Neocon Insanity

Now they want to start bombing the hell out of Iran. Senior Neoconservative Norman Podhoretz, given a full page of the Wall Street Journal Wednesday:

Since a ground invasion of Iran must be ruled out for many different reasons, the job would have to be done, if it is to be done at all, by a campaign of air strikes. Furthermore, because Iran’s nuclear facilities are dispersed, and because some of them are underground, many sorties and bunker-busting munitions would be required. And because such a campaign is beyond the capabilities of Israel, and the will, let alone the courage, of any of our other allies, it could be carried out only by the United States.^* Even then, we would probably be unable to get at all the underground facilities, which means that, if Iran were still intent on going nuclear, it would not have to start over again from scratch. But a bombing campaign would without question set back its nuclear program for years to come, and might even lead to the overthrow of the mullahs.

The opponents of bombing—not just the usual suspects but many both here and in Israel who have no illusions about the nature and intentions and potential capabilities of the Iranian regime—disagree that it might end in the overthrow of the mullocracy. On the contrary, they are certain that all Iranians, even the democratic dissidents, would be impelled to rally around the flag. And this is only one of the worst-case scenarios they envisage. To wit: Iran would retaliate by increasing the trouble it is already making for us in Iraq. It would attack Israel with missiles armed with non-nuclear warheads but possibly containing biological and/or chemical weapons. There would be a vast increase in the price of oil, with catastrophic consequences for every economy in the world, very much including our own. The worldwide outcry against the inevitable civilian casualties would make the anti-Americanism of today look like a love-fest.

I readily admit that it would be foolish to discount any or all of these scenarios. Each of them is, alas, only too plausible. Nevertheless, there is a good response to them, and it is the one given by John McCain. The only thing worse than bombing Iran, McCain has declared, is allowing Iran to get the bomb.

How many civilians is Podhoretz looking to kill? How many does he want dead in the subsequent social unrest? How many professors to be killed or leave Iran, the humanists? All?

What kind of blowback does he want on America? Attacks on our interests internationally, on our soil? Total war, call all the 18 year-olds up? Make the world an exponentially more dangerous place because of your unbridled fear? Remake the whole world in your fear's image?

He gives us the short answer, per his justifying McCain quote: he doesn't give a fuck.

Iran is a deeply divided society, with a bourgeoisie that hides party clothes under birkas and dances all night in private, a secular underground. This huge, mullah-hating population is America's best friend in the Middle East outside of Israel. The Iranian Americans I know who immigrated here came as Republicans, because they hated Jimmy Carter so much for not allowing the Shah to be treated medically here.

But the moment the first bomb drops, that who class in Iran, the one we're depending on for after regime change, will all go nationalist. They don't want to be invaded by troops or airplanes. It would be the single stupidest move -- to our own self-interest -- since faking 9/11 blame on Saddam Hussein and dunning our country into invading Iraq at the time.

He makes the sicko Iranian President, who's position is in practice very weak under the mullah rulers, the ones vested in stability, unless he can get exactly the kind of attention a U.S. bombing attack would bring. He'd be right, after all, having predicted the U.S. aggression.

The Baker-Hamilton Report, which Bush gives lip service to at best, talks about diplomacy. Strength through allies. And not just the Saudis.

Podhoretz and his crew, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Dick Cheney, George Bush -- they've been wrong every step of the way since Afghanistan and thanks to them we've shown the world our ass in Iraq. If we listen to them again, naked fear-mongering over reason, even strong, tough reason, then we deserve the consequences. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

But if you still need proof that Podhoretz in functionally insane, here's his final paragraph:

Not so George W. Bush, a man who knows evil when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly courageous willingness to endure vilification and contumely in setting his face against it. It now remains to be seen whether this President, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will.

"...this President, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory..." Less justification? Iraq, Katrina, North Korea, Social Security, Alberto Gonzales, Valerie Plame, global warming, science...need I go on?

This is where the Neocons are mindmeld with traditional Right Wing Conservatives. Always the stab in the back. Never the personal responsibility. If we only gave them more troops, more money, less regulation...they could have doubled the time we spent in Vietnam.

It's bullshit to say this is the only action that can be taken. Maybe back in biblical times. But our world is a much more complex place.

With this branch of the war mongers, it all comes back to Israel, and Israel's security is a deeply legitimate concern. Ahmadinejad does deny the Holocaust, and many Mid East country leaders including others in Iran have spoken of wiping Israel off the face of the map.

The Jewish homeland given over raw, deserty, as reparation for the Holocaust itself, when 6 million Jews were slaughtered. Within Podhoretz's lifetime. But this call to slaughter is madness in broadcast form.

Because the man who cries "Fire!" in the crowded theater always gets more people killed than he saves.