The Nazis of Tehran

What's scary is the contingency of history. I think for my generation, born well after WWII, it's like, "Whew, that was a close one. Glad it turned out that way." But what's scary -- as if the crimes of WWII weren't enough in themselves -- is that it really could have gone either way. And what's scary is that this could go either way, as it were: Iran could do serious damage to Israel, and given the right conditions, Israel could lose a major war or worse.

When you're a kid, you think the good guys win (and assume you know who the good guys are). When you grow up, you learn there are no guarantees.

I respect David Kay since he resigned after being totally wrong about Iraq. But if your going to start talking about nuking people--including lots of people who are women and children and are not screaming death to Israel--I'd like at least a link. Googling Kay's name I came to a story that Iran gave up their weapons program in 2003.

I hope we won't be nuking people because we think they might get the bomb at some point in time.

The Psalmist has it just so in 121:4: Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

I do not know how this will all work out, but Scripture tells us that, somehow, God will look after Israel. In his time, if not ours.

In the here and now? Pray for guidance; pray that Iran will not fulfill what its mad mullahs and presidents claim to want.

Beyond prayer? It might help if we would start to get tough on Iran: economic sanctions; stop refined gasoline from entering Iran (they've got lots of crude oil; little refining capacity); freeze their assets; and, generally, make their lives living hell short of a military invasion.

And never, ever, rule out the use of military force to knock out their nuclear weapons program.

Insane Kitten,

Your cynicism and the cynicism of those like you is precisely what must be overcome if Hope and Change are to come.

Once they do, Barack will never allow you or any of us to fall back into our complacency.

All will be changed, changed utterly.

Datta.

Dayadhvam.

Damyata.

Shantih.

Shantih.

Shantih.

Ok, now that the troll is well-fed, we can discuss the issue. It is indeed scary that Iran is nearly a nuclear country. This is the kind of situation where even a loony liberal like myself would kinda hope Israel would send in some of their finest to set back the program a few years-- like, to the 1500s or so. It would be widely condemned, but I think secretly most people would breathe a little sigh of relief to themselves.

These worries have some practical application for me. My daughter is in Israel now, about to spend Rosh Hashonah with friends her Jewish boyfriend made on his Birthright trip to Israel. Then they are going to work for a couple of months as volunteer teachers in a Palestinian refugee camp in Nablus. So it would, indeed, be very nice if a nuclear war did not break out while she's there. But, you know, it's always somebody's precious daughter or son at risk. Every child in Palestine, every child in Israel, is as precious in someone's sight as my daughter is to me. In God's eyes, even if no one else cares. It seems as if peace will never come to Jerusalem, but I will continue to pray for it.

I took down some posts tonight here that were personal attacks on each other. Come on, y'all, you know the rules.

You know Ron, this hysteria over Iran as a threat to the world would be funny if people weren't so serious about it. Let me say now that Iran does NOT pose a threat to the world--despite what McCain or Obama say.
The National Intelligence Estimate stated that Iran stopped its nuclear program in 2003. And I have read that even IF they were working on a nuclear bomb it would take them 5 to 10 yrs to get one up and ready to go. So I don't know where this one inspector got his information that Iran will have the bomb in a matter of months.
And even IF Iran got the bomb so what? Do you really believe that Iran is dumb enough to use it to attack anyone with? America has 10,000 nukes and Israel has at least 400. The Iranian government may be made up of evil people but they are NOT suicidal. The only reason they would want the bomb is to keep us (or Israel) from attacking them.
Do you want to know how to deal with the Iranian "threat"? Do what Jesus would do. He would end sanctions against Iran and engage in dialogue with them. Then he would demand that Israel give up the West Bank and Gaza and let the beleaguered Palestinians have a State of their own. (By the way, Israel's brutal oppression of the Palestinians is the MAIN cause of Muslim anger against that country. Stop the oppression and you stop the hate.) Then he would demand that we take the nuclear mote out of our own eye before demanding that other nations stop their nuclear programs. It is kind of simple really.
But unforunately most Christians don't want to follow Jesus and prefer a nationalistic, chest-thumping, us vs them approach to foreign policy. I find that very disheartening. We say we love "the Prince of Peace" but you wouldn't know it if you looked at our foreign policy.

