ML,

First of all, Bush has been publicly talking about a military blockade of the Straits of Hormuz. That is, by international law, and offensive military action. Second, if it is Israel that first bombs al Quds headquarters or suspected nuclear facilities, few in this country would doubt that they were doing it as our surrogate, with full exhoration by Bush and Cheney. Certainly Iran and the entire Islamic world will see any attack by Israel as a surrogate attack for the United States, so the effect will be to put the U.S. and Iran on a full war footing. All Iran has to do is sink one oil tanker in the Straits, and the skyrocketing marine insurance rate will most likely give us $500/bbl oil prices almost overnight.

As for Cheney, he never gives up looking for a cassus belli for attacking any of the countries on his original list, as specified by Rumsfeld’s memo of 9/30/2001. In addition to Iraq, they specified Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya, and Somalia. We are currently fighting a low-intensity covert action in both Iran and Somalia, so things are moving forward in Cheney’s and PNAC’s plans.

Cheney tried the nuclear threat (but was blocked by the delayed release of the NIE), the EFD threat (but couldn’t produce concrete evidence), the arming of Iraqi militias (though the one militia Iraq has been most involved in arming and training for decades is the Badr Brigade, who wear the Iraqi Security forces uniform and are controlled from within the Green Zone by Maliki’s chief supporter Abdul Aziz al-Hakim), and anything else he thinks will gin up our hatred and fear for Iran.

If it looks like McCain (the new horse for the neoconcservative dominionists now that Bush is a swayback) isn’t going to win the election, I wouldn’t even be totally surprised to see some sort of “terrorist threat or attack” against the U.S. or “aggressive action” against Iraq become the pretext for a U.S. bombing attack on Iran, followed by a declaration of martial law in America and a “postponement” of the election.

After all, Cheney and the rest of the PNAC crew know that if Obama wins, their last chance to invade Iran and neutralize it as a potential threat against Israel is over.