March 7, 2006, Dick Cheney threatens to go hunting with Ayatollah Khamani
There's no other way to interpret what the Vice-President means by "serious consequences for Iran" if that nation does not satisfactorily resolve the stand-off over the development of its nuclear program between it and the other nuclear powers (in particular, the United States, Britain and France... and without saying its name... oops, I did... Israel).
This seems to me to be part of a sudden concerted campaign as we approach the third anniversary of the Iraq war to quite possibly have "the sequel" against Iran. Certainly, stories designed to gin up public hatred of Iran have emerged, such as the unsupported contention reported by ABC that Iran was supplying explosive devices to Iraqi insurgents, or DOD's contentions (again, out of nowhere) that Iran is actually having its own Revolutionary Guard troops meddle in Iraq.
Haven't we seen all of this before? What's next... Condi Rice making a power-point presentation to the United Nations that tanker-trucks on a street in Tehran are actually nuclear missile silos? The fact is, Iran is a number of years away from having a workable nuclear bomb... but the sudden talk (again... out of nowhere) is of some kind of incredible urgency... Now why might that be?
Oh wait... midterm elections are coming up in... eight months? (The indicted Tom "Bugs" DeLay faces a primary today, for example.)
Obviously, I'm cynical. Certainly, the terrorist supporting Islamic Republic of Iran is a problem child among nations... but as to the sudden, and more importantly, suddenly urgent, apparent stated need by the highest officials of our government for the United States to have a war against Iran... let's just say that if it looks like something that came out of the back of a cow, smells like something that came out of the back of a cow...