Will the Emperor Strike Back? A Worst-Case Scenario, Domestic and Foreign

A week ago I merely suspected the Bush Administration to be capable eventually of considering, though not necessarily of implementing, such a scenario. However, with this week's accelerating pace of implosion within the Bush Administration, the worst-case may suddenly have become less far-fetched.

Bush and Cheney seem to have retreated into their ideological bunker. In recent public appearances they have seemed cornered, tone deaf, incapable of perceiving political reality, isolated, and increasingly paranoid. They may be gathering themselves for a last-ditch gamble to save themselves.

Satisfying as it has been to watch the rapid unraveling of the Bush/Cheney/Rove/Gonzales/Rice web of deceptions, unprecedented corruption, and outright criminality (even the head of the Smithsonian Institution was a crook!), I suspect that Democrats and the public may be too giddy to remain alert. With an Administration run like a mafia, is it really beyond the realm of the possibility for the mafiosos-in-charge to strike back savagely at their critics--and not merely with words but with acts?

If these "Bushies" (as the loyal ideologues proudly call themselves) have up until now had no regard for law or the Constitution, and if they have brooked no oversight of, or limits on, their "unitary executive" power, is there any reason to expect them now to accept limits on their authority and a return to real congressional oversight of executive actions?

Here's one worst-case scenario below the break:
--Sometime soon, a third or even fourth U.S. aircraft carrier strike force could join the Eisenhower and Stennis Carrier Strike Forces in the Arabian Sea/Persian Gulf.

--Beleaguered at home by new, multiple scandals emerging virtually every day, the increasingly desperate Bush Administration, perhaps in collusion with the similarly beleaguered Israeli Prime Minister Olmert (now with single digit approval ratings) and lame duck British Prime Minister Tony Blair, could conjure up a pretext to launch air strikes against Iranian targets. One way to create such a pretext would be to patrol aggressively in disputed or Iranian waters in an effort to provoke an Iranian response, as the British may well have done to instigate last weekend's incident.

Remember that on January 31, 2003 in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, Bush reportedly suggested to Tony Blair the idea of painting a U2 spy plane with UN colors and then sending it over Iraq. If the Iraqis shot at it, their action could be declared to be a violation of UN sanctions and used as a justification for war. Here is the BBC link, citing a notetaker present at the meeting:

http://news.bbc.co.u...

--Iran, no matter how hard it is hit by U.S. air strikes, would retain some ability to respond. (In the Millennium '02 Pentagon war game, a well commanded opposing "Red Team" Gulf opponent used "swarming" techniques to sink two-thirds of the U.S. "Blue Team" fleet at the outset of the exercise. The umpires decided to "refloat" the U.S. fleet and start over.)
-Iran would sink at least a few U.S. ships with its arsenal of Exocet, Sunburn, and Yakhonts (or Chinese Sizzler) anti-ship missiles.
-Iran would urge its sympathizers in Iraq to strike against the occupying U.S. and British forces there.
-Iran would urge its sympathizers in Lebanon and Pakistan's Baluchistan Province to create turmoil.
-Iran would try to sabotage oil pipelines and storage facilities in Saudi Arabia. Remember that the Saudi oil fields have the highest concentration of Shia population in the kingdom.
-Iran would rain ballistic missiles on the U.S. command facility at the Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE.
=Iran would effectively close the Straits of Hormuz.
-Oil prices would skyrocket. (But Big Oil would know how to increase the prices at the pump to preserve--and even increase--its world record profits for yet another year.)
-Financial and capital markets throughout the world would plummet in reaction to the anticipated oil price shock to their economies and to the mounting geopolitical chaos.
-The U.S., its housing and mortgage bubble already in the midst of collapse, would face a sell-off of dollars worldwide and a swift dollar devaluation by currency markets. It is something of a paradox that Bush's corporatist base would probably fall in line to support an attack on Iran, even though it is only sectors such as Big Oil, Big Guns, and Blackwater USA that would benefit. Much of the rest of the economy would face financial retrenchment or even disaster.

