Sorry, no war with Iran any time soon

From WorldNetDaily:

The Pentagon has formulated a "three-day blitz" plan to annihilate Iran's military that targets 1,200 sites, including Tehran's nuclear facilities, in order to render its military incapable of conducting offensive, defensive or retaliatory missions.

According to the London Sunday Times, citing Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, the Pentagon has rejected a strategy of "pinprick strikes" against Iran's nuclear facilities.

"They're about taking out the entire Iranian military," Debat said. [. . .]

President Bush increased his rhetoric against Iran's nuclear program last week, saying Tehran had put the Mideast "under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust" and indicated action would be taken against the program "before it is too late."

According to a Times source close to the Bush administration, the president's recent statements were meant as "a message to a number of audiences" – Iran and the U.N. Security Council. [. . .]

Revelation of a plan for a three-day blitz to destroy Iran's fighting ability indicates the administration leans toward the use of rapid, overwhelming force if the military option is used.

"Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same," Debat said. Massive use of force was, he said, a "very legitimate strategic calculus."

Rick Moran at American Thinker calls this (the original London Times article) stroy The Left's Bullwinkle Gambit:

Cry Havoc! And let slip the dogs of war..." Except that President Bush has been talking that way about Iran for the past 5 years. And yes, we have received similar warnings from a variety of sources in that time that we were on the brink of war with Iran - at least according to the left.

But like Bullwinkle in the old Rocky and Bullwinkle skit where the talking moose tries to pull a rabbit out of his hat time and time again ("Nothin' up my sleeve...PRESTO! Ooops...wrong hat") the left laughably keeps coming up empty in their dire predictions about going to war with Iran. I have lost track of the number of times that I've read at Daily Kos that we are on the eve of Armageddon: [. . .]

A few months ago we had 3 aircraft carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf and the left went ballistic, believing war with Iran was hours away. It wasn't, of course, and it probably isn't now. But the fact that every rational leader in Europe and the developed world have said to one degree or another that the idea of Iran having a nuclear capability is unacceptable (including most recently, the President of France) should give our clueless friends on the left the idea that not taking an attack on Iran off the table - despite the enormous potential downside - is part of the language of diplomacy that we are carrying on with the mullahs in Tehran. We may eventually feel forced to attack the Iranians. We may not. But planning for the eventuality is only prudent and is also part of the diplomatic language we are exchanging with the Iranians.

I have been hearing that war with Iran is immanent from people on the right as well as those on the left. I agree with my friends on the right that taking out the lunatic regime in Tehran is the right thing to do. It is the morally and strategically correct thing to do, but it is not the politically correct thing to do.

The Republican and Democrat primaries are happening now and next year is a presidential general election. To begin a new war in the Middle East would cause the Left in America and Europe to explode. It would drag the Democrat Party much further to the left than it already is (yes, Virginia they aren't as far to the left as they could be) as congressmen and presidential candidates raced each other to the microphone to announce that Bush has gone over the edge and that America must completely withdraw from the Middle East before we start WWIII.

A large number of Republican legislators seem to be emotionally constructed to do only one thing well - cringe. Republican resistance to surrender in Iraq would collapse and all the tragic scenario of an American defeat in Iraq, from genocide to more 9/11 scale attacks on US soil, would begin to play out.

The president knows this. He is walking as fine a line as he can on the Iran issue. The only way we will attack Iran is after the election and only if the new president-elect signs off on the plan and we have Old Europe on board (which might happen given what the French are saying).