Kristol: Bush Might Bomb Iran If He 'Thinks Obama's Going To Win'

Think Progress:

On Fox News Sunday this morning, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said that President Bush is more likely to attack Iran if he believes Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is going to be elected.

However, "if the president thought John McCain was going to be the next president, he would think it more appropriate to let the next president make that decision than do it on his way out," Kristol said, reinforcing the fact that McCain is offering a third Bush term on Iran.

"I do wonder with Senator Obama, if President Bush thinks Senator Obama's going to win, does he somehow think -- does he worry that Obama won't follow through on that policy," Kristol added. Host Chris Wallace then asked if Kristol was suggesting that Bush might "launch a military strike" before or after the election.

Read the whole story: Think Progress

Comments

[belikejeanvaljean]

I can only conclude the the NYT publishes his columns because he so obviously makes the neocons look like the liars, alarmists and fools that they are...

[MysTerree]

So how is it that Little Billy Kristol--who is been wrong about everything so far--continues to get air time from a fawning MSM? This is beyond tiresome.

[Alwaysrightneverwrong]

I think Bush wants to bomb Iran as much as he wanted to invade Iraq. With his leagacy so deep in the sewer he has little to lose and might think it could redeem his historical position.

Bush is dangerous because he is always certain he is right. I remember hearing that he was the most condfident person many people said they had ever met. This confidence was really stubborness combined with a profound lack of curiosity and intellectual laziness. The dems should have impeached Bush right after the Iraq disgrace was revealed. It might be too late. Kristol could be on to something with this mad theory. This administration is capable of almost anything.

[nogimmicks]

Bush is a lame duck, he is not dangerous, if anything, for personal reasons he wants to do something good. Kristol, McCain, Lieberman etc. ARE dangerous though. Despite what they have done they remain in power and in positions of influence.

[WIpatriot]

Like, what kind of good in the topsy-turvy world of dubya?

[Durango]

He is like a bad gambler doubling up his bets.

And will lose in Iran as well.

Or rather, we will lose. The United States of America, the world.

[Truthmeter]

Kristol is an idiot..how is it thaqt people can get on Tv and make up just about anything...causing websites who have no control..print it like it is fact...where is all this high paid(overpaid) judgement.

[WIpatriot]

Get real. There is an entire TV network that makes up pretty much everything.

[freecasey]

Another chapter in the ongoing marginalization of Bill Kristol. His ilk helps Fox viewers who somewhere repressed deep in their psyche still have a smidgen of rationality and realism own up to their problem and emerge from their ideological coma.

Actually, Obama's campaign would be remiss if it was not already developing a contingency plan for how to respond to an attack, both on Iran or on U.S. soil, for that matter. The neocons' next Reichstag fire/Straussian social engineering project could be just around the corner.

[nogimmicks]

Kristol needs to be charged with treason and conspiracy, not just marginalized.

[booker52]

Please enough of these so called mind readers thinking they know what Bush would do. Do they call up the WH and ask??? I don't claim to like the man myself, but this is just plain silly.

[Argente]

If Mr. Kristol's assertion is correct, then Bush will bomb Iran. I cannot imagine that very many Repubs, especially those at the top levels, believe that their party can win the presidency or not lose a significant number of seats in both houses of Congress. What Bush is up to is uncharacteristically nuanced: he wants the current Democratic Congress to stop him from bombing Iran. He also wants this Congress to stand firmly in the way of offshore drilling. This is the only way that the post-election Repub minority will be able to claim that the increasing threat from Iran and the high price of oil are the fault of the obstructionist Democrats.

[KPinSEA]

It's like Kristol wakes up every morning and asks himself "What is the absolutely stupidest thing I can say or write today?"

Based on the results, he rejects several insufficiently stupid ideas every morning before coming up with something outstandingly stupid enough to live down to his standards.

[therhinocard]

An interesting side note, If you bother to go back and read any of McCain's speeches on the foreclosure crisis, he never puts a plan out there, he only says "Americans need to implement measures to make sure this crisis never happens again." That is not a plan to help out the current situation, but once again the mainstream media ignores these things. It's depressing really. And with the cameras on every street here in Arizona, the photo radar, the red light photos, the "traffic monitoring" CCTV on every corner. it's getting worse. The police state is being set up. Hell, McCain even travels with his own private army. A candidate with a private army, paid for by the citizens' he represents, tax dollars. I want to throw up.

[therhinocard]

The real ID act is nothing more than the second coming of the yellow star of David forced upon the Jews. The poor and Hispanic people of this nation will become the new Jew and under "terrorism" threats and Patriot Act legislation, they will be put into these camps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REAL_ID_Act (find the part about how not posessing a real id will restrict your ability to use the airlines to travel)
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2006/010206detentioncamps.htm (detention camps)

Americans have such a "get rich quick" mindset that it permeates in nearly every other center of their brains. For example. Most people do not realize that a man like George Bush could never have become President in the 60's or 70's or 80's. It took time to regress to this point where a public official can literally lie to the public, be exposed for the liar he is, and then be allowed to continue lying as if it's a way of life.

