Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It's Off to War with Iran We Go

George W. Bush is bored. He has a year and a half left in his presidency, and he only has two wars going at the same time. The American economy is on the verge of a recession. Just to make sure he still has the magic, the president just vetoed a bill that would have given millions more children health insurance.

But for this President, these challenges are old hat. He's been there, destroyed that.

Now, he's going to bomb Iran. Last week, he suggested that if we are interested in avoiding World War III, we ought to be interested in preventing Iran from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.

Boy, that's a low bar. If Iran has the knowledge -- the knowledge -- of how to make a nuclear weapon, we will be in World War III.

Wow. Now, let's get a couple of things straight: one, Iran's economy is in a meltdown. Their nutty leader may get tossed aside by his own people. Two, Iran may be years away from getting a nuclear weapon.

I don't want them to have a nuke; Iran aligns themselves with terrorists, they have been particularly bellicose in order to get attention, and a nuclear Iran may set off a Middle East arms race that will send me to my underground bunker (not the same one Cheney hid in after 9/11) for the next 50 years.

But Iran going nuclear is years away. And Iran knowing how to go nuclear -- that's the standard that the President has set for World War III.

I mean, Iran? Iran is going to start World War III? Is Iran really threatening world conquest? I mean, aside from their conquests of Great Neck and Beverly Hills.

What troops will we use for our war with Iran? After we're done bombing Iran, and we are sure that every single human being in the world hates our country, won't Iran still have the knowledge they had before?

How do you nuke knowledge?

I realize that, to this president, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. That's why he's tried to avoid having any for the last seven years.

But learning how to do something is not a reason to start a war.

Let me ask you a question: if George W. were President during the Cuban Missile Crisis (instead of JFK), well, would you be here today? Or would you be reading this blog from the afterlife?

You can't call this president's bluff; he has no bluff. He means it. I think his eyes are going all googly just thinking about all the places he can bomb before he leaves office. Matter of fact, I'm not even worried about us bombing Iran anymore. It's going to happen.

I'm worried that if China keeps recalling its Dora the Explorer toys, it's goodbye Shanghai.

Do we still have the Secret Service guy with the nuclear football? Hey, Secret Service guy: Hold on to that thing for dear life! If the president asks for you, have someone tell him you're in the bathroom.

Then somebody, call Poppy and Barb, and have them show up at the White House ASAP. Lock Cheney out of the room. Have an intervention -- perhaps you need more than two people for an intervention, I don't know what the rules are -- and tell W. that when he leaves office, if he keeps this up, we won't have a world for him to go out into and give speeches to "fill up the ol' coffers," as he so eloquently put it.

January 20, 2009 is a year and a half away, but for as far away as it seems, we may as well be counting in dog years. This president can do untold amounts of damage before he leaves office. And he seems determined to go out with a bang.

Comments

[OrangeSam]

You're right, Matt. Nuking knowledge won't work. It's like attacking a tactic (see GWOT). However, it would dovetail nicely with this administration's other attacks on knowledge (climate change data suppression, for example). GWOK is an awkward acronym so perhaps this will be more specialized like GWONK - Global War on Nuclear Knowlege.

[FlowerGirl]

1. Doesn't every PhD physicist know how to make a nuclear bomb now? I'm quite sure Iran has a few of those.
2. By the time Ike gave us that famous warning, the MIC was already a growing malignancy and it has never let up. (The question is: are we no longer a nation with a military force, or are we a military force with a nation?)
Perhaps some recall the hope for a "peace dividend" when the Soviet Union collapsed. But no, military spending didn't decrease at all. It increased. And we went looking for a new enemy. Guess what: we found one.
wldnswmmr, I am very open to suggestions: how do we use this quarter you see us having? I wonder if the calamities you mention aren't already upon us. But I'll go down fighting if someone can tell me how. (And it isn't with blind suipport for any Democrat that ccomes along. Some are no better than Bush.)
zeresean, any intelligent observer knows that Iran isn't near any nuclear weapons. But we knew the same thing about Iraq and that didn't prevent that war. Why is Iran any different? (I hope!)

