The U.S. House Intelligence Committee has issued this report on the strategic threat from Iran. It doesn’t contain much beyond what you’ve probably already seen in the news — in fact, it contains many accusations that are similar to those the Bush Administration made about Iraq before the invasion, though without the “mushroom cloud” imagery. Nevertheless, the report is disturbing for several reasons, perhaps the most important of which is that Iran actually does have extensive and active ties to terrorists, as well as a real nuclear program.
What isn’t mentioned in the report is that Iran knows several things about America that Saddam Hussein didn’t know. Here are some:
- America’s has utterly incompetent political leadership
- America has virtually no political allies willing to support another military conflict
- Bush has neither the financial nor the political resources to support another military conflict
- Iran’s oil and gas reserves give it real power that could seriously hurt the U.S. economy in the event of U.S. military action
In view of these and other considerations — including that Bush’s invasion of Iraq eliminated Iran’s most significant enemy (Iraq) and revealed the impotence of its second most significant opponent (the U.S.) — Bush’s decision to invade Iraq (which both he and Cheney continue to rationalize) seems likely to be (if it is not already) one of the worst mistakes in U.S. history.
