Speaking through the unitary decider—sort of like a ventriloquist speaking through a dummy—the neocons have once again issued threats against Iran and Syria.

“In his speech to the American nation yesterday, President George W. Bush issued a warning to Iran and Syria, accusing them of taking deliberate action against U.S. forces in Iraq and enabling aid transfers to insurgents,” reports Haaretz.

“Bush said the U.S. intends to take action against Iranian proxies in Iraq, and vowed to find and destroy the networks supplying these groups with weapons and training.” In addition, and ominously if not predictably, Bush “also promised that the U.S. would work ‘with others’ in order to block Iran from developing nuclear arms and dominating the region.”

As if to underscore the importance and urgency of Iran’s prominent position on the neocon hit list, “American forces stormed Iranian government offices in northern Iraq,” essentially an act of war. “The soldiers detained six people, including diplomats, according to the Iranians, and seized documents and computers in the pre-dawn raid which was condemned by Iran. A leading UK-based Iran specialist, Ali Ansari, said the incident was an ‘extreme provocation’. Dr Ansari said that Mr. Bush’s speech on future Iraq strategy amounted to ‘a declaration of war’ on Iran,” reports the Independent.

“The United Nations adopted sanctions against Tehran on 23 December,” the Independent continues. “However, the economic measures adopted by the UN have failed to convince Iran to halt its uranium-enrichment programme which could lead to production of a nuclear weapon. The US is calling on allied states to adopt tougher unilateral sanctions.”

As Iran has a perfect right under the NPT to enrich uranium, and there is no evidence Iran is devolving nuclear weapons, as the IAEA and the CIA have concluded, these “economic measures,” in essence economic warfare leveraged against a sovereign state, amount to yet another act of war, this time with the complicity of the United Nations, basically a groomed lap dog for neocons. Indeed, like a trained show dog, the United Nations, in Pavlovian fashion, will once again jump through a flaming hoop on command, as it did the last time the neocons invaded a small country.

“President Bush appointed Admiral William Fallon to replace General John Abizaid as head of Central Command for Iraq and Afghanistan last week in a sign that change could be afoot. This week, Mr. Bush ordered a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf, along with its support ships, which could be used to contain Iran,” a fact glossed over with little meaningful comment by the corporate media in this country. Of course, it makes absolutely no sense for the unitary decider to appoint an admiral to command land forces in Iraq, thus the only logical conclusion is that the neocons are preparing for sea-based air strikes against Iran.

However, at least a few corporate media shills are waking up to the inevitability of an Iran attack. For instance, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, who “aggressively questioned [at least for a moment] White House Press Secretary Tony Snow about whether President Bush’s rhetoric last night was a ‘precursor for a rationale for an attack’ on Iran.”

Matthews said he feared the neocons would use a skirmish with Iranian fighters in Iraq as a reason to “bomb the hell out of them and hit their nuclear installations without any without any action by Congress. That’s the scenario I fear, an extra-constitutional war is what I’m worried about.”

Snow dismissed Matthews, saying “you have been watching too many old movies,” for instance a movie on the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, or rather fabricated pretext.

Matthews, undeterred, interrupted. “No, I’ve been watching the war in Iraq, is what I’ve been watching.” Snow, however, admitted the dispatch of the latest carrier to the Gulf is related to actions against Iran:

MATTHEWS: …look at this. “I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region.” Isn’t that about Iran?

SNOW: It, it—yeah, it is, in part, and what it is is it’s saying, look, we are going to make sure that anybody who tries to take aggressive action—but when Bill Clinton sent a carrier task force into the South China Sea after the North Koreans fired a missile over Japan, that was not as a prelude to war against North Korea. You know how it works.

Certainly, we know how it works, as we have endured seven long years of unitary decidership rule under the guidance of the murderous neocons, who are now taking an African side trip, killing Muslims, although few in the corporate media are outraged.

Matthews, to his credit, zaps Snow. However, in predictable fashion, Matthews backs down in short order, never mind the name of his television show:

MATTHEWS: No, I’m just concerned because, very much in the years, in the months building up to this war in Iraq, we heard a kind of a drumbeat of the dangers from Iraq and the nuclear weaponry and what we’re going to do about it, and then gradually we went to war. And I’m just wondering we’re looking here at the precursor for a rationale for an attack of some kind on—you say—I’ll take it at your word. If the president is not going to attack Iran, we’ll move on.

