This won’t faze Bush:

SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.

“There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.”

A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.

It’s clear he intends to keep the threat pressure on, no matter what anyone says. What’s not clear is whether he’ll make it happen, or whether his brinksmanship is intended to grant his cronies one last oil market killing before his term is out.

Either way, I expect we’ll know sometime between 10 days from now and 10 weeks.

A surge in Iraq, a spring offensive to put down in Afghanistan, and a potential strike by us or Israel, all at the same time. I think the military brass is wise to send this pre-emptive message. But Bush can tell them their resignations won’t be accepted and quash their effort.

Clearly Bush is busy developing a casus belli tied to Iraq to sell the case to the public, because the earliest projections of an Iranian nuke are in 2009 - which means the haste rgument doesn’t hold.

Should Iran choose to respond by cutting its oil exports - an action it’s entitled to do - Bush can leave us vulnerable to an economic shock he can only counter bt drawing off the strategic reserve. The market speculation would cause the price to rise anyway during the limited time it would take to drain that, and the chain of events that follows would be rife with claims from both sides that the other was committing acts of war.

Yet Bush seems bent on playing this game of chicken without any recognition that Iran has options available that fall well short of his need to make the case for war. In that event, will he invent a Gulf of Tonkin lie?