Israel Prodding U.S. To Attack Iran

Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen leaves Tuesday night on an overseas trip that will take him to Israel, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. The trip has been scheduled for some time but U.S. officials say it comes just as the Israelis are mounting a full court press to get the Bush administration to strike Iran's nuclear complex.

This is such a bad idea that I guess it is inevitable. Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) at Military.com puts it this way:

One problem with using the rational actor model to forecast what the George W. Bush administration may do next is that the model wasn’t designed to analyze people referred to as "the crazies in the basement." There is near universal agreement, for example, that for the U.S. to attack Iran would be the ultimate act of insanity. Unfortunately for us, the more insane any given course of action is, the more likely it is that the Cheney-centric Bush administration will pursue it.

The most troubling passage for me in Huber's article is this one:

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a spin off of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), recently published a report by its Task Force on the Future of U.S.-Israel relations that says the U.S. and Israel should discuss policy options that include "preventive military action" against Iran. Among the report's signatories were Tony Lake and Susan Rice, two of Barack Obama's key foreign policy advisers.