Bush 'certain' that Iran supplied weapons to Shia

Bush continued the blame game regarding Iran yesterday in his first press conference since anonymous briefers laid the blame at Iran's door for the deaths of US soldiers in Iraq.

However, since General Pace has made it abundantly clear that he has no intention of playing the Colin Powell role by stating that he cannot with certainty say that the Iranian government are involved, Bush has been forced to modify his stance. Although he claims to be "certain" that the weapons were provided by the al-Quds force, he had to pull back and admit that he could not with certainty say that the shipments had been approved "at the highest levels" in Tehran.

However, he did slip in this little beauty:

"My point is, what's worse, them ordering it and it happening, or them not ordering it and it happening?"

I would argue that the former is worse as that implies complicity and, therefore, blame. I notice that Bush's question attempts to imply that there is no difference between the two positions as the end result is the same.

This is Bush's "damned if they do and damned if they don't" attitude towards Iran, although it's noticeable that he and his neo-con buddies are having far less success selling any possible intervention towards Iran then they had selling their Iraqi invasion four years ago. Bush was forced to say that the idea that his administration was manufacturing intelligence was "preposterous", ignoring the fact that this is precisely what they did to ensure the Iraq invasion four years ago.

Tony Snow's recent press conference bordered on embarrassment as he was forced by repeated questioning to refine his/the government's position vis a vis Iran.

What [Pace] was thinking is, are you trying to lay this at the feet of members of the Supreme Governing Council; are you trying to lay this at the feet of particular individuals? The answer is, no, we don't have the intelligence that makes it that specific.

Now, of course, that is precisely what the secret briefers attempted to claim, that the orders to dispense these weapons came "on orders from the 'highest levels' of the Iranian government."

So Snow's climb-down was quite a large one although, like Bush at his Press conference, I notice that Snow also provided the rejoinder:

MR. SNOW: Again, let me just — here's your rhetorical question: What's more frightening, the notion that they are freelancing or that they're not?

This is simply a variation of Bush's argument that it matters not a jot whether the government are directly involved as they're guilty no matter what.

So the administration is continuing attempts to ratchet up the tensions regarding Iran, whilst simultaneously claiming that any implication that they are looking for war is preposterous.

It was fascinating to watch Snow's press conference because we saw the Washington press core engaging in the kind of questioning that was totally absent before the Iraq war. And it was interesting to note that, under this kind of questioning, Snow's argument basically fell apart.

He was left indulging in the same argument that Bush was left to indulge in. "Does it matter whether or not the Iranian government knew?" As I said at the start of this piece, it matters hugely whether or not the Iranian government knew as, if they knew, then we have complicity and, therefore, guilt. If they didn't, then you have bugger all against them.

The administration is now left arguing that it doesn't matter whether or not the Iranians are guilty as troops are being killed anyway. That's not a very convincing argument and one could almost hear it dying on Bush's lips as he made it.

So there are two things that make this situation different from the build up to the Iraq conflict. Number one is that the Press seem to suddenly have the balls to ask questions that make the administration uncomfortable and number two is that General Pace seems unwilling to play the Colin Powell role of faithful soldier.

Neither of those things on their own may prove enough to hold back Bush and his cohorts from launching missile attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, but together they have certainly made doing so more difficult politically.

It's almost enough to make one wonder, "what would have happened had the press and Powell behaved differently before the Iraq war?"

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tag: Bush, Iraq war, neo-cons, Iran, Ahmadinejad, surge and accelerate