-Unintended consequences could include the destabilization of Pakistan, increased turmoil in Afghanistan, armed conflict between Syria and Israel over Lebanon, and a Turkish decision to occupy portions of Iraqi Kurdistan in an effort to suppress anti-Turkish Kurdish insurgents operating from there. Hundreds of thousands--probably millions--of new internal and and external refugees would create a new colossal humanitarian crisis. And who knows what the implications would be for domestic stability in the brittle monarchies of Jordan and Saudi Arabia or in Mubarak's authoritarian Egypt?

--A few Democrats (and most of the world (other than Olmert in Israel  and Blair in the UK) would decry the attack. But most of the American public probably would once again be snookered into "supporting their Commander-in-Chief."

--The reliable establishment mainstream media would transcribe Karl Rove's and Dick Cheney's neocon talking points to trumpet their patriotism in the face of the "existential threat" from Iran, which would have had the effrontery to sink some of our ships and kill some of our sailors--after having itself been attacked by a limited Israeli strike with U.S. tanker support or by massive U.S. "shock and awe" air strikes. I happened to catch a few minutes of Joe Scarborough on MSNBC tonight. The primitive drumbeat has clearly begun.

--For those relative few who could be expected to raise a fuss (Keith Olbermann, Arianna Huffington, Frank Rich, Paul Krugman, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Seymour Hersh, Scott Ritter, Juan Cole, Jack Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, Russ Feingold, Jim Webb, Wesley Clark, maybe Barack Obama, the bloggers at dailykos.com and similar sites, the editors at "The Nation" and TruthOut.org, the leadership of MoveOn.org, etc.) there would be post-midnight knocks at the door.

--As the attack on Iran would begin, President Bush would address the nation and assert his "unitary executive" authority as "Commander-in-Chief" to declare an unprecedented "State of Emergency."
-He would allege that U.S. forces were responding to attacks by Iranian forces, and that as Commander-in-Chief he had full authority to respond to the Iranian "aggression." He would insist that the "unitary executive" had no requirement to request a declaration of war or authorization from Congress to launch a war against Iran.
-He would call the expanded conflict in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Lebanon (and soon, Syria) the "defining struggle of our century."
-He would suspend habeas corpus.
-He would place restrictions on the media to prevent the dissemination of "falsehoods which could hamper the war effort or negatively affect the morale of our troops in the field."
-He would call for a further expansion of the military, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security (the better to monitor domestic e-mails and phone calls).
-He would call on Congress to reinstitute the military draft.
-And he would declare that all of these extraordinary measures are only intended to be "temporary, until the victory against Islamo-fascism has been won."

Welcome to perpetual war.

--Harry Reid in the Senate would likely revert to form and "go along" to support the President in time of conflict. Or perhaps Joe Lieberman would announce his full support for this new "preemptive war" and declare that he is shifting his party identification to the Republicans to return control of the Senate to them, with Vice President Cheney casting the tie-breaking vote and subservient enabler Mitch McConnell becoming the new Majority Leader. (It seems unlikely that any Republican, even Chuck Hagel or Olympia Snow, would display the courage to cross the aisle in the other direction to thwart such a maneuver by Lieberman.)

--With Nancy Pelosi under house arrest and cut off from any communication with the outside world, Steny Hoyer would become the new, more compliant Speaker of the House. (Hoyer has always been inclined to support the invasion and occupation of Iraq.) Would Hillary Clinton, like Joe Lieberman, support the neocon and AIPAC agenda by voicing her public approval for launching such a war against Iran? Or would she just remain cautious and quiet? Would Chuck Hagel in fact stifle his conscience and quietly go along? Probably.

So, voila! The unitary executive coup would be accomplished, and not a single drop of American civilian blood would be shed. (There would be that small matter of thousands of U.S., British, and Iranian casualties in the newly launched war against Iran, however. And there would be many more thousands of casualties to come for many more years in several more countries.)

Impossible, you say? Madness, you say? The public would not stand for such an executive coup and launching of an undeclared war? Millions would be out in the streets marching? There would be civil disobedience on a grand scale, just like in Poland with Solidarity and in the Ukraine with the Orange Revolution?

Really? And who would be organizing it? Would the Democratic Party have the cohesion and leadership to resist such an executive coup attempt? Who, exactly, would provide the leadership? Name names, please.

