By Samuel Rubenfeld

With one careless move late last week, President Bush ratcheted up the rhetoric again. The new frontline in the “War on Terror” might just be a nuclear-armed Iran. But this time, the world powers are not just apathetic, but actively against the United States.

The U.S. is not ready and not able to conquer another nation, for a whole host of reasons, the specious nature of our foreign intelligence notwithstanding.

And more than the “War on Terror,” Bush has already labeled the new campaign “World War III.” (Cue the doomsday image with a mushroom cloud here.)

The language used by the administration mirrors that of its manipulation of public discourse in the run-up to the Iraq War in 2002 and 2003-that should not strike anyone as a coincidence.

Famed investigative reporter Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker has been reporting with increasing urgency about a planned war with Iran since Jan. 2005. He has been reporting about competing U.S. relations with Iran-or the lack thereof-and its impact on Israel since Nov. 2001. Hersh’s highly (but often anonymously) sourced reports are getting increasing attention from the “blogosphere,” who has forced the mainstream media to pay attention.

In his latest article, Hersh identifies the changing rhetoric of the administration, and its obvious threats towards Iran. “I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities,” Bush said to a cheering audience at the national convention of the American Legion.

News reports have been honing in on the White House for a comment on the whisper campaign across the beltway, but until last week, no one was saying anything.

The campaign against Iran is led by the most aggressive and ideological members of the Vice President’s office, including Dick Cheney himself; again no surprise there. In a speech Sunday hosted by The Washington Institute, a research organization, Cheney called Iran “a growing obstacle to peace in the Middle East” and he said the U.S. “will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

“The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences,” Cheney added.

Middle East expert Dennis Ross, who is a scholar for the Institute and has served as an envoy to the Middle East for both the first President Bush and for President Bill Clinton, told The New York Times that Cheney’s language is “quite significant” and that it “does have implications,” even if it doesn’t call for specific military action.

If it is already in the “theoretical” stage, the American people by now should know that war is inevitable as long as Cheney’s office continues to have a stranglehold on foreign policy decisions.

Foreign powers are almost unanimously against the idea of a war with Iran. Most notably is Russia’s opposition by President Vladimir Putin, who attended a meeting in Tehran with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and reportedly expressed a willingness to cooperate with a nuclear Iran.

The only major foreign nation seemingly on board with the hard line Iran policy is, strangely enough, France, along with the usual suspect Britain. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s foreign minister said that his country is preparing for the “worst” regarding the Iranian nuclear ambitions. Even if his words, as he said, were “misunderstood,” it underscores the growing alliance between France and the U.S. since Sarkozy’s election.

Iran itself has long denied an interest in nuclear armament; in fact, Ahmadinejad said as much in an interview on “60 Minutes.” But the evidence proves otherwise, as Tehran has obfuscated every move the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has attempted to make in inspecting the nuclear sites.

The U.S. cannot handle the Iraq war, let alone attempting to conquer another nation. But with the snake pit of a $10 billion a month misadventure in Iraq, how can the President justify another war? There are no troops to spare, especially since the policy of “stop-loss” is already taxing the troops beyond what an able-bodied person can normally take. There is no political will for another invasion.

This is nothing more than fear-mongering of the worst order. And it has to stop.

Samuel Rubenfeld is a junior print journalism student. You may e-mail him at [email protected]