For Neocons, an Attack on Iran Has Been a Six-Year Project

By Larisa Alexandrovna, Raw Story. Posted February 12, 2007.

The escalation of war rhetoric against Iran from the Bush White House and the neocons is just the latest installment of a long-term plan for another preemptive war.

The escalation of US military planning on Iran is only the latest chess move in a six-year push within the Bush Administration to attack that country. While Iran was named a part of President George W. Bush's "axis of evil" in 2002, efforts to ignite a confrontation with Iran date back long before the post-9/11 war on terror.

Presently, the Administration is trumpeting claims that Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than the CIA's own analysis shows and positing Iranian influence in Iraq's insurgency, but efforts to destabilize Iran have been conducted covertly for years, often using members of Congress or non-government actors in a way reminiscent of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal.