According to Seymour Hersh, New Yorker Magazine columnist, the United States is planning to attack Iran, and part of the plan includes nuclear weapons. Boy, if that isn’t the icing on the cake of Bush Mideast policy.
But, before we all get our panties in a twist, consider a few things:
1. Seymour Hersh is an outstanding journalist, with great sources, but has been a critic of the Bush administration for years. This is not like a revelation from Lou Dobbs.
2. Military planning should, and I’m sure does include all contingencies, from doing nothing, to evaporating entire countries.
3. Iran, although it certainly has legitimate gripes with the US and our policies, has issued some pretty inflammatory statements through its leaders, including the destruction of our ally, Israel.
4. Only an absolute idiot would drop an atomic bomb, especially in the Middle East.
Oops, wait a minute. We do have an idiot in charge of our nukes.
Hersh is no fan of the Administration, and he has made this clear in his writing over the last few years. He criticized the Iraq war from soon after the beginning, writing scathing columns about prison abuse and failed policy. But he does, after many years in the business, have good sources.
And what his sources say, according to his radio interview on NPR, is that the “brass” in the Pentagon tried to get the nuclear option taken out of the Iran contingency plans (because, it’s sheer lunacy to even consider), and Bush and Cheney said “no!” They want to threaten Iran with Nukes, and have them available for use.
Wait a minute. Available for use? Seriously?
In spite of Hersh’s anti-Administration reporting, this should scare the hell out of anyone who doesn’t want Doomsday to arrive in the 2006 tax-reporting period. Dropping a nuclear bomb in the Middle East would be, well…like dropping a nuclear bomb in the Middle East! It would be among the worst things that anyone could contemplate, if you chart out the consequences.
First, our “bomb them, kill them, and they will love us and embrace democracy” strategy has been a horrible failure in Iraq. Especially when we didn’t make the lights, water and sewers work again after we destroyed their country. It hasn’t escaped the notice of most rational people that our Mideast strategy has turned most of he world against us. Nuking Iran would make us the pariahs of the globe – sub-North Korea in standing.
Second, although we think the President of Iran is loony, nuking his country would legitimize his lunacy. The Zionist plots of infidels would have come to fruition, and no measures taken in revenge would be enough. 911 times ten, and an entire world of people that will tell us “well, you did ask for it.” The most west leaning of the Muslims will be opening terrorist training camps in response.
Finally, dropping a nuke anywhere will be letting the genie out of the bottle. If we were to use a nuke as a first-strike option, what’s to stop Israel, or Pakistan, or China, or North Korea from flinging nukes whenever they think it suits their national interest? Whoever drops a nuke first in the 21st century will not be the last. They will just get the ball rolling – the fireball that sweeps across the globe.
Great! Just what we want. Fiery, nuclear annihilation, and we will have started it.
I guess we should get our panties in a twist, a big twist. Our President is just messianic enough, just arrogant enough, just enough of an idiot to use a nuke in the Middle East. And since we elected him, we will bear some of the responsibility. Remember this at the polls in November. Remember to vote in a congress that will check the lunacy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Yikes!
