October surprise (Hellie)

Some data:

1. The 13 Sep Weekly Standard reported Bush's "heads up" that two "interesting indicators" undermine predictions that the Dems take congress: in Bush's view, "these elections will come down to two things: one, firm belief that in order to win the war on terror there must be a comprehensive strategy that recognizes this war is being fought on more than one front, and, two, the economy". On the latter, he noted that gas prices are coming down. About the "comprehensive strategy" for fighting the "war on terror" on "more than one front", Bush was less specific. Whatever he had up his sleeve, this interesting post makes a plausible case that it is more than a "bluff".
2. The loathesome Rove has also been promising his buds an "October Surprise" to help win the elections.
3. Now, apparently, the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower, "bristling with Tomahawk cruise missiles", and its supporting "attack group" of ships, has been issued orders that would put it on schedule to launch bombs on Iran on 21 October:

Colonel Gardiner, who has taught military strategy at the National War College, says that the carrier deployment and a scheduled Persian Gulf arrival date of October 21 is "very important evidence" of war planning. He says, "I know that some naval forces have already received 'prepare to deploy orders' [PTDOs], which have set the date for being ready to go as October 1. Given that it would take about from October 2 to October 21 to get those forces to the Gulf region, that looks about like the date" of any possible military action against Iran. (A PTDO means that all crews should be at their stations, and ships and planes should be ready to go, by a certain date--in this case, reportedly, October 1.) Gardiner notes, "You cannot issue a PTDO and then stay ready for very long. It's a very significant order, and it's not done as a training exercise." This point was also made in the Time article.

So what is the White House planning?

On Monday President Bush addressed the UN General Assembly at its opening session, and while studiously avoiding even physically meeting Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was also addressing the body, he offered a two-pronged message. Bush told the "people of Iran" that "we're working toward a diplomatic solution to this crisis" and that he looked forward "to the day when you can live in freedom." But he also warned that Iran's leaders were using the nation's resources "to fund terrorism and fuel extremism and pursue nuclear weapons." Given the President's assertion that the nation is fighting a "global war on terror" and that he is Commander in Chief of that "war," his prominent linking of the Iran regime with terror has to be seen as a deliberate effort to claim his right to carry the fight there. Bush has repeatedly insisted that the 2001 Congressional Authorization for the Use of Force that preceded the invasion of Afghanistan was also an authorization for an unending "war on terror."

It seems pretty clear what the "October surprise" is to be.

I wonder how this will play with the US public. Plausibly, there's pretty serious war fatigue, so this might just backfire. But I can't find any polling data about this.