Back at the beginning of this year I was one of the many paranoid lefties predicting an imminent US attack on Iran. But knowing our penchant for invading the Middle East in the spring, when summer rolled around I figured I must have misread that situation entirely. Then today I read this blog post by Barnett Rubin in which he recalls the strategy used to sell the Iraq invasion in 2002 and suggests we are about to see the same methodical approach aimed at Iran.

Today I received a message from a friend who has excellent connections in Washington and whose information has often been prescient. According to this report, as in 2002, the rollout will start after Labor Day, with a big kickoff on September 11. My friend had spoken to someone in one of the leading neo-conservative institutions. He summarized what he was told this way:

They [the source’s institution] have “instructions” (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don’t think they’ll ever get majority support for this—they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is “plenty.”

Call it paranoia if you want, but that last part is so exactly how this administration works that I can't help hearing a ring of truth in it. And just because I'm paranoid about this administration and their seemingly unmatched ability to make bad situations worse doesn't mean they aren't as batshit crazy as I think they are. I doubt it's coincidental that dubya has been making noises about declaring Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization for some time now. It would allow him to move militarily against Iran under the auspices of his War on Terra, without seeking any kind of input or approval from Congress. It's a perfect way for him to bitch-slap the Dems one last time and simultaneously saddle his successor with a third, potentially very nasty front in the war. What better way to ensure the next administration can't immediately start to dismantle his burgeonoing empire?