SNOW: Ok, but, let me just do a couple of things here. I think you understand and most Americans understand Iran is the foremost financier of global terror. It’s a problem. But you don’t deal with everything militarily, as you know. The United States exhausted all diplomatic options before going into Iraq, and I think what you’re doing if you’re trying to go down the road of speculation that is just way ahead of events. Right now, we’re working on making Iraq a success. One other thing about Iran, Chris. The Iranian public, most which of is young, is very pro-American.

In fact, the American people do not understand squat about Iran, unable to find the country on a map. Or do they realize Snow’s employer is the “foremost financier of global terror,” as is well enough documented.

It is a well known fact the neocons, before choosing Bush as their front man, planned to invade Iraq, a plan they presented to the Israelis back in the 90s, an idea that figures prominently in Zionist “strategic” literature.

It is entirely beside the point the “Iranian public, most which of is young, is very pro-American,” never mind the United States orchestrated the overthrow of a democratically elected and popular Iranian leader in 1953 and installed the Shah and his brutal Savak secret police. If not for the Shah and his crimes against the Iranian people, chances are good the revolution would have never occurred and the Ayatollah Khomeini would not have ruled Iran, ushering in the mullahs.

Naturally, the moment the neocons launch their inevitable shock and awe campaign, all the “pro-American” Iranians cited by Snow will metamorphosis into dedicated resistance fighters, taking on the Americans like their neighbors in Iraq now take them on.

One can only imagine the look of Snow’s face as oil tankers, hobbled by Iranian Sunburn missiles—and the more advanced SS-NX-26 Yakhonts missiles—shut down the Strait of Hormuz, thus sending fantastically dire economic reverberations around the world. We can only hope Snow, his boss, and the neocons will subsequently be rounded up, charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, and made to do the perp walk in orange jumpsuits.

Finally, even a few Democrats—months late and a few billion dollars short—are waking up to the inevitability of an attack against Iran, something we have talked out here for the last few years.

“President Bush appears to be setting the stage for a wider war in the region. He has blamed Iran for attacks on America. The President is vowing to disrupt Iran. He is going to add an aircraft carrier to the shores off the coast of Iran,” writes Dennis Kucinich, Ohio Democrat. “It is imperative that Congress step up to its constitutional responsibility to restrain this abuse of executive authority by notifying the President that we will no longer agree to fund the war in Iraq. The supplemental budget request of up to $100 billion would enable the president not only to continue the war against Iraq through the end of his term. It would give him the resources to attack Iran, in the name of defending Iraq and the region.”

Congress, replete with warmongers, will of course do no such thing. It will sit on its hands and abuse its obligation to the American people and the Constitution.

Finally, even if you believe there is no way Iran will be attacked, thus precipitating World War Four, as the neocons fondly call it, consider Condi the Destroyer on the Today Show:

SECRETARY RICE: The President is saying that we are going to make certain that we disrupt activities that are endangering and killing our troops and that are destabilizing Iraq.

QUESTION: If that includes attacks inside Iran and Syria is that on the table?

SECRETARY RICE: Matt, obviously the President is not going to take options off the table and I’m not going to speculate, but I will tell you this. Around Christmastime we did find a group of Iranians who were engaged in activities that were detrimental to our forces. We went, we took them, we then told the Iraqi Government that they needed to be expelled from the country and they were. The Iranians need to know, and the Syrians need to know, that the United States is not finding it acceptable and is not going to simply tolerate their activities to try and harm our forces or to destabilize Iraq.

As William Arkin notes, Rice originally said “Iraqis” but the State Department went out of its way to issue a correction, stating Rice meant Iranians.

Arkin predictably came down on the side of caution: “I’m still not saying that war with Iran (or Syria) is imminent, but clearly the Vice President’s office and the hardliners scored a major victory in conveying the threat rather than following a kinder, gentler diplomatic route.”

On the other hand, I say a war with Iran is indeed imminent, as the USS John C. Stennis strike group was not sent to the Gulf earlier this month to simply send a message—it was sent, bristling with warplanes and munitions, to attack Iran, as long planned by the neocons.