This is the latest in a long series of red herrings in a region full of them, for the past few years. So Iran destroys Israel with nukes so that the Palestinian people can return home to radioactive pre-1948 Palestine? Maybe they can also take out the Wailing Wall without touching the Al-Aqsa mosque nearby?

Unless if the Iranians have perfected smart weapons that only kill one sort of Semite, this is handwringing and hysteria of the worst sort.

Yes, the Teheran regime is quite nasty and it would be preferable if they didn't have nukes - just as it would have been preferable if Pakistan didn't have them. Or that our allies in Saudi Arabia hadn't been poisoning the minds of the Sunni Muslim world for the past 50 years.

But we have to be a little smarter than to think that our (or even the Israelis) sole response is another splendid little war in South-West Asia.

Rod,

The first of my two responses to David J White was not a personal attack.

I went out of my way to make it clear that I did *not* regard him in the same personally insulting light in which he regarded me and the country as a whole in light of me.

That said, I do appreciate your removing DJW's initial post -- for his benefit more than mine.

Really, it won't take much to get Iran removed from the picture.

Publish cartoons of Muhammad performing oral sex on Ahmadinejad (or vice versa). When Iran goes on military alert, the US (and Israel, depending) can simply waltz in and remove the threat.

Hey Rod, just a thought: if you don't find your published descriptions of what is transpiring in Iran as offensive as the imagery I offer here, then you will quite reasonably remove this post... but I feel completely (and morally) justified in using it nonetheless.

And Rufus, conventional weapons technology, and delivery systems as well, have made non-nuclear ordnance quite sufficient to level a city the size of Teheran. The only difference is that it would take more time, and put a few more flight crews at risk. Considering the consequences of using a nuke, well worth it as the alternative. I would imagine the flight crews finding their risk level quite acceptable, in that light.

Rufus, I regret that you think I made that assumption. My post was in direct refutation of your post addressed to Insane Kitten:

Your vote for Obama will make it very unlikely that the Israelis will have the option of taking such a step as you propose that they take, because they could not count on U.S. support in the aftermath of such a move.

If Obama is elected, Iran will almost certainly explode a nuclear bomb.

If McCain is elected, it's even odds whether they will or will not.

Your assumptions are flawed, in my view. Your rhetoric is based on a view of US leadership that has no basis on evidence that could be used in that sort of prediction. The actions of a nation are based on practical considerations modified by the political expediency experienced by the leaders, and with that I can stand with you in agreement... but bald statements of what Iran would do based on who is elected president is irrational at best.

There is no comparison to the events that lead to Truman's choice. From that POV, the stated rhetoric of McCain and Obama is indicative.

1) Either man, as president, will respond to attack according to the advice of the best military expertise in the history of human civilization, that being the joint chiefs and their staffs.

2) Obama has stated that he will not act to provoke such an attack.

3) McCain has stated that -- yes, by inference -- that he is capable of acting to provoke such an attack.

To assert that something will happen as a result of one man or the other being elected is irrational.

US military capabilities are a matter of record. One doesn't need access to secret details to make rational predictions concerning what the US might do militarily, or speculate on its response to the mix of political expediencies that prevail in possible scenarios.

My view, in which you are welcome poke holes, and I will respond, is that the leadership of Iran knows precisely what will happen if they detonate a nuclear bomb on Israel (or anywhere else outside their borders). They will not personally or as a nation survive the action. The response will be with conventional weapons, and their punishment will be seen as justified by the vast majority of other nations.

