Iran fired off more test missiles today and like yesterday it seems to be a defensive counter threat posture against Bush administration and Israeli threats and military "exercises."

There are two interesting articles today (both recommended reading) that illuminate the Iran-US "threat and show" scenario and amplify my point yesterday that the Bush administrtion doesn't have a coherent, logical foreign policy aka doesn't know what the hell it's doing.

From Tony Karon at Rootless Cosmopolitan: "I know it’s a summer news doldrum, despite the morbid antics of the presidential candidates, but all this “war on Iran” speculation seems to be missing some key points.

"...As Anthony Cordesman told an Israeli audience last week, the consensus in the U.S. intelligence community is that Iran represents no immediate nuclear threat.

"And Jim Lobe reminds us that the U.S. economy is in no position to absorb the shock of the oil prices shooting up way past the $200 a barrel mark — a predictable consequence of an attack on Iran.

"...the “know-how” has already been attained — a fact that can’t be reversed by military action. As a result......'the destabilizing consequences for the Middle East, and for global energy and economics, are so massive that it is difficult to imagine [the military] scenario unfolding. The alternative is diplomatic negotiations that would meet the legitimate and reasonable needs of the key parties, namely Iran, the US, Israel, Europe and the Arab neighbors. Iran could continue to develop its nuclear industry, but with stringent international inspections and safeguards under the rules of existing treaties and conventions that prevent the development of nuclear weapons.'

"Even as they counter military threat with military threat, the Iranians are also stepping up their diplomatic offensive...

"I highly recommend Thomas Powers’ excellent piece that makes clear the absurdity of initiating a new war of aggression in the Middle East in the hope of Iran attaining the means to pursue any weapons capabilities. The key question that should be addressed at the very heart of any diplomatic process, he argues, is why Iran might seek nuclear weapons capability.

"When Bush talks of a “diplomatic solution”, he simply means Iranian surrender under pressure of sanctions. The current administration is simply incapable of achieving a genuine diplomatic breakthrough — or much else — anywhere in the Middle East. But if the next Administration is to avoid the mistakes of the current one, it would do well to get beyond the narrow frame of the questions Barack Obama and John McCain are currently asking and answering. The definition of a serious diplomatic process, then, is one, as Rami Khouri suggests above, that addresses “the legitimate and reasonable needs of the key parties, namely Iran, the US, Israel, Europe and the Arab neighbors.”

And this from Asia Times: "Make no mistake, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is more than ready, with Allah's blessing, to go ballistic. No wonder the test was officially called "The Great Prophet 3". 

"There's a maze of invisible, much more subtle messages, lost in the current tsunami of spin. For starters: even if Iran had the means to deliver the nuclear warheads it does not possess, these tests do not necessarily mean it has mastered the capability to do so.

Then there are the internal, rhetorical cross currents - a very delicate ballet. The head of the Iranian air force, General Hossein Salami, said Iran is very much aware of "enemies who in recent weeks have threatened Iran with harsh language". According to the Iranian press, Salami also said, 'Our hands are always on the trigger and our missiles are ready for launch..'

"Predictably, the US government dubbed the test "a threat" - as if Washington and Israel had been sending love letters to Tehran lately.

"The Iranian missile test does counteract the by now earth-shattering Israeli barrage of spin, along the lines that the Jewish state will have "no choice" but to strike Iran "to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons" - the same "weapons" the International Atomic Energy Agency and even the US's National Intelligence Estimate have stated do not exist.

"Inevitably, the missiles also struck both US presidential campaigns. Democrat Senator Barack Obama stayed more or less on his message of "coercive diplomacy", calling for more stringentsanctions against Iran but without ruling out diplomacy. For Obama, "Iran is a great" - you guessed it - "threat". "We have to make sure we are working with our allies to apply tightened pressure on Iran."

"Republican Senator John McCain - who had just half-joked the day before rising exports of US cigarettes is "a good way to kill Iranians" - also stayed more or less on his "bomb, bomb bomb Iran" message, saying through a statement, "Iran's most recent missile tests demonstrate again the dangers it poses to its neighbors and to the wider region, especially Israel." 

"But McCain went further, plugging once again the establishment of missile defense shields in the Czech Republic and Poland...

"The IRGC - branded a "terrorist organization" by the US - had to come up with some kind of message. The US Congress and Senate, amid apathy in US corporate media and public opinion, are about to virtually declare war on Iran, voting for two misleading resolutions - which call for a naval blockade of Iran's ports - that were basically written by the hardline American Israel Public Affairs Committee Israeli lobby and spoon-fed to politicians in Capitol Hill.

"European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana will be back in Tehran soon to discuss the same old deal Western Europe was offering in 2005 - economic, diplomatic and energy-related "carrots" in return for Iran suspending uranium-enrichment. 

"Once again the Iranian response to the offer has been a delicate ballet of unsurpassed ambiguity. Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili had been talking under the radar with Solana for weeks, saying he would be welcome for no-precondition talks in Tehran. Then the Ahmadinejad faction - to which Jalili is beholden - sort of pulled the plug. But the fact remains that former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, now senior foreign policy and security adviser to Khamenei, is a key player in the talks, and he points to the ayatollah's position of finding some sort of accommodation. 

"One thing is certain: just reboiled "carrots" won't seduce Iran. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has made it more than obvious more than once. Iran will basically continue to conduct its nuclear program and to enrich nuclear fuel."

It seems that this summer has brought more heat not just from global warming but in US-Iran tensions.  However, the common, collective wisdom says no explosions despite the fact that the Bush regime is still clueless about Iran and incapable of dealing with that country on a sane, reasonable and wise basis.