CHENEY AND DAUGHTER LIZ HYPE WAR WITH IRAN: LIZ DISAGREES WITH CONDOLEEZA RICE

It isn't bad enough to have one warmonger pushing for war with Iran, but now Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter Elizabeth has jumped into the discussion and is joining her Dad in an effort to get the United States into a war with Iran.

Elizabeth Cheney has been openly critical of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and disagrees with Rice's plan for working with Iran.

Hawks still circling on Iran

By Jim Lobe WASHINGTON
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JF10Ak02.html

Once again, notably in the wake of last week's annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference and the visit to the capital of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, there's a lot of chatter about a possible attack by Israel and/or the United States on Iran. Olmert appears to have left the White House after meeting with President George W Bush and an earlier dinner with Vice President Dick Cheney quite satisfied on this score, while rumors - most recently voiced by neo-conservative Daniel Pipes - that the administration plans to carry out a "massive" attack in the window between the November elections and Bush's departure from office, particularly if Democratic Senator Barack Obama is his successor, continue to swirl around the capital.

What to make of this? Is this real? Or is it psychological warfare designed to persuade Tehran that it really does face devastation if it doesn't freeze its uranium-enrichment program very, very soon and/or to warn Russia and China that they have to put more pressure on Tehran or deal with the consequences of such an attack? As I mentioned in a previous post, I've generally been skeptical of the many reports over the past two years that an attack - either by Israeli or the US - was imminent, as those reports had often warned at the time of their publication. After the release of the December National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), I, like just about everyone else, became even more doubtful that Bush would order an attack before leaving office (and I didn't think the Israelis would mount an attack without a green light from Washington).

This is in part because neo-conservatives, who had been and remain the most eager champions of military action, seemed to simply give up on Bush and, in any event, were not showing any signs of orchestrating a major new media campaign to mobilize public opinion in that direction, as they did in the run-up to the Iraq invasion.

Then there is the "Cheney" role which is becoming more prominent. I am referring not only to Olmert's dinner with Cheney last Wednesday evening in which the two men reportedly addressed "operational subjects", whatever that means. (Remember, it was Cheney's top Middle East aide, David Wurmser, who, during the spring of 2007 when the realists were clearly in the driver's seat, was shopping around to sympathetic think-tanks a scheme - from which the vice president's office was later forced to disassociate itself - for forcing Bush into war with Iran by getting Israel to launch a cruise missile attack on some Iranian nuclear facilities and counting on Tehran to retaliate against US forces.) In other words, Wednesday's dinner was not just a courtesy call; the Israelis clearly believe that Cheney is a player.

But I am also referring to another Cheney, namely Elizabeth, the former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs and Cheney's daughter, who, during the opening plenary session of the AIPAC conference last Monday, took every opportunity to attack the policies of her former boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Liz was particularly harsh on Rice's pet project, the effort to gain at least a framework peace accord between Israel and the Palestinian Authority before Bush leaves office, arguing that the Annapolis Middle East peace process was a waste of time compared to the importance of dealing with Iran in what she called a "zero-sum game". "When we focus on that kind of arrangement [Israeli-Palestinian peace talks], we don't have time to focus on Iran," she declared, suggesting as well that Tehran's leadership was not "rational" and that previous efforts to engage it had also been a waste of time, or worse.

Iran needs to be convinced that if it doesn't heed United Nations Security Council demands to halt enrichment, "They will face military action. We do not have the luxury of time," she said to (surprisingly) scattered applause.

Third, Liz Cheney's remarks should be seen in the context of a more concerted attack by the hawks on Rice of which the recent hatchet job by the Weekly Standard's by Stephen Hayes, the vice president's favorite reporter, was perhaps the most important piece. Hayes accused Rice of betraying the Bush Doctrine and focused much of his essay on her backing for US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill's negotiations over the past year with North Korea, on which the State Department has already been forced on the defensive. Now comes Liz's top-to-bottom repudiation of Rice's Middle East policy - from favoring Palestinian elections in 2006, to initiating the Annapolis summit in Maryland last year and then inviting Syria to attend it, to welcoming last month's Doha agreement on Lebanon.

All of which, she charged, had given Iran a "real choke-hold on the region". Now, I don't think there can be any question that the views of both Hayes and Liz reflect those of the vice president. Moreover, because their closeness to the vice president is so clear and unmistakable, the fact that these views are so harsh and so public suggests to me that Cheney feels more confident than he has felt for some time. Moreover, the campaign to discredit Rice seems to have hit its mark. Not only did she sound defensive in her own speech to AIPAC last Tuesday morning, but she assumed a more-hawkish tone on Iran than she had previously.

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