Follows is the video of Bush's Cleveland speech of March 20, 2006. at 40 minutes and 11 seconds into the video clip Bush says: "the threat from Iran, is of course (is) their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel. That's a threat. a serious threat, its a threat to world peace, it's a threat in essence to a strong alliance. I made it clear, and I'll make it clear again: that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel. " http://www.wkyc.com/video/player.aspx?aid=21089&bw= I'm thinking its pretty darn likely--and I know I'm not the only one--that the main objective of this sudden Lebanon warfare, is to simply provide the pretext for a greater conflict against Iran. Now we have the situation in which war against Iran can be classified more apparently as "defense" military action meant to stop the puppest masters and arm-ers of Hezbollah. Without such pretext, Bush would have to take on the role of aggressor and has to replay his pre-invasion Iraqi script without another fresh September 11 . I really thought this confrontation was a year and a half away, but events on the ground seem to point to timing a wartime popularity boost for Bush--and I'm sure he hopes republicans-- for this years election.
I agree. US intervention will come on the pretext of 'preventing a wider escalation of the conflict'. Brilliant move, really. Afterall, few people would have had the stomach for a new round of breathless 'imminent WMD' reports, this time Iranian.