Am I flat-out predicting that the Bush Administration, as it flings away any remaining shred of credibility and lurches toward clinical paranoia, will touch off this nightmare scenario? No, but consider:
--These people have sanctioned the use of torture.
--These people have imprisoned suspects for years without charge, trial, or legal representation and can label even a U.S. citizen to be an "enemy combatant" without legal rights.
--These people fabricated baseless pretexts to justify invading Iraq.
--These people outed Valerie Plame, a covert CIA officer, in an effort to undermine her husband's trenchant criticism of those very fabricated pretexts (i.e., Cheney's and Bush's "yellowcake" lie).
--These people appeared to arrange the timing of the AUMF against Iraq in 2002 and the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 in part to enhance their electoral prospects in 2002 and 2004. It was to be a typical imperial "splendid little war" that would be popular and quickly successful.
--These people implemented warrantless wiretapping in violation of the Constitution and the existing FISA.
--These people suppressed the vote in Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and elsewhere.
--These people packed the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division with political hacks who oppose civil rights.
--These people stuffed the regulatory agencies with party ideologues who oppose regulation in the public interest.
--These people handed a $120 billion favor to Big Tobacco. What did they get in return?
--These people have created a government of the corporatists, by the corporatists, and for the corporatists.
--These people seem to have brazenly obstructed justice and perjured themselves in the politicized firings (and retentions) of U.S. Attorneys and the subsequent coverup.
--These people from the Department of Justice have begun to "take the Fifth" in advance of scheduled testimony under oath before Congress.
--These people have refused to permit White House officials to testify before Congress under oath and with a transcript.
--These people have declared that Congress has no oversight authority over White House officials.

Is it really much of a stretch to think it possible that these people could consider launching another "preemptive" war and implementing such a "State of Emergency" in order to preserve their personal and party's power?

Would we have any warning signs--other than the standard breathless "breaking news" media announcement of air strikes in progress against Iran and the cheerleading on-the-spot reporting from mainstream journalists embedded with carrier strike forces in the Gulf and Arabian Sea?

Watch carefully what the Bush White House tries to do with the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. If the Bushies try to relax the prohibitions on the use of the military to maintain domestic order, it would be a strong sign that they wish to justify using the National Guard and U.S regular military forces stationed domestically to enforce such a "State of Emergency." Remember in this context how the Administration slipped into the Patriot Act of 2006 a provision for side-stepping Congressional approval of U.S. Attorneys. Watch also for any enhancement of domestic roles for Eric Prince's Blackwater USA and similar private, armed firms that could be used as the "Blackshirts" or "Brownshirts" of our day. Oh, and watch whether Joe Lieberman defects to Mitch McConnell and Dick Cheney.

Could the Bushies get away with attacking Iran and simultaneously marching even further down the authoritarian road here at home? Do they retain sufficient power and credibility to implement such a drastic, desperate strategy?

Remember the decency and courage of mid-level KGB officers and Red Army officers who refused to obey the orders of the arch-conservative anti-Gorbachev coup plotters in Moscow in 1991.

Remember also the decency and courage of mid-level Stasi officers who ignored orders to fire on the demonstrating crowds in Leipzig and East Berlin just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. (Indeed, some of the Stasi surveillants approvingly joined the vigils and marches to demonstrate their disillusionment with the collapsing regime.)

Remember Vaclav Havel's "Velvet Revolution" in Czechoslovakia, where every sentient citizen and virtually every official realized that the time had come for the hideously corrupt Communist political system to be dismantled.

If such a crunch comes in the U.S. in coming weeks, will American officials, military personnel, police, and citizens display the same kind of sensibility and courage as did the Russians, East Germans, and Czechs? Will they refuse to obey illegal, unconstitutional orders?

Or will they meekly resign themselves to being "good Americans," just like the "good Germans" of 1932/33? Will they cheer the initial attacks on Iran? Will they cheer--or at least acquiesce in--the dismantling of the Founders' wisely constructed republic with its checks and balances and of their own personal liberties?

We may soon find out--perhaps in the next few weeks. Maybe even in the next few days.

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