Glad to be back, thanks for missing me all. Fuck the Seahawks and Panthers.

Now, with all of that out of the way. . .

Man, when you lose the United Nations, you really *are* in a pickle, eh? Who is going to stick up for this guy now?

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

I'll believe it when I see it. My guess is that if Iran makes the slightest hint of concession - like, say, not having Kofi Annan pistol-whipped when he goes to Teheran to "personally negotiate" with the mad mullahs - and this whole "use of force" charade goes right out the freakin' window.

I think a lot of folks have started to realize that they have to worry about that quality Iranian missile construction when the mullahs decide to pop one off at Israel, and the warhead could go anywhere in the region...

"Look, Akhbar! The missile is rising to go destroy the hated Zionist infidels with the cleansing nuclear fire. Uhhhh... it's supposed to go southwest, right? In that funny corkscrew pattern? Why are you running? What do you mean, you have to call your cousin in Mecca?"

I think a lot of folks have started to realize that they have to worry about that quality Iranian missile construction when the mullahs decide to pop one off at Israel, and the warhead could go anywhere in the region...

"Look, Akhbar! The missile is rising to go destroy the hated Zionist infidels with the cleansing nuclear fire. Uhhhh... it's supposed to go southwest, right? In that funny corkscrew pattern? Why are you running? What do you mean, you have to call your cousin in Mecca?"

Good point. Didn't Abbas issue a statement this week somewhere internally complaining that shelling Israel was worse than useless because most of the missiles launched by Palestinians land in Palestine? And they're right there. I mean, how much missile testing is Iran going to be able to do?

I've been thinking a lot about the ascendance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and what his presidency means for the West. I don't doubt his craziness or his intentions for a second, nor do I underestimate the danger of his regime. But I'm beginning to think that his election was a carefully thought out position by Tehran's calculating government that it could get more out of the West with a madman than with a diplomat. The Iranian leaders are students of history and are well aware that their regime is somewhere in between Breznhev and Gorbachev (hardliner and open minder) in terms of its atrophying and collapse. They consciously went with the Breznhev option so they could turn their burgeoning and Western-oriented youth against the West by putting the country under siege (yes, they are that cynical). This way, the government could make a great appeal to their fiercely nationalistic population that they need to band together and reorient themselves towards defending Iran rather than opening up to the world.

Often, leading up to the 2004 election, the Left in this country misused that plotline to explain why Bush emphasized terror and war: to consolidate power and get elected. While that was farfetched here, could it not be true in Iran?

Also, if that is the case, might the best path for the EU-US be to tie concessions, negotiations, etc to the liberal movement in Iran and to attempt to undermine the regime with everything we've got? Or is that too naive or too late? (sorry for the long post)

I'm still wondering why we haven't started arming Iranian dissidents (if they exist) and have them start acting up. That'd be a textbook example on how to destablize a government.

This hypothetical situation from the WSJ is also interesting --

The operators of Iran's Natanz nuclear-enrichment plant called it the "Yankee virus" even though they couldn't establish its source. What they did know was that "the industrial accident" it spawned had shut them down and done such serious damage to their facility that it would take months to repair.

The software virus had triggered an irregular vibration of one of the 164 ultra-high-speed centrifuges used to separate out heavy uranium 238 for use as nuclear fuel. The centrifuge malfunctioned, knocking out the others until the whole system seized up.

The Iranians would never know how Natanz had been infiltrated or that the specially trained, U.S.-paid agents behind the high-tech attack had escaped the country without attracting notice.

Don't think of it as a third war in five years. Think of it more as "opening up a new front" ala WWII. Really, we are in a world war with these loons, so we should use a similar strategery. During WWII, the US invaded or bombed the following countries and/or territories (not off the top of my head):
1. North Africa
2. Sicily
3. Italy
4. France
5. Belgium
6. Luxembourg
7. Holland
8. Germany
9. Austria
10. The Gilbert and Marshall Islands
11. Marcus Island
12. Japan (bombing by Doolittle)
13. Soloman Islands
14. The Aleutian Islands
15. New Guinea
16. The Caroline Islands
17. Mariana Islands
18. Burma
19. The Philippines
20. The Palau Islands
21. Japan (Iwo and Okinawa)

We fight the enemy where the enemy lives, and in the case of Iran, he lives in the presidential palace in Tehran. War sucks, but it would suck a lot worse to go after Iran now, than let them get nukes and start passing them out to fellow lunatics like candy. Our strategery should be to hit them wherever they are.

What's worse than starting a third war in five years time?

sitting around with your thumb up your ass while some nuke-carrying messianic psycho starts it first.

It was true in Dresden, Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Sometimes a lot of people have to die in order to prevent a WHOLE SHITLOAD of people from dying later.