Bloglines - http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_digbysblog_archive.html#115282752441633846

Hullabaloo "We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true. But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube. You eat like the tube. You even think like the tube. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion." Howard Beale

Danger Spreading? by digby Arthur Silber has been bellowing about Iran for some time now, convinced (as is Seymour Hersh) that the administration is really quite serious about attacking. (Whether or not forces within the administration or the military gather to prevent this is an open question.) Today, Arthur homes in on the question of this latest somewhat inexplicable actions by Israel and how it may relate to this plan. He quotes Drudge's latest screaming headline: Israel has information that Lebanese guerrillas who captured two Israeli soldiers are trying to transfer them to Iran, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said. Spokesman Mark Regev did not disclose the source of his information. Arthur comments here. I do not have adequate tin foil today to comprehend the full spectrum of issues. But let me just say that I would not find it suprising for the Bush administration hard liners to work in concert with the Israeli hard-liners to gin up a crisis that ends up "requiring" action against Iran. It is to the political advantage of both groups to do so. I certainly don't know that this has happened but from watching this administration operate for the past six years I do know that it could happen. And that's scary enough. Certainly, it's quite odd that the US seems to be simply sitting on the sidelines diplomatically and throwing ill-advised potshots from the sidelines. Arthur quotes this passage from an article by Jim Lobe: "The combination of our own diplomatic disengagement, our blaming Syria and Iran, and our giving the Israelis a green light [for their military campaign] has inflamed the entire region," according to Clay Swisher, a former State Department Middle East expert and author of the Truth About Camp David, who just returned from Lebanon last week. It's always likely that this sort of thing is just typical Bushian incompetence. But I would never discount the idea that there is a wrongheaded Cheneyesque plot behind it as well. There often is. Matt Yglesias also discusses this a bit yesterday in a TAPPED post, quoting from a Yossi Klein Halevi essay that claims this is all part of a plan for Israel to finally destroy Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. Matt wryly observes: Let me just go on the record as saying that as bad an idea as bombing Iran may be, doing so as part of a wildly impractical scheme for Israel to launch a general Middle Eastern war is significantly less appealing. Meanwhile, I totally understand why establishment liberal foreign policy types don't like to talk about Israel, but things are getting to the point where I don't think total silence in the face of dramatic goings-on is very viable. No kidding. What the hell is going on? . Permalink