Skipper

You would think that after blundering into Iraq, getting bogged down in a civil war though your own incompetence and then losing your legislative majority in your country's mid-term electoral verdict on your presidency, that Bush would shrink from getting into any further trouble. But, according to Dan Plesch, the well informed defence specialist, this is precisely what he is planning to do. His reading of the runes connected to troop and weapons deployments is that Bush contemplates a future military strike against Iran.

These deployments to the the Gulf include Patriot anti-missile missiles, an aircraft carrier and cruise missile firing ships, none of which have relevance to the Iraq war. Plesch writes:

Many military analysts see these deployments as signals of impending war with Iran.

...and concludes that the demise of the neo-cons advising the Texan has been called wrongly: they still have his ear.

The political context as seen from inside the White House and Downing St is that we are in a war as serious as the second world war...and there is every sign, to judge by his warmongering speech in Plymouth on Friday, that Tony Blair would be keen to join him[Bush]if he were still in a position to commit British troops to the field

The implications of such a move do really not bear thinking about. Iran is now the major power in the Middle East and, as the picture shows, close to Syria. Military action against Iran would merely draw us deeply into another unwinnable conflict and light the blue touch paper to a conflagration in the region which might presage something not so far removed from that second world war comparison Plesch mentions above. We must hope Bush is just seeking to deter Iran through a bluff but my feeling is that Ahmadinjehad seems not the type of politician to be easily fooled.