Listening to Hillary Clinton’s top aides trying to put a good face on
the results of the Indiana primary had the same surreal quality as an
aide to Hitler reporting “encouraging news” from Stalingrad.

Her candidacy died on May 5. She needed at least a 10 percent win in
Indiana, and in the end, she scraped through by not much more than
16,000 votes. Every day she stays in the race now means more zeroes on
her campaign debt, which probably tops $25 million right now, when all
the IOUs are counted. Hillary might have to go back into the cattle
futures business.

There’s talk of Clinton telling Obama that the price of concession is
that he settle her campaign debt and take her on the ticket. He’s got
the money, though he should keep it for worthier purposes. As for the
No. 2 spot, what does it take to keep the Clintons clear of the White
House? A stake through both their hearts? If ever a campaign disclosed
low moral and political fiber, it was this one. Bill ended up as a
petulant sleaze ball and Hillary as a war-drum thumper, marching
shoulder to shoulder with John McCain.

Prison is the leitmotif of this year’s campaign. Obama was — and may
remain — the prisoner of his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Hillary
was the prisoner of her yes-to-war-on-Iraq vote. McCain owes his whole
political career to his stint in a prison in Vietnam. Nervous though
liberals are of the issue, the real extent of McCain’s collaboration
with his Vietnamese captors should be a hot issue in the fall. There
are more prisoners here per capita than in any country in the world. We
have prisons where Americans torture their captives into madness and
suicide. America itself is prisoner of the economic philosophy of
neoliberalism, dying before our eyes.

In the White House now is our top prisoner of war, the war in question
being the one in Iraq. Will Bush compound this disaster by an attack on
Iran? Many have predicted it, though I’ve never thought it would come
to full-scale open conflict. But Bush and Cheney are certainly upping
the ante. I reported on the CounterPunch Web site on May 2 that “six
weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert
offensive against the Iranian regime that is, according to those
familiar with its contents, ‘unprecedented in its scope.’ Bush’s secret
directive covers actions across a huge geographic area — from Lebanon
to Afghanistan — but is also far more sweeping in the types of actions
permitted under its guidelines — up to and including the assassination
of targeted officials.”

The source for Andrew’s major scoop, a former official on the National
Security Council, indicated that the new program of destabilization
will mean money and weapons showered on Iranian Kurdish nationalists,
as well the Ahwazi Arabs of southwest Iran. “Operations against Iran’s
Hezbollah allies in Lebanon will be stepped up, along with efforts to
destabilize the Syrian regime.”

The covert program is budgeted at $300 million, which Democratic
leaders in Congress approved in secret session after listening to the
request for a special appropriation. No doubt the ardent support of the
Israel lobby for escalation towards war on Iran played a significant
role in the Democrats’ green light. In rhetorical terms, the stage
scenery is all in place.

“Is it fair to say that the Iranian-backed special groups in Iraq are
responsible for the murder of hundreds of American soldiers and
thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians?” Sen. Joe Lieberman asked
General David Petraeus in recent hearings. “It certainly is. ... That
is correct,” the general replied, testifying next day that “Unchecked,
the ‘special groups’ pose the greatest long-term threat to the
viability of a democratic Iraq.”

CBS has reported reports that the State Department is at work on an
ultimatum, presumably advising Iran of drastic military sanctions
unless it quits all its current activities in Iraq. U.S. military
deployments to the Gulf buttress this rhetorical barrage.

Will we see Condoleezza Rice doing a reprise of Gen. Colin Powell’s
notorious briefing to the United Nations, only this time targeting
Iran? I still doubt it. On such matters, U.S. credibility remains at an
all-time low, and the U.S. economy is not in fit shape for another war.
Citigroup, the world’s largest financial services company, is headed
for bankruptcy, held clear of immediate ruin only by giving Dubai 11
percent interest on a bailout loan.

But if you want search out the evidence for continued escalation, the
evidence is thick on the ground. Congressional resistance, always
frail, was broken last fall. The only significant resistance to war is
a very significant number of ordinary Americans, and who cares about
them?

Alexander Cockburn is a syndicated columnist.