Obama's Wag the Dog moment?

KurtP and Wolfwalker left some comments on yesterday's post about bunker buster bombs being shipped to Diego Garcia. They made me wonder, what if Obama's serious? What would be his motivation?

Wag The Dog is a terribly fun - and terribly cynical - film from the Clinton years, about a President who manufactures a military crisis with Albania in the run-up to an election. Finding himself massively unpopular, he creates a crisis to rally the nation in the days before the election.



Cynical.

So, as a thought experiment, could this be a model for an October strike on Iran? Consider:

• Democrats are tanking in the polls. This election cycle is a looming disaster.
• Democratic voters are discouraged, while Republican/Independent/Tea Party voters are energized. If Democrats stay home, the expected defeat will be a rout.
• Jewish voters are overwhelmingly Democrat, and the recent tussle with Israel has normal Democrat (jewish) allies expressing dismay. This feeds the "discouraged Democrat voter" meme.
• Obama is seen as soft on America's enemies, which by itself is not a major issue, but added in with all the rest hurts him with the independents and "Reagan Democrats".
• The Europeans (particularly the French) are disgusted at the administration's rolling over towards the Iranians. Their squawking is likely to be muted.
  
• The "hit them from the air" approach was the staple of the Clinton administration. Check out the name at the top of the letterhead over at the State Department.
  

I certainly don't hold out any hope that Obama has principles that would get in the way.

So - take out the Iranian processing plants in October. It rallies the Jewish lobby, plus Centrist Democrats, plus (probably) a bunch of Independents. Of course, it infuriates the retards Netroots, but they aren't enough to turn disaster into victory anyway.

As the Mythbusters would say, "Plausible". Do I think it will play out this way? Probably not. But it's a thought experiment, remember?

Of course, this contradicts the Czar of Muscovy's analysis. All I can plead is that Israel taking out the reactors doesn't help Obama.