Job Losses = Strike on Iran
The surprisingly bad jobs report on Friday is very bad news for the Republicans. It won’t be easy for John McCain to win while the economy is falling apart. Maybe a strike on Iran would improve the picture though.
On Tuesday, General David Petraeus is expected to tell Congress that the Iranians have been causing trouble in Iraq, and it looks like this might be the beginning of a “Strike Iran” campaign. While the Iranians have almost certainly been fighting us covertly in Iraq for years now, perhaps President Bush has been “saving up” a strike on Iran for a rainy day.
While October-Surprise predictions are nothing new, I am intrigued by the curious fighting that recently took place in Basra. Why did Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki attempt to capture Basra from Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in late March?
You would think that President Bush would want to keep things calm in Iraq so that the Republicans could continue to use their “The Surge is Working” campaign tactic. You would also expect Bush to tell Maliki to postpone an offensive until after the election. So why would Bush permit increased fighting in Iraq? And why would Maliki leave the safety of the Green Zone to lead a force of Keystone Cops to fight the Mahdi Army in Basra? A mission that anybody could see was doomed to failure?
I think Maliki’s real mission was to create a situation where fresh intelligence could be collected on Iranian involvement in the fighting in Iraq. That intel would then be used to support a “Strike Iran” campaign, if such a policy were to be given the green light.
An alternative motive would be to create an “Iranian Menace” campaign issue. If such an issue were to gain traction, it could be expected to benefit McCain.