[oldpotsmuggler]

Can you remember the first time you heard that all of the information for making nuclear weapons is in the internet? I sure as hell hope that they haven't discovered computers yet in Iran.

[Gary50]

Ok, ok. So they don't HAVE the knowledge yet to build the bomb. But they WANT the knowledge and if we don't bomb them they might get it. Heh heh.

[texanna]

Hey, great idea -- can we get Poppy and Mom over there right now! No, wait, let's get James Baker, he's the Fixer, right? Wait, it's really not Shrub at all, is it? I mean, don't we have to get someone to get Darth near a microwave so we can get him to quit giving the orders?

This would be so much easier if Pelosi would just do her Constitutional duty and begin impeachment investigations. Maybe then the Unitary Executives would be so tied up with that issue that they couldn't bomb Iran. Well, it was a nice thought.

[wldnswmmr]

I don't think it's a good idea to stop worrying about bombing Iran. The United States will be permanently altered if we attack Iran. It will be the final blow to democracy and civil liberties here at home, and turn this burgeoning Sparta into a complete armed madhouse, as Greg Palast puts it. I console myself with thinking that Bush has about 1-1/4 years left; still way too much time, but I shall take what quarter these times afford me.

[zeesean]

Iran is light years away from anything that
can even look like a bomb! But you have to understand that neo-cons don't let facts get in the way of any of their wars-of-choice.

[Sundialsvc4]

We should not disregard the wisdom of the past Presidents who, before stepping across the threshold of the Oval Office (of their day), first had attained the highest ranks of ordinary military command.

General U. S. Grant snarled that "generals don't start wars ... politicians do." All of the wars that made him famous could have been, and should have been, stopped by the politicians in Congress who by their actions or their inaction actually caused them.

General Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower was even more prescient when he warned us that the military industrial complex represented a threat "without precedent in the American experience."

The war-machine represents the one thing that a politico loves most of all: truly stupendous amounts of do-re-mi. And to the victors ("not being the victor" is unthinkable...) goes the spoils. "Ike" clearly foresaw that this could consume everything -- and it has done so.

And yet... the Constitutional separation of powers remains as it always was. We have this war because Congress continues to authorize it, sometimes in the dead of night. We have far-reaching Presidential power-grabs because Congress authorizes them and because the Supreme Court will not rule. Why does the Government seem to act so "senselessly?" Do-re-mi.

What we Americans must -not- do, however, is to either "give up" or "give in." Stop pointing fingers either at the President (alone) or a political party (alone). As much as these people want to present themselves as "divided," they're not. Oh no, not in the slightest.

[outnow]

President Washington advised us to avoid foreign entanglements. President Eisenhower advised that it was the MIC that was such a grave threat. He wanted to include Congress in the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Complex designation but thought it wise to leave it out. I agree that without Congress' war-mongering-for-profit that there would be no war. So let's all start calling it the MICC on the HuffPo. It sends a message that cannot be dodged on party lines.

With our thirst for oil, we are doomed to ignore President Washington's admonition to "avoid foreign entanglements." Indeed, our alliance with Israel is based on our need to control oil.

Congress is a rubber-stamp for whatever makes money for their constituents - or, in reality, those (especially corporations)who pay money to their campaigns. Witness Duke Cunningham and multiply that by five-hundred.

The sewer on the Potomac is a war machine that will destroy the planet with its greed. It's more capitalism than democracy.

[Henry]

It really amazes me how people with position or proximity permit this(what seems to be) "c" rated movie to be rolled out.

[mommadona]

"Wolf! Wolf! The small boy cried
and the villagers below let the sound die,
knowing this time, the little brat was there
just to push buttons and demand they stare.

"Where are his parents?" the old priest asks
"Anyone seen them since decade before last?"

"Yes, I saw them", one villager muttered
"They were downing their bread smeared with lots of butter they stole from my farm a little while back"
"Really!" said the priest.
"That was quite a snack!"