After 46 posts it seems to me that we need to change course a bit. Here is a different point of view- I hope.
Most of us agree on these things:

-Bush is nuts.

-Cheney is probably driving.

-Bush is useful, if you need a mouthpiece.

-There have been a lot of moves that could be either sabre rattling or serious attack signs- like that foam around the mouth of the Dobie next door.

Not so easily agreed upon items:
-
-The events of 9/11 were a grand gift from hell for the Straussian neocons, who had failed generally to make their agenda the central one, though they have been trying since the Reagan administration.

-The Neocons are far from gone- they have in fact made a miraculous recovery from the failure of their every policy initiative and the collapse of every revealed truth of the Straussian theology. There is no opposition theology, no game but politics, except the Christian Right, and they are the archetypal "useful dupes". And beginning to realize it.

-Plan "B" and the poor surgistas are in fact the creation of the neocons who remain very much central to the policy chain of command.

-Bill Moyers speaks of the US needing a new story, and he's right. The Neocons have substituted a tale of terror and it's concomitant acquiescence to tyranny for the more traditional vision of ourselves that we used to hold dear. That old story may have been pretty thin stuff (if we were winning in Iraq we would not be having this discussion, torture be damned), but it was ours, and we loved it. Shame we let the Neocons write the script, but we did.

ThatBritGuy points out that to search for logic in a madhouse is a thankless task (my paraphrase), but I maintain logic aint even involved here- they are just making up a new story for us to chew on, --one that they think will trump all the bad shit- rather like burying bad news coming out on a Friday with a juicy  scandal, or the world dickdunking championships.
My belief is that this is real, folks- if it looks like it will fly.
It does not even have to succeed militarily. It just has to justify the "endless war". The golden rewards of 9/11 for the neocons are not forgotten, and scruples are not likely to play much of a role.  

There is really nothing left to Cheney but this. His health is failing and he will not get another chance. There are a lot of bits that fit a martial law scenario, from the alterations in the chain of command to the fact that there is not a single usurpation of power that Bush/Cheney has attempted that has not succeeded. Not one. And in any case, the Democratic congress has not even acknowledged this fact, let alone made a realistic plan to roll back the massive shift of power. I think they- and a lot of us- are in denial. The American pastime seems to be to hide from unpleasant realities.

Is THIS to be our new story, folks?

-We goad Iran into something really, really stupid. Seems easy enough, given their current leadership.

-We (or Israel, 's all the same) bomb the crap out of them,

-They retaliate in the many ways available to them that have been so thoroughly discussed by the real experts.

-We cast ourselves as the only force that can stem the tide of terror in the Straits or the gulf, and keep the refineries huffing and puffing (and, by that moment, it might even be true), and Tony Blair's mouth moves in perfect synchronization to the cassette tape in his head- the one the boys from Bushland made for him.

By that time, it will be closer to the election, and a whole new political ball game will emerge. The GOP sure needs a new ball game. I think they are about to get one. Fox will love it, the Dems will rave ineffectively, the draft will become a moral obligation, Fox will cover Brittany spears' new carbuncle, interspersed with patriotic ravings and Arabhate and liberalhate masquerading as journalism--

It's not the logic or absence thereof. It's the story.

I think that as a tactic to win in '08 it will fail--- but that's logic speaking.

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