The War Criminals Are Planning Their Next War Crime

Warning lights are flashing: a special, all-Think Progress link collection.

• June 5: Rush Limbaugh thinks Bush will attack Iran before he leaves office.

• June 5: Daniel Pipes thinks Bush will attack Iran if Obama wins.

• June 4: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert urges Bush to attack Iran before he leaves office.

• May: John Bolton thinks Bush will attack Iran before he leaves office.

• Last Year: Norman Podhoretz thinks Bush will attack Iran before he leaves office.

We don't know if this will happen or not. It's quite possible no decision has been made yet. But anyone who thinks this isn't possible because it's too crazy, or the NIE report means it can't happen, or because only seven percent of the public would approve, is underestimating the crazy radicalness of this administration. Basically, if you think they "can't" attack Iran, you're making the same mistake that all those pundits made in December 2000 when they declared that the nature of Bush's assumption of power meant that he'd "have" to govern like a moderate.

These people know no rules. They have announced that the Presidency is, essentially, an elected dictatorship. They think history will vindicate them on Iraq even now -- if, say, in sixty years it's a peaceful democracy.

(Oh, and by the way, Obama's echoing of Bush's Iran warmongering? Not helping. I don't know if he means it or if he's just pandering: but at the moment (until January 20) the latter is just as dangerous as the former, since it creates a climate conducive to aggressive war.)

I don't know what we could do to stop them. I think it's quite possible that there is nothing we can do. (It's certainly worth giving Arthur Silber's suggestions a try, though.) But if there is anything, we should do it.

Call your congresscritters. Tell them to pass, now, a resolution declaring that attacking Iran without specific, direct congressional approval would be an impeachable offense.

And talk about it. The fact that people think it can't possibly happen is one of the things making it more likely -- more possible.

It would be a crime of almost unimaginable magnitude; it would have ruinous consequences, for our country and for the world.

Let's try to act now. Before it's too late, and the bombs begin to fall.

(Oh, and by the way? If they get their way, we are never leaving Iraq.)

Update: June 9: Steve Clemons is worried not about a direct attack, but about "an increasing chance of a trigger event driving a fast escalation of higher and higher consequence military options." And he's been in the "don't worry" camp until fairly recently.