Iran: Are We Trying to Create or Provoke An Incident As an Excuse for War?

[Ed. update: Check out Digby at Hullabaloo for his take on Iran and the Bush Administration's rabid eagerness to make war there.]

Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly blog, Political Animal, notes this:

CREATING AN INCIDENT....Are we hoping to provoke Iran into some kind of overt military action that we can use as an excuse to go after them? Maybe, maybe not. But we certainly considered doing it in Iraq, so it's hardly out of the question. Jonathan Schwarz runs through the history lesson.

Taking it much deeper, Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory looks into Bush as president's power to go after Iran (aka Make War) here and whether or not Bush will - or will pretend he has the authority to - launch a war with Iran without explicit Congressional approval (I think we all know Bush will do whatever he wants and then leave it to the O'Reillys and Malkins and Becks and Kissingers of the world to make excuses for why it was OK):

In response to Joe Biden's warning to Condoleezza Rice that an attack on Iran would "generate a constitutional confrontation in the Senate," Josh Marshall says: "A comment like that doesn't come out of the blue." Maybe, but it is worth underscoring what the administration's views are as to its authority to attack Iran.

Last April, Seymour Hersh wrote an article in The New Yorker warning that the administration "has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensifed planning for a possible major air attack." That article was published just as I was finishing writing How Would a Patriot Act?, and so I added an Epilogue examining the Bush administration's views as to the President's power to commence a war, or order an attack, against Iran.

The Epilogue emphasizes that the radical theories of presidential power adopted by the administration (and applied to general lawbreaking, warrantless eavesdropping, torture, indefinite detentions of U.S. citizens) applied clearly and fully to Iran, i.e., that those theories -- which were and still are the formally adopted positions of the Executive Branch -- absolutely mean that the President has the power to commence a war with Iran, and that not only would he not need Congressional approval to do so, but Congress would lack the power to stop him even if it tried:

As a nation, we can and should engage in vigorous debates over whether a military offensive against Iran is desirable, prudent, disastrous, or just plain crazy. But it is just as crucial that we realize that the Bush administration has embraced theories of executive power which assert that the president has the authority to initiate a military attack on Iran regardless of whether the American people, or their representatives in Congress, approve of such an attack. . . .

As the Iran debate proceeds, it is necessary to remember that the president believes he is the "sole organ" in all such matters, and he has full, limitless and unchecked authority to do whatever he wants.

The rationale and documentation on which I based those conclusions are set forth here, here, and here. The title of the infamous Yoo Memorandum -- the Bible of Onimpotent Presidential Power Theories -- is: The President's Constitutional Authority to Conduct Military Operations Against Terrorists and the Nations Supporting Them. The Bush administration has not changed one comma in any of its formally adopted positions concerning presidential power, and that Memorandum standing alone, along with multiple other sources (discussed in the linked posts), leave no do doubt as to the administration's views.At the Senate confirmation hearing of Robert Gates last month, this exchange occurred with Sen. Byrd:

BYRD: Do you believe the president has the authority, under either the 9/11 war resolution or the Iraq war resolution, to attack Iran or to attack Syria?
GATES: To the best of my knowledge of both of those authorizations, I don't believe so.

Note, too, Glenn's mention of how Lardass er.. Chris Matthews of MSNBC's Hardball tried to get an answer out of Tony Snow-Job about the president's right to make war whenever he felt like it.