[Peace-discuss] Neocons vs. the permanent government

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Cheney Winning the Inside Battles Again
	By Steve Clemons - June 9, 2008, 10:36PM

Last September, I wrote a Salon.com article explaining the many reasons why 
despite neoconservative obsession with bombing Iran, President Bush would not do 
so. He had tacked a different direction.

Part of my case, though not all of it, rested on the fact that one of Vice 
President Cheney's staff members had allegedly told a private group in 
Washington that the VP himself was frustrated with the President's tilt towards 
Condi Rice, Bob Gates and others who emphasized a mix of diplomatic options over 
hard power gestures.

More recently, however, in the last six to eight weeks, many of my sources in 
the State Department, the White House, and the intelligence community tell me 
that the losers last summer and fall are winning again.

David Addington, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, is winning on virtually 
every battle he is fighting -- from not moving forward on new legal protocols 
that would be more internationally palatable on combat detainee rights to 
shelving the Law of the Seas Treaty ratification. But they say that the level of 
tension in the White House over Iran is also growing -- and the diplomatic game 
plan that before was dominant seems to have deteriorated significantly -- 
particularly since the departure of former Under Secretary of State for 
Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns and the firing of Admiral William Fallon.

I'm not saying that war or conflict with Iran is imminent. In fact, I don't 
think America, even under Bush, will strike Iran first -- but I do think that 
there is an increasing chance of a trigger event driving a fast escalation of 
higher and higher consequence military options. This trigger could be a mistaken 
signal, a ship collision, an event engineered by the Israelis, or by the IRGC Al 
Quds force, or by some other splinter terrorist operation wanting to exploit 
regional tensions and the current fragility of affairs.

We need to talk more about this. While I was not a great fan of Barack Obama's 
AIPAC speech last week with regard to Israel/Palestine, I did think that he 
focused in a constructive and important way on getting Iran policy right. He 
pinned the blame for lack of progress on Iran clearly on the inattention and 
wrong-headed strategy of the Bush administration -- and this kind of sensible 
analysis and willingness to make a strategic jump in a new direction is what we 
need now. We need to demystify this challenge and derail the intentions of some 
who they will try to force the next President of the United States into a no 
choice situation.

Whereas David Wurmser allegedly (though he does deny it) said that Vice 
President Cheney felt it important to "tie the President's hands" when it came 
to Iran and to generate an event that would undermine the diplomatic track -- 
the worry now is that the crowd in power is really talking about tying the next 
President's hands. . .tying perhaps Barack Obama's hands.

This really could be cooking -- and I think it's important for White House 
watchers to realize that the folks we thought had knocked back the neocons are 
themselves losing leverage again.

Obama and his team need to speak to this, to demystify it, and to make sure that 
America does not find itself tripping into an accidental war that really was no 
accident.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note