At his press conference this morning, Defense Secretary Bob Gates used a rather Ari Fleischer-esque formulation on the prospect of war with Iran:
With respect to Iran, first of all, the president has made clear; the secretary of State has made clear; I’ve made clear — nobody is planning — we are not planning for a war with Iran. What we are trying to do is in Iraq, counter what the Iranians are doing to our soldiers, their involvement in activities, particularly these explosively formed projectiles that are killing our troops, and we are trying to get them to stop their nuclear enrichment. We are doing the latter strictly through the diplomatic process. It seems to be showing some progress. At least we — the diplomatic process is working, and I think that that’s where we are relying.So there really is — you know, I think because we are acting against the Iranians’ activities in Iraq, it’s given rise to some of these talks. Clearly, the deployment of the second carrier group has given — has further led to this. But really, the purpose of that is simply to underscore to our friends, as well as to our potential adversaries in the region, that the United States has considered the Persian Gulf and that whole area, and stability in that area, to be a vital national interest.
And that has been the case for decades, under many, many presidents. And we simply want to reinforce to our friends, in particular, that they can count on us having a presence and being strong in their area in protecting our interests and in protecting theirs.
Let’s review. The president has authorized military action against Iranian assets in Iraq. There’s a new Special Operations task force, known as Task Force 16, devoted to rooting out Iranian influence. A few weeks ago, U.S. forces raided an Iranian diplomatic office in Iraqi Kurdistan and detained several Iranian nationals. Just the other day, President Bush told NPR that he will “respond firmly” to Iranian attacks on U.S. forces, and the administration is non-denial-denying that the Iranians may have been involved in last week’s attack in Karbala. For good measure, the U.S. is beefing up naval assets in the Persian Gulf, and the incoming head of Central Command warned at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday of Iranian desires to restrict U.S. access to one of the world’s most economically vital shipping lanes.
Perhaps the administration isn’t planning a war — but, as we learned in Iraq, just because there’s no planning doesn’t mean there won’t be war.