A New "Perle Harbor"

(From here)

A New "Perle Harbor": Neocon Foreign Policy Architect Richard Perle reveals US War Plans in the Iranian Theater

The morning after his Oxford talk, Perle appeared on the very influential BBC radio programme, Today, where he was interviewed by John Humphries, the ranking heavyweight commentator in Britain. Admitting President Bush’s political weakness, Perle made a revealing comment when Humphries pressed him on US plans to bomb Iran. When Humphries pointed out that a unilateral US bombardment of Iran would be greeted with global howls of derision, Perle said,

“No American president who believes that there is a last opportunity to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state is going to be deterred by derision. He will do what he believes to be in the best interests of the protection of those who might come under attack from an Iranian nuclear weapon including the United States.” (Today, BBC4, 3rd June 2006)

When Humphries pressed him harder by pointing out that the former British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, had termed the US bombing of Iran, “inconceivable,” Perle shot back with a revealing retort. “Well, it’s no longer conceivable that he’s the Foreign Secretary.” Humphries then asked whether Straw had been sacked over his offence putting Perle on the spot by asking, “You think there’s a link there?” Perle replied,

“I don’t know. He was expressing a view that the government had not concluded yet in a way that diminished the leverage to produce a political result, a diplomatic result. That’s obviously unwise.”(ibid)

This response left the clear impression that Straw had been removed specifically because he had ridiculed Washington’s negotiating position and that Perle had been intimately involved in ordering and engineering the surprise sacking.