I’m going to make a prediction. Just remember, you heard it here first….First, let’s lay out a few truths that need to be understood in order to embrace this bold prediction.You may have noticed the latest news on the shenanigans the Iranians are playing with the US navy. They’ve been driving boats at US warships, throwing boxes (possible mines) into the water in front of the ships, etc. What you may not realize is that this sort of thing is actually happening all the time. Military and paramilitary (read “terrorists” in some cases) units at borders in hot zones are always spoofing each other. The ship that exploded on contact with the USS Cole (a US warship) was the fourth or fifth such boat to attack a US warship in that area over several months. This recently reported incident with the Iranians and the US Navey is really just one of a series of events that are normally not reported. Such events are always there, ready to be used for either military or political purposes. The fact that we are being told about this now means that some such purpose may be at hand.In the 1980s, the US and Libya were busily engaged in non-letha dog fights, pretending to try to shoot down each other’s military aircraft, in the vicinity of the “Line of Death” in the Gulf of Sidra, for years. At one point, it was easy for President Reagan to use these hostilities as part of the justification for bombing Libya.In the Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam, the US military was able to claim that North Vietnamese forces attacked them, but the interaction between the two country’s military was actually an ongoing game that could was normally kept in the background and only publicized as needed to justify US military action that ramped up our involvement in Viet Nam.Similarly, interaction between North Korea and the US Navy and between army forces in the Korean DMZ is an ongoing activity, sometimes developing into an international incident, often just below the radar screen but always there to use in a broader political or military ploy.For many years, in the Eastern Mediterranean, US and Israeli warplanes routinely flew aggressive missions on Syrian and other radar installations, causing the Syrians to on alert, painting the jets with radar, and then getting blasted by anti-radar technology.And so on.Military forces of unfriendly groups, where they interact, are always spoofing each other.Meantime, there are dozens of messy diplomatic, “humanitarian,” or quasi military incidents going on all over the world. When George Bush Senior invaded Somalia after he lost the election to Bill Clinton, it was not the case that the situation in Somalia was unique. Unrest, humanitarian crisis, repressive governments keeping food from people they don’t like, inter-tribal conflict, and so on are happening all over the world, in dozens of places, at any given moment.A US president can pick and chose, at any given time, among numerous possible invasions if it happens to be politically expedient to carry out an invasion. Between the border-spoofing and a long list of ongoing local crises, there are dozens of potential military actions that can be chosen, as needed for a political purpose. Such as raising one’s approval rating, or sticking it to a political enemy.You know that presidential approval ratings always go up when fresh warfare breaks out, and then these ratings usually go down when the futility, the costs, and the insanity of the act of war becomes apparent.When George Bush Senior invaded Somalia, he committed one of the most egregious acts of cynicism possible for an American politician. He bumped himself up and made himself look like a guy who could make tough decisions and had a compassion for the needy, and at the same time handed his political enemy a very nasty mess to deal with starting with the first day in office. All presidents enter the oval office with an agenda of things they want to get done, things the electorate saw fit to support in the voting booth. But all presidents at some point run into crises that interfere with that effort. Clinton had his first distraction handed to him by the Republican loser. Later, early in Clinton’s presidency, left over Republican sympathizers helped to make sure that things went as badly as possible in Somalia, to make Clinton look bad, even though this cost numerous lives.That is how Republicans work.There are indications that George Bush Junior intends to leave office with a higher approval rating than he has now (he is now in the low 30’s). Aides are openly predicting that he will be at a 45% rating when he leaves office. But I think the Washington insiders who are interpreting this prediction are missing the point, probably because of disinformation that this improvement will come from domestic policy actions. What I see happening is a set-up for an invasion, probably of Iran, within a couple/few weeks after the election, if a Democrat wins the White House.George Bush is going to hand Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or whoever an invasion of something, somewhere, quite possibly Iran but possibly a nearby middle eastern state, or, perhaps a Latin American state, as a very unpleasant house warming gift. You can bet on this.

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