Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

Impressing world leaders one photo op at a time.

The photo above explains so much, especially if you do a Google search on the word “failure”. That came compliments of Chuck Pena, to whom I'll return in a minute.

Things certainly are getting interesting on the Iranian front. Stratfor offers
some developments on the subject, which come compliments of Sean-Paul.

Reports surfaced on Wednesday that the United States has agreed to issue former two-term Iranian President Mohammed Khatami a visa, and that the U.S. State Department has apparently already processed his application. This follows reports that Khatami plans to come to the United States on the invitation of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to participate in a conference Sept. 5-6 aimed at promoting global dialogue. Khatami is slated to address a gathering at the Washington National Cathedral on Sept. 7, and sources tell us that he has planned speaking engagements at Georgetown, Harvard, the University of Chicago and the University of Virginia.

Reviewing, Khatami is still very respected because of his close ties with Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei, who is the man holding the real power in Iran. It's been
over 25 years since Washington and Tehran have had any relationship whatsoever,
so Khatami coming to the U.S. is no small development. It's a very public way to
have a dialogue, even if it's only visual.

This is going to drive the neocon nuts, which could drive the conservatives
further away from Bush again. Obviously, the axis of WWIII crowd are saying
diplomacy isn't possible. However, the military knows it's our only option and
someone has got to be telling Bush that while we can't take “the military
option off the table”, it's not only off the table but in the drawer. That
doesn't make the Cheney administration chickenhawk section of the Administration very happy.

I received an email this morning from Chuck Pena talking about Iran. He also sent
me the following article, which he wrote in June of this year. I thought it was worth a read, if you hadn't seen it.

Iran: Gulf War III? Attacking the Islamic Republic would mean steep costs and uncertain victory. by Charles V. Peña If gas breaking the $3/gallon barrier could dominate the evening news and send Congress into a frenzy, imagine Americans’ horror if oil, now $75/barrel, suddenly tops $200. Neither our political will nor our wallets are prepared, but a few stalled SUVs may be the least of our concerns if the U.S. makes good on its threats against Iran. On April 10, President Bush drew his line in the sand: “We do not want the Iranians to have a nuclear weapon, the capacity to make a nuclear weapon or the knowledge about how to make a nuclear weapon.” The next day, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that his country had “joined countries with nuclear technology” by successfully enriching uranium. Now Iran maintains that its nuclear ambitions are peaceful, but many analysts believe the real purpose is to build nuclear weapons—which the White House says it will not allow. President Bush insists that he wants to resolve the situation diplomatically, but his recent pronouncements sound eerily like the run-up to the Iraq War, and his ultimatums have significantly narrowed the range of options. According to New Yorker columnist Seymour Hersh, “The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack.” The blueprint for a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear program is based on Israel’s strike against Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981. But this would not be Osirak redux. Unlike Osirak, attacking Iran’s nuclear program would require striking multiple targets. The three main targets would likely be Bushehr, which is a complex of light-water reactors where spent fuel rods could be diverted to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons; the previously secret Natanz nuclear facility, believed to be used for uranium enrichment that could be used for nuclear weapons; and Arak, which is the site of two planned heavy-water reactors that could produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. But a decapitating strike against Iran’s nuclear program would involve more than just three targets. According to GlobalSecurity.org, “there are perhaps two dozen suspected nuclear facilities in Iran.” … more