Bill Arkin has a teaser for tomorrow's Early Warning entry -- "Current land warfare war gaming and planning for Iran -- you read it here first" -- that begs the question: with what army?

And Arkin's post yesterday is also worth reading:

A war with Iran started purposefully or by accident, will be a mess. What is happening now though is not just an administration prudently preparing . . . against an aggressive and crazed state, it is also aggressive and crazed, driven by groupthink and a closed circle of bears.

The public needs to know first, that this planning includes preemptive plans that the President could approve and implement with 12 hours notice. Congress should take notice of the fact that there is a real war plan -- CONPLAN 8022 -- and it could be implemented tomorrow.

Second, the public needs to know that the train has left the station on bigger war planning, that a ground war -- despite the Post claim yesterday that a land invasion 'is not contemplated' -- is also being prepared. It is a real war plan; I've heard CONPLAN 1025.

Like early 2002, the floodgates have opened and the stories about Iran war planning have started. Some claim Dick Cheney has already made the decision, some claim war this spring, some say the U.S. and Israel are collaborating.

As convincing a case made that this sort of higher level operational strke planning is taking place, until a few days ago I was under the impression that the center of gravity on Iran policy in the Bush administration's second term had largely moved away from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, with Cheney's office also influential. It's hard to see how the saber rattling can be any help to the internal and external opposition which State has increasingly been exploring ways to support.

Posted by Laura at April 11, 2006 02:43 PM