Wednesday, September 12, 2007

US Administration Gives Fox News Its Marching Orders On Iran

The Administration today revealed to Fox News how it wishes to frame the debate over going to war with Iran. Instead of debating whether to go to war or not, the Administration wants to frame the debate as a question of whether to blockade Iran or bomb it into the stone age:

[A]ccording to a well-placed Bush administration source, "everyone in town" is now participating in a broad discussion about the costs and benefits of military action against Iran, with the likely timeframe for any such course of action being over the next eight to 10 months, after the presidential primaries have probably been decided, but well before the November 2008 elections.

The discussions are now focused on two basic options: less invasive scenarios under which the U.S. might blockade Iranian imports of gasoline or exports of oil, actions generally thought to exact too high a cost on the Iranian people but not enough on the regime in Tehran; and full-scale aerial bombardment.

My guess is Fox News can be relied on to go along with the Administration by increasingly presenting the issue of war with Iran as not a matter of "whether" but of "how". If history is any guide, the rest of the mega-media will fall in line sooner or later -- including such purported bastions of liberal thinking as The New York Times and the major networks.

It's a very clever move on the part of the Administration that obviously hopes to eliminate or marginalize the most sane option -- no war -- at the very start of the debate.


Reference:

US Officials Begin Crafting Iran Bombing Plan

Related Reference:

Only Impeachment Can Stop Him

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

We need to get this freakin' administration OUT;
and hope the next guys in are only half as bad.

Paul Sunstone said...

My sentiments exactly!

Anonymous said...

The purpose of such debating would seem to only to make Iran nervous and defensive.

Webs said...

This just gives me another reason to get the hell out of this country. Seriously, the US is screwing up and it scares me. People seem to apathetic to care about what the administration is doing. Going to war with Iran? Are you kidding? It's the wackiest idea ever! What is there to gain?

I don't understand why as a country we feel it's more prudent to go into a country like Iran, than it is to take time, money and energy to fix third world countries like Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and others. The countries with no economy, high inflation, and high social class divide seem more likely to produce terrorists than countries like Iran. Iran may have a wacky president, but at least the people of Iran can be well educated if they choose.

Apparently ideology didn't attack us on 9/11. It was Muslims. I just keep forgetting that.