[therhinocard]

Speaking of TV, It wasn't until the rise of reality television, which convinced a whole nation to accept reality tv as reality and reject the reality they live in. This holds true when you think about what the term "American Idol" actually means. Imagine that, an entire nation literally Idolizing singers. I got fired once for making fun of my boss because she spent more time talking about Clay and Reuben than the reports I was writing. Eh, I smelled like beer all the time. That probably had something to do with it as well, but that's a different story.

"I don't want you to riot, I don't you to write your congressman, because I don't know what to tell you to write, but first, you've got to get mad. You've got to say, I'm a human being god damn it. My life had value." Or you could just keep watching tv.

[therhinocard]

People wonder how the Germans let Hitler do the things he did? Historians are going to wonder the same thing about Americans a few years down the road.

We can sit here all day and comment on the breaking news, but if we really cared, we would be making news. Get out there. Make a sign. Get informed. Go door to door. Do something with your life other than just sit here and whine and complain and read. Become an activist. Stop playing the WII and Xbox Live and just get out there and find people to talk to that do not share your opinion. Be prepared. Otherwise you will do more to hurt your cause than advance it. Pick up one of Al Franken's books. He has very good tips on how to talk to Neo-Cons.

Read this too. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/06/andrew-sullivan-bush-admi_n_95305.html

Youtube the power of nightmares, a BBC production that never saw the light of day on television here in America. It gives an outside perspective on the NEO-NAZI/CON rise to power. Yes Nazi. Not all fascism comes in the form of a German mustache.

[jeanrenoir]

This BBC production is typical. Any American who bothered to watch the cable broadcasts of the largest protests in British history preceding the start of the Iraq War would have been shocked at how violently anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian the speakers tended to be. All of Europe (with the partial exception of Germany, for obvious reasons) takes basically the same pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel perspective. America is unique in the developed world in its enthusiasm for Israel, yet Jews make up only 1.8% of our population. But especially because they made such clever neo-con inroads into the Evangelical Christian community in the past thirty years, support for Israel among American gentiles is uniquely high, too. Let's hope that the neo-con debacle in Iraq, the publication of The Israel Lobby, as well as Jimmy Carter's bold recent book on Israel's oppression of the Palestinians are all beginning to break down the monolithic American attitude towards Israel, and Israel's domination of American foreign policy under the reign of the neo-cons in all the Republican administrations since Reagan, as well as the almost equally pro-Israel slant of both Clintons.

[therhinocard]

It's so difficult to find some sane rational people to speak with about the election or war here in Arizona. People here are more ignorant than in many other states. We are ranked 48th in education. We have a crumbling school system which locally is blamed on the illegal immigrants, not the policy makers. We have flat out cowboy racism that still exists. I, being a very "white looking" bi-racial individual "benefit" from looking white because it allows the inner racist of many people to be unleashed. I hear the N word at least once a week here in Arizona. People have an unfounded belief in McCain here which can only be likened to believing Target is better than Wal-Mart.

McCain flip flops more often than a fish out of water. http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15924.html. But no matter how many times you show people fact, they refuse to believe. I heard yesterday from a man in a computer store that Bill Clinton was responsible for these high gas prices. A piece of me died.

Why are we having a discussion about bombing IRAN at all? Isn't this a congressional issue? If John McCain is elected, what happens next? War is waged, Dissent is forbidden. Protesters are rounded up and put in the Haliburton built detention camps and the middle class is forced into poverty levels because of the foreclosures and gas prices.

[Wolfwoman]

It would be good idea if Kristol were more careful about publicly sharing his GOP fantasies. He diminishes George Bush, John McCain and the American people.

[starboymikey]

He diminishes George Bush
____________________________________________

How can you diminish George Bush? Would anyone even notice at this point?

[keclxivq]

Their success depends on our fear. No fear, they lose it all. These wonderful Americans will do anything to stay in power.
I like to research these so called experts to understand why they are considered to be expert in certain areas. Mr Kristol is an expert due to following his Father's beliefs. The more I learn the more I realize these people have no guts and not one original thought of their own. If Daddy believed it, it must be the way to go. Just like a driver that's lost and too stupid to stop adn ask for directions.
I learned in school that if you are digging a hole it's best to stop and seek out other people's help and ideas before the hole gets so deep you can't climb out. That's what these so called experts are doing to our country.
I don't think Mr Kristol's Father taught him the most important lesson. Keep your diarrhea of a mouth shut if you can't add anything worthwhile to the conversation.
That would also be the case of the current administration. They may be wrong but their still right, got it?

[HamletsMill]

All unopposed ideologues eventually become psychopaths. It is brain chemistry. When are people going to finally "get" this from world history? The suicide Islamists are psychopaths. The NeoCons are psychopaths. All of them. Madmen. Do not ever put madmen in charge of anything. When is the entire world going to learn this? When? The current times we are living in is a time of Cosmic Judgment upon electorates. When are people going to wake up? When?