Clusterfuckalypse Now, anyone?

The shell game is a short con, where the con man's hand is quicker than our eyes. Bush (really his backers) is the con man. The fake players are muscle to keep off the cops (NSA, FBI, CIA), or shills, who pretend to play the rigged game to suck us in (the SCLM and the VRWC).

And we're the marks. Our eyes are focused on Iraq. But the real action is Iran. That's the con.

Glenn is, as usual, alert to every nuance, cynical enough, and absolutely right:

The far more attention-demanding issue now is what the President's intentions are with regard to Iran.

As Think Progress notes, the White House took multiple steps yesterday to elevate dramatically the threat rhetoric against Iran. Bush included what The New York Times described as “some of his sharpest words of warning to Iran” yet. But those words could really be described more accurately not as “threats” but as a declaration of war.

He accused the Iranian government of “providing material support for attacks on American troops” and vowed to “seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies.” But those networks are located in Iran, which means that search and destroy missions on such networks would necessarily include some incursion into Iranian territory, whether by air or ground.

Hours before the speech, the White House released a Powerpoint presentation with details about the president’s new policy. “Increase operations against Iranian actors” was listed in the “Key Tactical Shifts” section. As The New York Times reported: “One senior administration official said this evening that the omission of the usual wording about seeking a diplomatic solution [to the Iranian nuclear stand-off] ‘was not accidental.’”

Of course, enlarging the war so that the theatre is the entire Middle East and Pakistan would be a major strategic shift.

So, the Bush speech is a shell game, a misdirecting, disinformational con, that works this way:

1. If we say, as we are, "there's no new strategy here," we miss the fact of the new Iran strategy. Conned again!

2. If we say, as we are, "this won't work either," we miss the fact that Our Betters can see that as well as we can, and they don't care. The fact that winning in Iraq with the Army is a lost cause--and how the wingers do love their lost causes--doesn't mean we can't go to war in Iran with the Air Force and the Navy.

CAUTION: FOILY MATERIAL AHEAD

If I had my foil firmly on, I'd remember the nuclear submarine that collided with the tanker in the Straits of Hormuz. And I'd remember that the submarine carried cruise missiiles. And I might think that attacking Teheran with cruise missiles right before, or even during, his Iraq speech would be exactly the kind of bellicose gesture that would excite Bush's manly firmness. Unfortunately, the collision prevented all that. Reminds me of Jimmy Carter's problems with helicopters in the desert. With immeasurably larger stakes, of course.

This theory would account for the delay of many weeks to make the speech. The delay wasn't to consult at all; everybody knows Bush doesn't do that. The delay was to get the forces positioned. And the massive screwup in the Straits would account for Bush's bizarre demeanor during the speech as well.

UPDATE Interestingly, Bush did attack an Iranian embassy during the speech.

NOTE More on shell games:

The game should not be mistaken for an honest game. It is not possible for a victim to win, even if they know how the trick is worked, or even if they "accidentally" pick the shell that actually has the pea under it. Through very skilled sleight of hand, the operator can easily hide the pea, without the victim seeing. Any player who is suspected of understanding the trick, or does not place a bet and just wants to watch, will be quickly edged away from the table by the shills or the muscle. The shell game set-up and lay-out is quick and simple, so that in the event of trouble, or if they are signaled that authorities are approaching, they can remove all traces of the game in seconds.

It seems like the only solution is to kick over the table...