iraqi extremist groups by Iranian agents. The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased in the last few months -- despite pledges by Iran to help stabilize the security situation in Iraq.

That paragraph reads almost exactly like the bogus, fictional rationales used to justify the invasion of Iraq. There are just enough non-specific allegations about collusion with terrorists to be alarming, and just enough specifics about munitions to waft a fragrance of validity over a pile of otherwise stinking offal. His rhetoric sounds familiar, doesn't it? This echoes the fictions told by him and his administration from mid-2002 onward.

The trouble is, he might be telling the truth this time. There is a significant amount of concern internationally about Iran's nuclear program and its leaders' intentions. There is a well-established relationship between the government of Iran and several of the formerly exiled Shi'ite groups who now pull the levers of power in Iraq (SCIRI and the Dawa Party being only two of many). The Iranian government has also provided funding for the political movement and militia headed by Moqtada Al Sadr. Bush fails to mention in his speech, however, that the US is also funding and arming those same militias, but never mind that irritating little detail. The point is that those relationships between the Shi'ite groups and Iran stand a gulf away from any kind of "proof" that the Iranian government is directly or indirectly attacking American soldiers, just as there was a gulf between the US government funding and arming the Afghan mujahedeen and their direct attacks on Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

The problem is Bush's lack of credibility on the issue of military threats. He's proven himself a liar, and the rest of his administration has proven countless times to be equally mendacious. Any warnings issued by this White House must by necessity be taken with a huge grain of salt, and this does our country no favors. We cannot trust what he says, and therefore we cannot decide for ourselves if military action against Iran might conceivably be justified.

It might be justified, but we can't trust our current leaders to tell us the truth about it.

Our opinions and conclusions don't really matter to this president. He's already made up his mind:

Some say Iran's leaders are not aware of what members of their own regime are doing. Others say Iran's leaders are actively seeking to provoke the West. Either way, they cannot escape responsibility for aiding attacks against coalition forces and the murder of innocent Iraqis. The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops. I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities.

There he goes with that "some say" straw man again. But read that last sentence again:

I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities.

This should give pause to anyone who's been paying attention to Bush's hoaxes and lies for the last several years. He's already decided to attack Iran.

More mendacity:

For all those who ask whether the fight in Iraq is worth it, imagine an Iraq where militia groups backed by Iran control large parts of the country. Imagine an Iraq where al Qaeda has established sanctuaries to safely plot future attacks on targets all over the world, including America.

First of all, militia groups backed by Iran already control large parts of the country; those would be the same SCIRI, Dawa, and Al Sadr militias mentioned above, and which the US is also providing with funds and weapons. The Iranians are no more guilty of arming the militias than we are, but Bush tries to spew a fog of lies to hide that fact. Also, Bush tries to conceal the fact that the Sunni Al Qaeda hates the Shi'ite Iranians even more than he does. There's no way the two would coexist or cooperate on a significant scale, even against the US as a common enemy.

Bush sees the unilateral provocation of war as his enduring legacy. I believe it's the only part of his mythos he actually takes seriously. As Gary Kamiya said in Salon:

Bush's entire presidency has been propped up by the War Myth. By aggressively presenting himself as a war leader, by wrapping himself in the sacred robes of patriotism, the military and national honor, Bush has taken refuge in the holy of holies, the ultimate sanctuary in American life. He has made criticism of his policies tantamount to criticism of the one institution in American life that is untouchable: the military. He uses the almost 4,000 new crosses in military cemeteries as a talisman against his opponents -- notwithstanding the fact that he is wholly responsible for those crosses.

[...]

What is crucial to understand is that the War Myth can be effective even when reality utterly undercuts it. Myths appeal to transcendental values, shared sacred beliefs. Once we have entered the realm of myth, taboos replace rational discourse.

Unfortunately, rational discourse and reality ceased to matter to this administration long ago.