In fact, the Pentagon has long mapped out its targets, including “secondary targets,” usually civilian airports, radio and TV installations, telecommunications centers, government buildings, conventional power plants, water and waste treatment plants, highways and bridges, and rail lines. In Iraq (twice) this sort of “targeting” resulted in massive suffering and death (coupled with sanctions after the first Bush Iraq Invasion, more than a million Iraqis died of starvation and disease, a stunning crime against humanity).

These criminal strategists, basically no different than the German Wehrmacht strategists who planned Operation Barbarossa, “are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic’s nuclear bomb ambitions.” Of course, this “diplomatic offensive” is designed to fail, as the “diplomatic offensive” prior to the Iraqi invasion failed (and the “diplomatic offensive” in Afghanistan failed, even though the Taliban were ready to turn over Osama bin Laden, if only the Americans were able to provide evidence of his complicity in nine eleven, something the Americans were unable and unwilling to do because they did not have compelling evidence and, besides, they had planned to invade Afghanistan well before nine eleven, as plenty of evidence attests).

“This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment,” a senior Pentagon adviser told the Telegraph. “This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months.”

Indeed, the shock and awe dismemberment of Iranian society is considered more “than just the standard military contingency assessment,” as the PNAC Straussian neocons have long told us. It has “taken on much greater urgency in recent months” because the Bush administration, a front for the Straussian neocon nihilists, is winding down and it will take months to obliterate Iranian culture and civil society. Moreover, the neocons need to fit in Syria, at minimum—they would prefer to do Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, but this is obviously too ambitious, that is unless they can figure out a way to keep Bush in office.

“The prospect of military action could put Washington at odds with Britain which fears that an attack would spark violence across the Middle East, reprisals in the West and may not cripple Teheran’s nuclear program. But the steady flow of disclosures about Iran’s secret nuclear operations and the virulent anti-Israeli threats of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has prompted the fresh assessment of military options by Washington. The most likely strategy would involve aerial bombardment by long-distance B2 bombers, each armed with up to 40,000lb of precision weapons, including the latest bunker-busting devices. They would fly from bases in Missouri with mid-air refuelling.”

Nonsense, Tony Blair is fully onboard with the plan to reduce the Middle East to a simmering cauldron of violence and dead, mutilated bodies. Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al, are ecstatic over Ahmadinejad’s highly suspect anti-Semitic (or rather, anti-Ashkenazi, since the majority of Jews in Israel are white Europeans and not Semites) declarations, leading more than a few people to believe he is a Mossad agent or has an as of yet unknown reason for egging on the Israelis and Americans. Either way, Ahmadinejad is courting disaster.

As former CIA intelligence analyst Philip Giraldi told the American Conservative last July, the United States plans to nuke the be-jesus out of Iran. “The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons.” All of this despite the fact Iran is a non-nuclear country, a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and working with the IAEA, although the latter reported Iran to the UN Security Council last week. So itchy is the Pentagon to use nukes against non-nuke countries, they wrote the “policy” in their “Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations” (pdf doc).

“Senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, [said] Mr. Bush is expected to be faced by the decision [to criminally bomb Iran] within two years.” More balderdash—the United States plans to bomb Iran next month, or soon thereafter. It wants Iran wasted sooner before later. Last week Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal Democrats in Russia, told the Ekho Moskvy radio station “that the Muslim [cartoon] riots were orchestrated by the US to garner European backing for the military strike” and the “war is inevitable because the Americans want this war. Any country claiming a leading position in the world will need to wage wars. Otherwise it will simply not be able to retain its leading position,” as well spelled out by the PNAC maniacs who have captured the flag in Washington.