Jeffrey Steinberg
If there was any doubt that Vice President Dick Cheney still presides over a powerful war party faction inside the Bush White House that is committed to engineering a military confrontation with Iran, Tuesday's meeting of the President's key foreign and national security advisors proved the point. Going into the meeting, the State Department was strongly advising that the United States release the five Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials seized in Irbil in January. According to a report in the April 14, 2007 Washington Post, Vice President Dick Cheney put his foot down, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice caved in and joined the "consensus." The five Iranian officials, who were detained while on an official visit with the Kurdish regional government-at an Iranian diplomatic mission-will remain in U.S. custody in Iraq, pending a review in July.By the time that review comes up, if Vice President Cheney has his way, the United States will be in a shooting war with Iran-a war that the U.S. military and intelligence establishment strongly oppose, and that powerful voices within the British Establishment are also now attacking as dangerous folly. More...
