Just as Easter eggs appear in the shops on Boxing Day; just as we can expect the first Christmas tinsel to appear in shops any time from August, so the first faint drumbeats of war against some imperial outpost can be heard further and further ahead of the actual outbreak of hostilities. Afghanistan had only a few weeks after 9/11 before its citizens experienced shock and awe; if we take Bush’s State of the Union “Axis of Evil” address in January 2002 as the public starting-gun for the Iraq bloodbath (although of course the unpleasantness between the Bush dynasty and Iraq goes back years, if not decades previously), we can say that that phoney war lasted 15 months; sabre-rattling against Iran, which again goes back to the mid-20th century, in its recent form can probably be timed from 2004. So it was interesting to note this week, not one but two straws in the wind which may be interpreted as softening public opinion up for a new enemy even before the empire’s bombs hit Tehran – namely Pakistan.
The first was Billy Krystol’s otherwise ridiculous Washington Post article – now outnumbered by no less than 261 pages of reader comments, almost universally hostile – in which, nestled amid the deluded paean to the “success” of W’s “presidency”, was this gem:
“Western Pakistan, where President Pervez Musharraf’s deals with the Taliban are apparently creating something like havens for terrorists, is an increasing problem. That’s why our intelligence agencies are worried about a resurgent al-Qaeda — because al-Qaeda may once again have a place where it can plan, organize and train. These Waziristan havens may well have to be dealt with in the near future. I assume Bush will deal with them, using some combination of air strikes and special operations.”
On past performance, what Billy “assumes” has an alarming habit, as Arianna Huffington reminds us, of becoming policy in the Cheney White House.
On now to Wednesday’s Guardian, where a Roger Howard (“He has written widely for newspapers and journals ranging from the Daily Mail and Daily Express to the National Interest and the RUSI Journal.” – that Roger Howard), in a piece titled, without irony, Alternative Realities, warns that the potential threat to US interests posed by”Islamist” opposition to Washington’s buddy, General Musharraf, is too great for Cheney to be distracted by Iraq, and a more urgent case for treatment than Iran:
“But the scenario in question is in fact not Iran, but Pakistan. Nearly a decade has passed since the Pakistanis crossed the nuclear threshold, and in that time radical Islam there has grown in stature considerably. Above all, its sympathisers have built up strong links within key sectors of the military, prompting some commentators to warn that the prospects of an Islamist-inspired military coup against President Musharraf are now very real.”
Bush has about 18 months left in the White House. This all sounds a lot like drawing up his to-do list before the removal men arrive.
