War in Iran 'probable'

Chris Hedges, former Middle East bureau chief for the Times (and a man of understated but firm faith) responds to the news that the aircraft carrier Eisenhower has been deployed to the Persian Gulf:

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The ships will be in place to strike Iran by the end of the month. It may be a bluff. It may be a feint. It may be a simple show of American power. But I doubt it.

War with Iran�a war that would unleash an apocalyptic scenario in the Middle East�is probable by the end of the Bush administration. It could begin in as little as three weeks.

Meanwhile, over at Motherjones.com, Laura Rozen profiles the Iranian Chalabi. In case you've been quarantined for half a decade, Ahmed Chalabi was the disingenuous criminal on the pentagon payroll, advising high-level administration officials -- and certain NY Times reporters -- on the "real" situation in Iraq. You know, the one that required an invasion.

Richard Perle, one of the aforementioned officials in league with Chalabi, has, according to Rozen:

"an exile leader he wanted America to know about: Amir Abbas Fakhravar, 'an Iranian dissident student leader who escaped first from Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, then, after months in hiding, from Iran.'

"Fakhravar, Perle wrote, had believed George W. Bush’s promise to Muslim dissidents that 'when you stand for liberty, we will stand with you.' Now, as the administration was mulling whether to negotiate with Iran, Perle worried that 'the proponents of accommodation with Tehran will regard the struggle for freedom in Iran as an obstacle to their new diplomacy.'

Or: talking to Iran might ruin a perfectly good war.

Rozen points out how this particular dissident, as with the original Chalabiâ„¢, has been cherrypicked to produce the most damning recommendations for regime change in Iran:

Iran’s best-known dissident, journalist Akbar Ganji, rejected invitations to meet with administration officials on a recent U.S. visit, and asked instead to see the United Nations’ Kofi Annan and Noam Chomsky. 'I advocate change of the regime in Iran,' Ganji told me in July. 'But that regime must be changed by Iranians themselves.'

By all accounts, Fakhravar appears to be a petulant and opportunistic child, jailed for nonpolitical offenses looking for attention. He's clearly found it in America's chickenhawk community.

Oh look, election day is coming. (Truthdig, MotherJones.com)