I don't think you are a troll, nor do I think most people really understand how to apply that label. I will continue to criticize your assertions as civilly as possible, and only ask the same in return.

Fully expect that sometime after November 4th but before January 20th, Israeli bomber jets will address this. This way,Bush is a lame duck who "cautioned against such a raid(or 7)" and who ever the new POTUS is, they cannot be directly blamed. And Israel has no choice. If someone over and over says they intend to wipe your country off the map of the globe, it's self-defense. I feel bad for the innocent Iranians who are beging held back by their thug Islamic government. And once again rather than looking in the mirror at their horror show societies and sick religion, Muslims will instead speak of Zionists and Americans as being the cause of their plight.

Franklin,

My contention is not that the outcome of the U.S. presidential election will determine whether or not Iran attacks Israel with a nuclear weapon.

(The worst I expect Iran to do in the short term is to explode a nuclear weapon on their own soil and therefore to instigate a nuclear arms race across the Middle East and South Asia -- a plenty bad enough outcome, but not as bad as the worse case scenario)

My contentions is that the outcome of the U. S. presidential election will have some bearing on whether or not Iran is able to produce a nuclear weapon -- which it is going to try to do, regardless of who wins.

In my opinion, McCain has even odds of supplying the kind of leadership that will result in Iran electing not to overplay their hand by producing (or brandishing) such a weapon, while I give Obama rather more poor odds of supplying such leadership -- though, since Obama has no record of leadership on diplomatic, military or any other matters on which to base one's judgement of him, this can only be a guess, only a hunch.

That said, the notion that Obama will acquit himself better than I'm guessing he will is just as much of a hunch, just as much of a faith-based extension of credit that may or may not be repaid by what he does in office.

I'm only asking Obama supporters to consider how flimsy their reasons for confidence in Obama actually are.

Just as his way of swaggering in Wranglers and cowboy boots was not a good reason to imagine that George W. Bush ought to be the president, so his way of swaggering in a chic metrosexual's designer suit is not a good reason to imagine that Obama would do any better than Bush, whom he resembles in all sorts of ways.

Personally, I would prefer a president whose actions in office require less imagination on voters' parts to envision.

But clearly I'm in the minority there.

Rufus,

the notion that Obama will acquit himself better than I'm guessing he will is just as much of a hunch, just as much of a faith-based extension of credit that may or may not be repaid by what he does in office.

Easily granted. I wish more voters would have that as a default attitude with every candidate.

I'm only asking Obama supporters to consider how flimsy their reasons for confidence in Obama actually are.

I believe, cynically, that you are asking too much of most voters. I hope that we are both proven wrong, but it is a very small hope. :-(

I will ask of you, in this context, that you make the challenge and avoid expressing which answer you expect to see, metaphorically in the same breath. This particular audience -- those who do post, that is -- is not proportional to the general electorate. Some of them may pleasantly surprise you.

Much of this campaign has come down to one side shouting at the other that its own daydream has as much validity as the other side's daydream does.

That is a really interesting point, Rufus, but I don't see how this makes this election different than any other. Elections are all about daydreams. You're right that we probably have a better idea of what we're getting with McCain than with Obama, since he's been on the national scene a lot longer, but that cuts both ways. There's a lot about McCain we sure don't want (like, um, the bubbleheaded sidekick he's chosen to be his replacement should he kick the bucket.)

I keep checking the comments for substantiation that Iran is a couple of months away from exploding a nuclear weapon.

If there is no such information, I think this talk about nuking Iran reveals something deeply wrong. It should desist. Fantasies about mass murder are not good.

Rod - Googling just now still turns up no references to this report other than to trails that lead back to here. While TV is ephemeral, a lot of people, including a lot of bloggers of every persuasion, are watching at any given time, so interesting stuff - and this, if true, would be a bit too interesting - generally gets blogged a bunch of times, even if most of the bloggers are pretty obscure. I think you may have simply misheard.