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Kong - A Line
by: Foiled Goil
Kristol: Bush Might Bomb Iran
If He ‘Thinks Senator Obama’s Going To Win’
On Fox News Sunday this morning, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said that President Bush is more likely to attack Iran if he believes Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is going to be elected.
However, “if the president thought John McCain was going to be the next president, he would think it more appropriate to let the next president make that decision than do it on his way out,” Kristol said, reinforcing the fact that McCain is offering a third Bush term on Iran.
Watch it here.
The claim that Obama’s potential election could force Bush’s hand also isn’t new. Earlier this month, far-right pseudo scholar Daniel Pipes told National Review Online that “President Bush will do something” if the Democratic nominee won. “Should it be Mr. McCain that wins, he’ll punt,” said Pipes.
Both Kristol and Pipes apparently agree with President Bush’s claim in March that McCain’s “not going to change” his foreign policy.
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Bolton: Israel Will Attack Iran After U.S. Election
But Before Inauguration, Arab States Will Be ‘Delighted’
This morning on Fox News, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton continued his drumbeat for war against Iran. Adopting Bill Kristol’s argument, Bolton suggested that an attack on Iran depends on who Americans elect as the next President:
I think if they [Israel] are to do anything, the most likely period is after our elections and before the inauguration of the next President. I don’t think they will do anything before our election because they don’t want to affect it. And they’d have to make a judgment whether to go during the remainder of President Bush’s term in office or wait for his successor.Watch it here.
Bolton has said he is backing John McCain because he would handle the Iranian nuclear program in a “stronger” way than the Bush administration.
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Bolton Backs McCain
Because He Is ‘Stronger’ Than Bush On Iran
Speaking at CPAC today, notorious Iran war hawk John Bolton emphasized his support for McCain, saying McCain proved he is “stronger” than the Bush administration with the senator’s statement on Iran. Bolton claims Bush is too “moderate” and has a foreign policy in “freefall” because he has yet to bomb Iran:
I think Senator McCain’s statement here yesterday on how he would handle the Iranian program is stronger than the current Bush administration policy. And thank goodness, because the Bush administration policy now lies on the ocean floor. … I didn’t think the policy the administration was pursuing was robust enough.Watch it here.
Echoing Bolton, this morning, McCain revealed that he was “skeptical” of the recent National Intelligence Estimate, which said that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons production in 2003. “I continue to worry about…Persian domination of the region,” he said.
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U.S. Says Israeli Exercise Seemed Directed at Iran
NYT:
Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Several American officials said the Israeli exercise appeared to be an effort to develop the military’s capacity to carry out long-range strikes and to demonstrate the seriousness with which Israel views Iran’s nuclear program.[snip]
But the scope of the Israeli exercise virtually guaranteed that it would be noticed by American and other foreign intelligence agencies. A senior Pentagon official who has been briefed on the exercise, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the political delicacy of the matter, said the exercise appeared to serve multiple purposes.
One Israeli goal, the Pentagon official said, was to practice flight tactics, aerial refueling and all other details of a possible strike against Iran’s nuclear installations and its long-range conventional missiles.
A second, the official said, was to send a clear message to the United States and other countries that Israel was prepared to act militarily if diplomatic efforts to stop Iran from producing bomb-grade uranium continued to falter.
“They wanted us to know, they wanted the Europeans to know, and they wanted the Iranians to know,” the Pentagon official said. “There’s a lot of signaling going on at different levels.”
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Congress set to Approve IraN War Resolution.
The insanity continues.
Over the last three weeks 77 House Democrats and 92 Republicans have agreed to cosponsor a new resolution against Iran that demands that President Bush "initiate an international effort" to impose a land, sea, and air blockade on Iran to prevent it from importing gasoline and to inspect all cargo entering or leaving Iran.
Such a blockade imposed without United Nations authority (which the resolution does not call for) would be widely construed as an act of war. Some congressional sources say the House could vote on the resolution, H.Con.Res. 362, as early as next week.
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H. Con. Res. 362:
Expressing the sense of Congress regarding the threat posed to international peace, stability in the Middle East, and the vital national security interests of the United States by Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and regional hegemony, and for other purposes.Text of H. Con. Res. 362
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"I am amazed (read: stunned) and I know not what to say." 
