Cheney's Plan to Get McCain Elected and Bomb Iran
If Obama winds up losing after having posted a seemingly solid polling lead I would be inclined to ascribe it less to latent racism than to the conveniently timed dust-up in Georgia engineered by his Grey Eminence, who promptly flew out to embrace Mikheil Saakashvili, the president of Georgia; promise $1 billion in aid (to be delivered provocatively by U.S. warships sailing past Russia's Black Sea fleet) and denounce Russia before an international conference in Italy.
It gets deeper and darker, with veteran Washington Times and UPI editor at large, Arnaud de Borchgrave reporting in The Middle East Times on September 2, 2008:
"In a secret agreement between Israel and Georgia, two military airfields in southern Georgia had been earmarked for the use of Israeli fighter-bombers in the event of pre-emptive attacks against Iranian nuclear installations. This would sharply reduce the distance Israeli fighter-bombers would have to fly to hit targets in Iran. And to reach Georgian airstrips, the Israeli air force would fly over Turkey.” http://www.metimes.com/Security/2008/09/02commentary_israel_of_the_caucasus/f5e1/
Lending credence to this hypothesis is the following report by Arie Egozi writing in Yedioth Internet: “For past seven years, Israeli companies have been helping Georgian army to prepare for war against Russia through arms deals, training of infantry units and security advice.” August 10, 2008. http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3580136,00.html According to de Borchgrave, "U.S. grants facilitated" the Georgian purchases of Israeli arms.
In short, in exchange for U.S.-funded Israeli weapons and training, Mr. Saakashvilli (Mr. Cheney’s great and good friend and member in good standing of the “coalition of the willing” in Iraq), has cleared the way for Israel to carry out Cheney’s (and McCain’s) fond desire to bomb Iran.
Needless to say, such incidents play to McCain's political advantage, since he is seen as the stronger of the two candidates on international military crises. He, of course, immediately jumped on the bandwagon declaring, in a pale imitation of JFK, "We are all Georgians."
This chain of events — getting McCain elected and clearing a path for Israeli bombers to Iran -- seems calculated to ensure the continuity of the Bush/Cheney pathway to all-out war in the Middle East.
Vladimir Putin correctly saw through this charade. “The suspicion would arise that someone in the United States created this conflict on purpose to stir up the situation and to create an advantage for one of the candidates in the competitive race for the presidency in the United States,” Mr. Putin said in an interview with CNN. He added, “They needed a small victorious war.” (NYT Aug 29, 2008)
What Putin didn’t say was that, according to de Borchgrave: "The attack ordered by Saakashvili against South Ossetia the night of Aug. 7 provided the Russians the pretext for Moscow to order Special Forces to raid these Israeli facilities where some Israeli drones were reported captured. . . . whether the IAF can still count on those air bases to launch bombing missions against Iran's nuke facilities is now in doubt."
To the extent that the Russians have disrupted the Israeli pathway to Iran through Georgia, the Russians are foiling Messrs. Bush and Cheney’s ambitions to escalate to all-out war in the Middle East. Who knew?
Even so, the plan may well serve the Bush/Cheney administration’s intention of getting McCain elected.