US hawks rooting for hardline Iranian candidate

Is anyone here surprised by this? Dick Cheney (or as I call him, Da Cheney), Don Rumsfeld and the other usual suspects want an almost cartoonish like enemy residing in Iran so that when they move to make their argument to invade, there can be no question that the presiding Iranian regime is eeeeeeeeeeeeevil. It is apparent that the US is supporting Nuclear Freeze talks just long enough to plan for the next war just as they supported weapons inspections long enough to get their troops deployments in place for the war in Iraq. As the man once said in a little tune called "Spacegrass," "Don't worry, it's coming."

The only thing that surprises me here is that the press is actually reporting it. Then again, this is the Finanicial Times and they tend to report news not tabloids.

Here's the story:

As hardliners and pragmatists battle it out in the final round of Iran's presidential election today, rifts within the Bush administration have exposed a lack of coherent US policy towards the Islamic republic, as well as serious differences with much of Europe.

"The Bush administration is as deeply divided as the Iranian government," commented Ken Pollack, analyst at the Brookings Institution.

US "hawks", he said, had a bizarre preference for Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, a fundamentalist and hardliner, over Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president who sought to establish his more pragmatic credentials in part by making overtures to the US during his election campaign.

For the US hardliners, led by Vice-President Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, Mr Rafsanjani presents the danger of exacerbating the divisions between the US, which is essentially trying to contain Iran, and Europe which favours the engagement approach.

The US hawks also believe that a convergence of hardliners in Iran with the victory of Mr Ahmadi-Nejad is more likely to precipitate the collapse of the Islamic regime through popular unrest than the "Chinese model" of social pacification likely to be embraced by Mr Rafsanjani. One hardline official told the FT he saw no evidence that Mr Rasanjani was less committed to developing nuclear weapons. The Bush administration, he said, harboured deep scepticism over the prospects of success in the nuclear freeze talks with Iran led by France, Germany and the UK. (Read More)