Scott Ritter says, "The US war with Iran has already begun"

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“You and I are not cut from the same piece of wood,” he said. “I’m a conservative Republican, and you are liberals. You’re pacifists, and I’m a warrior.”

These are the words of former U. N. weapons inspector and former US Marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter. He has recently written an opinion piece that was published on AlJazeera.net that states, "The reality is that the US war with Iran has already begun. As we speak, American over flights of Iranian soil are taking place, using pilotless drones and other, more sophisticated, capabilities.

The violation of a sovereign nation's airspace is an act of war in and of itself. But the war with Iran has gone far beyond the intelligence-gathering phase.

President Bush has taken advantage of the sweeping powers granted to him in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, to wage a global war against terror and to initiate several covert offensive operations inside Iran."

On those covert operations, Ritter writes that, "The most visible of these is the CIA-backed actions recently undertaken by the Mujahadeen el-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group, once run by Saddam Hussein's dreaded intelligence services, but now working exclusively for the CIA's Directorate of Operations.

It is bitter irony that the CIA is using a group still labeled as a terrorist organization, a group trained in the art of explosive assassination by the same intelligence units of the former regime of Saddam Hussein, who are slaughtering American soldiers in Iraq today, to carry out remote bombings in Iran of the sort that the Bush administration condemns on a daily basis inside Iraq."

However, Ritter states that there is more to this sordid tale. "To the north, in neighboring Azerbaijan, the US military is preparing a base of operations for a massive military presence that will foretell a major land-based campaign designed to capture Tehran.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's interest in Azerbaijan may have escaped the blinkered Western media, but Russia and the Caucasus nations understand only too well that the die has been cast regarding Azerbaijan's role in the upcoming war with Iran."

We have a few interests in Azerbaijan right now. First, Azerbaijani President Aliev plans to visit the United States sometime soon after finally receiving his invitation by President Bush. Some believe that he's finally gotten a seat at Bush's table due to the recent opening of the strategic Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman even participated in the inauguration of the pipeline in May and brought with himself a congratulatory letter from President Bush. I think by now we know that wherever there's oil, the Bush administration is lurking in the distance...like the Eye of Sauron.

But as Scott Ritter said, most likely the real reason we are inviting President Aliev to America is because he's consented to host mobile American military bases. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has repeatedly visited the Azerbaijani capital many times recently to only further cement US-Azerbaijani ties and more importantly to make sure we have those bases. (Jamestown.org)

According to Ritter, securing a base in Azerbaijan changes the entire attack plan going into Tehran in the favor of US forces. "American military aircraft, operating from forward bases in Azerbaijan, will have a much shorter distance to fly when striking targets in and around Tehran.

In fact, US air power should be able to maintain a nearly 24-hour a day presence over Tehran airspace once military hostilities commence.

No longer will the United States need to consider employment of Cold War-dated plans which called for moving on Tehran from the Arab Gulf cities of Chah Bahar and Bandar Abbas. US Marine Corps units will be able to secure these towns in order to protect the vital Straits of Hormuz, but the need to advance inland has been eliminated.

A much shorter route to Tehran now exists - the coastal highway running along the Caspian Sea from Azerbaijan to Tehran.

US military planners have already begun war games calling for the deployment of multi-divisional forces into Azerbaijan.

Logistical planning is well advanced concerning the basing of US air and ground power in Azerbaijan.

Given the fact that the bulk of the logistical support and command and control capability required to wage a war with Iran is already forward deployed in the region thanks to the massive US presence in Iraq, the build-up time for a war with Iran will be significantly reduced compared to even the accelerated time tables witnessed with Iraq in 2002-2003." (Read more)

Scott Ritter has been banging this drum for quite some time now. One can hardly ignore the parallels he's making however. If you've read either "Plan of Attack," by Bob Woodward or "The Price of Loyalty," by Ron Suskind, both books clearly show that the Bush administration were clearly planning an attack on Iraq well before the events of 9/11. And if you think those books are nonsense, then you haven't heard of the Downing Street Memo.

The only problem with Ritter's premise is that US military enlistment is down, by all reports, and there aren't enough soldiers currently in Iraq to hold down the insurgents. I can only assume that the plan (if indeed this administration does plan to take down the mullahs) is to build up the Iraqi army enough that we can leave the mess in their hands and then just move our guys over into Iran. Don't get me wrong, that makes no sense to me whatsoever and I can't see how it would work but then again this is Don Rumsfeld we are talking about here. Here we have a man that believes we can fight wars on the cheap. Apparently the ghost of Robert McNamara lives on inside the decision making abilities of Rummy.

It's hard to argue against a man whom has been so right on Iraq thus far. We shall see what happens in Iran soon enough. I do contend however, that if the US press would stop focusing on nonsense and start reporting news as if we were not alone in the universe, then I wouldn't have to write articles like this and Scott Ritter wouldn't be publishing his op-ed on Al-Jazeera.