It seems the Bush administration has given up trying to convince Congress and the American people that Iran must be attacked because their nuclear program (currently under inspection by the IAEA) is an imminent threat to the US and its ally, Israel, requiring military action. So, they have shifted gears and gone to Plan B: a new marketing strategy to paint Iran as a supporter of "terrorists" in Iran who are killing American troops, thus requiring attacks on targets inside Iran as a "counterterrorism measure." This isn't merely my analysis, it's the basis of Sy Hersh's new article in The New Yorker this week:

In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran. “Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people,” Bush told the national convention of the American Legion in August. . . . He then concluded, to applause, “I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities.”ed. note: Who else?], requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. . . . Now the emphasis is on “surgical” strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism. [...]

During a secure videoconference that took place early this summer, the President told Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, that he was thinking of hitting Iranian targets across the border and that the British “were on board.” At that point, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice interjected that there was a need to proceed carefully, because of the ongoing diplomatic track. Bush ended by instructing Crocker to tell Iran to stop interfering in Iraq or it would face American retribution.

At a White House meeting with Cheney this summer, according to a former senior intelligence official, it was agreed that, if limited strikes on Iran were carried out, the Administration could fend off criticism by arguing that they were a defensive action to save soldiers in Iraq. . . . The former intelligence official added, “There is a desperate effort by Cheney et al. to bring military action to Iran as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, ‘You can’t do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we’re only one fact from going over the cliff in Iraq.’ But Cheney doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Republican worries, and neither does the President.”

Now the passage of that execrable Lieberman-Kyl amendment by the Senate last week, with the votes of all but 20 Democrats becomes clear. The Lieberman Kyl amendment essentially approved the President's own pending designation of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, and, if you recall, the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), passed back on September 18, 2001, specifically recognized that

[T]he President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States ...

This authority to protect Americans from "terrorists" was specifically recognized again in the AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE AGAINST IRAQ RESOLUTION OF 2002 in the following language:

Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force . . .

In short, by passing the Lieberman-Kyl amendment, the Senate has opened a door for Bush to walk through and attack Iran at his discretion, since the Senate has specifically called for the recognition of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, and Bush is now claiming that these same Revolutionary Guard units are aiding and abetting attacks on American troops in Iraq. The fact that many experts dispute these claims is of little consequence, since the American media continually fails to adequately report on evidence which casts doubt on Bush's claims (and those of his sycophants among the Pentagon brass) that Iran is responsible for most of the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq.

This also explains the open hostility of many in the Bush administration to Iran, as evidenced by the statement by Debra Cagan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to Defence Secretary Robert Gates (as reported in ask's recommended diary at Booman Tribune) to visiting British MP's that "I hate all Iranians." Clearly her attitude reflects the general zeitgeist within all levels the Bush administration, which after the fall of Saddam Hussein, and the utter failure of the Iraqi occupation, have now focused all their attention on Iran as the "next enemy" to be taken down, whatever the cost in lives, money or worldwide economic turmoil.

(cont.)