The Sanford Project

The recent Iranian elections resulted in victory for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - a man who's alternately described as a "conservative", "hardliner", "fundamentalist", or any combination of the preceding three words. Most sane people consider this to be Not A Good Thing. Ideally, sane people would like to see the Middle East moving away - not towards - fundamentalism.

A few weeks ago, blogger (and sometime Miblog Weighs a Ton commenter) Billmon raised an interesting point: "Given the level of hatred for America in the Islamic world now, the best way for Bush to promote reform would probably be to oppose it." I certainly had Billmon's words in my mind when I read about Bush weighing in on the Iranian elections. Why did he go out of his way to make a statement on the Iranian elections? Didn't he realize the easily foreseeable effect his comments would have?:

But harsh statements by President Bush on Thursday, denouncing Iran's elections as a sham because unelected clerics would continue to wield most of the power, allowed them to go on the offensive.

Iran's television and radio networks, run by the conservative leaders, repeatedly broadcast the U.S. pronouncements and urged voters to strike out at Bush by going to the polls.

Nearly two-thirds of the eligible 46.8 million voters responded, giving the clerics the public affirmation they sought. Interior Ministry spokesman Johanbaksh Khanjani told reporters that turnout in some provinces was higher than 80 percent.

"You... through your wise and large presence made Bush's insults backfire and showed your firm interest in the country's independence, defense of Islam, and Islamic democracy," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, said in a statement carried by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

As big of a moron as I think Bush is, he and his handlers (well, mostly his handlers) had to realize the effect his comments would have. So that raises a new question: Why did Bush want Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to win?

The only reason I can come up with is this: the crazy fucker (Bush, not Ahmadinejad) wants to "do" Iran. As Iraq increasingly becomes a disaster, I've kept telling myself, "there's no way Bush is that crazy/stupid that he'd try and invade Iran." The writing is certainly on the wall.

1. Neocons have been clamoring for the invasion of Iran for years. As they're fond to say, "real men want to go to Tehran."
2. Throw them in the "Axis of Evil" for shits and giggles.
3. Insist that Iran has an illegal nuclear weapons program. Provide no hard evidence, but repeat ad nauseum until it becomes the conventional wisdom.
4. Refuse to take part in any diplomatic efforts to resolve said nuclear weapon "problem".
5. Ensure the election of a hardline fundamentalist by denouncing the elections.
6. Demonize the leader you just helped elect by brining out allegations (that were certainly known well-before Bush helped him get elected) that he was involved in the 1979 hostage crisis.

The skids are being greased. And according to some reporting, the invasion has already begun. Back in January, Seymour Hersh reported that the US has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to target suspected weapons' sites. US aircraft have been violating Iranian airspace in a search for targets as well. Scott Ritter (you'll remember him as the weapons inspector who was 100% right about Iraq's weapons capabilities, yet still slimed as a whacko by the mainstream media) reports that, "To the north, in neighbouring Azerbaijan, the US military is preparing a base of operations for a massive military presence that will foretell a major land-based campaign designed to capture Tehran." Why use Azerbaijan when US forces already surrounds Iran to both the east and the west? "American military aircraft, operating from forward bases in Azerbaijan, will have a much shorter distance to fly when striking targets in and around Tehran." And if you don't trust Hersh, the limeys, or Scott Ritter, how about former Pentagon official, journalist, and president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Leslie Gelb? Gelb just returned from Iraq, where he was evaluating US efforts to train the new Iraqi army. Here's what he had to say:

"It became very apparent to me that these 10 divisions were to fight some future war against Iran. It had nothing to do, nothing to do," with taking Iraq over from the Americans and fighting the insurgents.

Readers (reader? anyone out there?), I ask: am I being crazy for noticing that we're following nearly the exact same steps we took to invade Iraq? Or is it the Bush administration that's crazy for pushing for another senseless war?