Behind every new US disaster has been the hand of Dick Cheney

The Bush team still has 18 months to fashion another foreign policy disaster, this time over Iran. All along Cheney has pushed harder for military action – how, mutter his acolytes, can we possibly leave the next president facing a nuclear-armed regime in Tehran? And now, just as with Iraq five years ago, leaks that point to war are multiplying. Iran, we are told, is in league with al-Qa’ida. It is arming insurgents in Iraq so that these latter can kill more Americans.

Not long ago, Bush seemed to have accepted that America was in no shape for another military adventure. But who can be sure that however wretched Dick Cheney’s track record, he will not prevail again?

independent