War with Iran

Yes, Iran, not Iraq.

I don't really have time to do an exhaustive post about why I'm feeling so morose and fearful this morning, but I'll give you some clues.

In some of his sharpest words of warning to Iran, Mr. Bush accused the Iranian government of “providing material support for attacks on American troops” and vowed to “seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies.”

He left deliberately vague the question of whether those operations would be limited to Iraq or conducted elsewhere, and said he had ordered the deployment of a new aircraft carrier strike group to the region, where it is in easy reach of Iranian territory.

While Mr. Bush has previously vowed to work diplomatically, largely inside the United Nations to stop Iran’s nuclear program, in this speech he said nothing about diplomacy.

--New York Times

Meanwhile, there is already an existing aircraft carrier group within reach of Iranian territory, some of whom can't steer straight:

Tuesday, January 9, 2007 (Tokyo):

The Japanese Transport Minister is demanding more information after a US nuclear-powered submarine collided with a Japanese oil tanker near the busy shipping lanes of the Straits of Hormuz on Monday night.

Speaking on Tuesday, Tetsuzo Fuyushiba said he was pleased to hear that no-one had been seriously hurt in the incident, but said he wanted to know more about what happened.

Then I heard about this on the radio the morning after Bush's speech:

US forces have stormed an Iranian consulate in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil and seized six members of staff.

The troops raided the building at about 0300 (0001GMT), taking away computers and papers, according to Kurdish media and senior local officials.

The US military would only confirm the detention of six people around Irbil.

Tehran said the attack violated all international conventions. It has summoned ambassadors from Switzerland, representing US interests, and Iraq.

Now the idea of a shootin' war with Iran sounds crazy, and would be a real escalation that no one could dispute. But that's the perspective of someone who lives on this planet, not the one that Mr. Bush was describing last night, where there is an Iraqi government that can make commitments worth placing American lives on, and where our enemy in Iraq is a unified al Qaeda-allied extremism, not a complex collection of tribal, religious and nationalist factions all after their own seperate agendas and power. In other words, I don't trust the man I heard last night to understand why he shouldn't just carry on the single unified War on Terra' he's been fighting into yet another venue that seems completely insane to those of us who are actually paying attention.

Glenn Greenwald has an even more extensive and depressing list of reasons to worry.