Crazy-Man
by digby
US Vice-President Dick Cheney has raised the possibility of military action to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.
He has endorsed Republican senator John McCain's proposition that the only thing worse than a military confrontation with Iran would be a nuclear-armed Iran.
In an exclusive interview with The Weekend Australian, Mr Cheney said: "I would guess that John McCain and I are pretty close to agreement."
The visiting Vice-President said that he had no doubt Iran was striving to enrich uranium to the point where they could make nuclear weapons.
He accused Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of espousing an "apocalyptic philosophy" and making "threatening noises about Israel and the US and others".
He also said Iran was a sponsor of terrorism, especially through Hezbollah. However, the US did not believe Iran possessed any nuclear weapons as yet.
"You get various estimates of where the point of no return is," Mr Cheney said, identifying nuclear terrorism as the greatest threat to the world.
"Is it when they possess weapons or does it come sooner, when they have mastered the technology but perhaps not yet produced fissile material for weapons?"
Mr Cheney also condemned Kevin Rudd's plan to withdraw all Australian combat troops from Iraq. Although he did not mention the Opposition Leader by name, Mr Cheney said the withdrawal of Australian troops "would clearly be a disappointment from our standpoint".
He encouraged further Australian involvement: "The more allies we have and the more committed they are to the effort, the quicker we can anticipate success."
[...]
Earlier, in an address in Sydney to the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue, Mr Cheney had emphasised the importance of the challenge of defeating Islamist terror, underlining the long-term nature of the struggle for the US and its allies.
"We have never had a fight like this, and it's not a fight we can win using the strategies from other wars," he said.
[...]
"The world's better off now that (Saddam Hussein) is dead and there's a democratically elected Government in his place in Baghdad," he said.
"The Iraqi people are well on the road to establishing a viable democracy.
"In the long term when we look back on this period of time that will be a remarkable achievement. We're not there yet. We've still got a lot to do."
In Dick Cheney's upside-down world, the fearsome GWOT is akin to the "War of the Worlds" and we have to be prepared to blow up the planet rather than submit to the aliens. And Iraq is a huge success.
Arthur Silber puts this in perspective, here and here.
Meanwhile, Cheney is running all over the world prattling on like Bette Davis in "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane", Bush is robotically grunting some nonsense about "pertecktin' the troops" and pundits are trying to make us believe that this is some sort of extremely clever ruse that will end with Iran metaphorically falling to the ground and crying uncle. As if "extremely clever" and Dick 'n George can ever be mentioned seriously in the same breath.
.