I would take this with a grain of salt for many reasons. First of all, naturally, is that Clark wasn't concerned enough in 2001 to say anything. He
waited until he had time to put a book together. Not just any book either, but a book timed to coincide with his bid for the presidency.
The Secrets Clark Kept
Winning is a much slimmer book that reads like a campaign document. Clark knows people will perceive it that way and he denies any political
motivation, saying in the introduction that he wrote it as a public duty,
Public duty can wait until the oportune moment obviously.
Also, lest we forget, this 5 year plan to take on 7 countries was hatched in 2001, started in 2003, and as of 2006 has only taken us to one nation.
Bush has got two years now to take on 6 nations according to Clark.
Allow me to explain what I believe to be the simple reason why these charges seem so irrational.
Quite simply, Clark has sensationalized the truth. We have been after the nations mentioned, no doubt about it. But invasions? Former SACEUR Wesley
Clark, unless he were a complete idiot, would know full well that in America could not possibly consolidate power over an almost 2000 mile long swath
of the middle east plus two African nations all in 5 years with such success that the plan could weather the mid term elections, the 2004 election,
and of course the still important 2008 election.
There is no way that Clark ever believed that Bush had any intention of invading all of these nations. I am sure that a man of Clark's position would
remain abrest of military news and policy and he would be in a position to know that we are in fact gunning for the nations he named, and he would
know that we were going to get most of them barely firing a shot ourselves.
As I have been saying and saying for over a year, we've got Sudan all lined up to go on its own with the Southern seccession in 2012 (or sooner if we
can get the civil war there back into high gear) and I suspect we probably had a role in the unfortunate aircraft accident which befell Sudanese Vice
President John Gurang, thus securing our plans for Sudan.
We backed the ARPCT militia against the ICU in Somalia and with the cooperation of Ethiopia and Kenya (and perhaps eventually Somaliland and Puntland)
we will reign that nation into some acceptible level of predictable despotism. My guess is that we've already got their next president in training
somewhere.
Iran we may in fact get at through this present situation, or we may go later, but in my humble opinion if we don't know it's coming by April of
2007 we can rest assured that it's not coming at all, at least as far as a serious war is concerned (as opposed to airstrikes).
Syria is a lower priority than Iran and frankly I don't think there's time. Maybe if things had been done better in Iraq we could have hit them in
2004 or 2005 but it's too late now. If they intervened in a war against Iran, we could smash their army and leave them for dead, but there is no way
the US is going to maintain any useful presence in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, AND Syria. So all we can expect here is a hit and run IF they really give
us a golden opportunity.
Lebanon we thought we had after the Cedar Revolution. Perfectly sound way to compromise an enemy if you ask me. My guess on that isn't that the
present Israeli incursion was ordered by us pursuant to the plans Clark speaks of, but that the Syrians and Iranians have ordered Hezbollah to provoke
it to restore their position in Lebanon. The US is all too happy to let it go down in hopes that it will present the opportunity to go after Iran and
Syria for us.
Libya I sincerely doubt under just about any circumstances. All I can guess is that a plan for Libya was abandoned early on. As long as Libya doesn't
attack anybody (doesn't get into Darfur, doesn't mess with Chad) there is almost no way that a very very busy US Military is going to spare so much
as a tomahawk on them.
The US has time for one more serious ground war, but not another occupation ala Iraq. The best that can happen is killing three birds with one stone
(Lebanon, Syria, Iran) not getting full control of those nations but destroying or badly weakening the hostile gov'ts. That leaves Clark's
sensationalism at 3/6 on predictions (Iraq was already underway when he wrote), and I consider it fairly unlikely.