Facing an Iranian winter

[Anonymous]

Last update - 01:35 03/07/2008             
Facing an Iranian winter
By Ari Shavit

Here is the wild scenario: In November, after Senator Barack Obama becomes the president-elect of the United States, outgoing President George W. Bush will launch a strike at Iran. The strike might be a naval siege, a military show of muscle or a comprehensive aerial assault on the Iranian nuclear program.

In reasonable times, reasonable people would dismiss this wild scenario out of hand. The American public is not in favor of opening a second front in the Middle East. The political establishment, the military establishment and the intelligence establishment are all worried. A combative move, even a semi-combative one, by a president who is about to leave office is an act without precedent and without legitimacy. It will be perceived as the final, delusional trumpet blast of a raving religious administration.

But the times are not reasonable ones, and the men involved are not reasonable men. The logic that guides Bush and Dick Cheney is one that Western public opinion and its shapers cannot always understand. That logic might lead the president and his second-in-command to the conclusion that if they do not act, neither will Obama. If Obama does not act, Iran will become a nuclear power. And if Iran goes nuclear, evil will win.
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Therefore, the dialogue that the present administration has with history might cause it to do what only few people believe it really will do. There is a genuine possibility that Bush will end his miserable presidency not with a whimper, but with a bang. The scenario is a wild one.

If John McCain is elected, it will be unnecessary. Obama has committed himself to preventing such a scenario, and if he is elected, the chances of its realization will lessen. The powers-that-be in Washington D.C. may also block the thwarting of Iran's nuclear power. Bush and Cheney may ultimately get cold feet, give it up and dissolve into oblivion.

This wild scenario, therefore, is low-probability. But low probability is not zero probability. When it comes to fateful issues, even unlikely possibilities need to be addressed.

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