Split Personality

There's official noise from the Poppy/ Gates/ Baker/ Condi faction of the Company that maybe we can talk our way past Cheneyburton's heat to git th' Iran On.

On the other hand, that old CIA proxy known as the Israeli government is still pretty much in Cheneyburton's pocket.

It's the opinion of many that's it's all a bluff that Israel won't go through with, but as Laura Rozen points out, they're working out the logistics already.

But back to the Company piece in the New York Pravda earlier today. You have to read it to believe the insanity. It begins so:

Israel will almost surely attack Iran’s nuclear sites in the next four to seven months — and the leaders in Washington and even Tehran should hope that the attack will be successful enough to cause at least a significant delay in the Iranian production schedule, if not complete destruction, of that country’s nuclear program. Because if the attack fails, the Middle East will almost certainly face a nuclear war — either through a subsequent pre-emptive Israeli nuclear strike or a nuclear exchange shortly after Iran gets the bomb...

Scared yet? You're supposed to be. This mayhem comes from one source even though we're told it's Israeli in origin: it comes from Darth Cheney himself.

The tragedy is, the Israeli neocons think they thought it up all by themselves.

It ends so:

...Iran’s leaders would do well to rethink their gamble and suspend their nuclear program. Bar this, the best they could hope for is that Israel’s conventional air assault will destroy their nuclear facilities. To be sure, this would mean thousands of Iranian casualties and international humiliation. But the alternative is an Iran turned into a nuclear wasteland. Some Iranians may believe that this is a worthwhile gamble if the prospect is Israel’s demise. But most Iranians probably don’t.

That's the kind of bluff that Someone is bound to call.

Make no mistake: if Israel makes a nuclear wasteland of Iran, the rest of the world will soon follow.

People realize it, even if the Sith Lords like to pretend otherwise.

This is the principal mistake of the Neocon, whether it's Cheney or his minions here or abroad. Global nuclear war is really bad for business. That kind of sloppy Company management won't be tolerated by the Board. They don't like bluffs that get called, especially ones that fail to make money.