Mythmother directed my attention to an editorial in the LA Times by JOSHUA MURAVCHIK, at the American Enterprise Institute. This editorial cries out for a bit of rhetorical analysis. Allow me to take a stab at it.
Muravchik presents a clear and direct call for action. His opening sentence, “WE MUST bomb Iran,” leaves no doubt about his intentions. He then proceeds to simplify the entire debate and obscure any complexities. He must have mistaken the editorial page for a Bush daily briefing.
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He begins by proving that economic sanctions won’t work because Old Europe are wimps and China & Russia can’t be trusted. Is there an echo in here? I thought Rumsfeld had resigned. Besides the Iranians are clerical fanatics who can’t be bought of. Yeah, we could overthrow the regime, but you know them. They’re all are nuts over there. One’s as crazy as the next.
So we have two choices. Let’s get rid of the silly one first. We could let them build their bomb. But you know that Iran is trying to take over Al Qaeda, and they already control Hamas and Hezbollah. You know, says Muravchik, that they’ll slip nukes to the TERRORISTS as soon as they can. He quotes Ted Koppel, the noted international scholar, as proposing that we tell Iran that we would hold them responsible for any nuclear explosion anywhere in the world.
But here’s the catch. “But would any U.S. president really order a retaliatory nuclear strike based on an assumption?” Nah, never. We only act when we have iron-clad, indisputable evidence. Not us, no way.
Besides, Israel is threatened by the Islamic nuke. How would defenseless Israel defend itself? How could they retaliate against nuclear aggression? I suspect with a few of the poorly hidden nuclear tricks Israel has up its sleeves.
The next step in simplifying the world’s problems is to obscure and minimize differences and disagreements in the Islamic world. It turns out that there are no differences. All Muslims love each other and hate us. It’s a war of civilizations and theirs is monolithic and steadfastly opposed to ours. White hats — us. Black hats — them. Any rivals to Iran would be intimidated by their power and join forces to create a billion strong horde going for our throats, once they subdue SouthEast Asia, Africa, and parts of Europe. Then, it’s us.
But isn’t attacking Iran likely to be a bad as our Iraq blunder? Nah, Muravchik assures us.
The only way to forestall these frightening developments is by the use of force. Not by invading Iran as we did Iraq, but by an air campaign against Tehran’s nuclear facilities. We have considerable information about these facilities; by some estimates they comprise about 1,500 targets. If we hit a large fraction of them in a bombing campaign that might last from a few days to a couple of weeks, we would inflict severe damage. This would not end Iran’s weapons program, but it would certainly delay it.
That’s right, ya’ll, rewind past the disappointing sequel and replay the video from Gulf War I. Remember those fun nights around the TV. Bomb exploding, flames lighting up the Iraqi night sky, cool military videos of smart bombs sliding down bad guys chimneys, pilots enjoying cool drinks in the hangers in Saudi Arabia. That’s the plan. Forget the mess in Iraq now. It won’t be like that. Really. Trust me.
In case you still have some doubts about bombing Iran, Muravchik helps clear up the picture further. He ties the Iranians to Lenin. That’s right the Iranian mullahs all secretly dream of being Lenin. And how could we have defeated Lenin? Why, by listening to the only voice of reason in the 1917 British Government — Winston Churchill. The rumpled one wanted Britain to attack the Bolshies and destroy them. If he had prevailed on the chicken-hearted Brits, 100 million Soviets wouldn’t have died under Stalin, Hitler would have stayed a disgruntled house painter and Nazism wouldn’t have had to rise as a response to the Bolshie threat. So we wouldn’t have had WWII or the Cold War, both of which we won, of course, as we’ll inevitably win the war with the Islamists.
There’s no mention of Churchill’s vehement defense of keeping India, South Africa, and the rest of the pink parts of the globe as jewels in Her Majesty’s Crown. His mission was unfailingly imperialist, and the Bolshie’s were at threat to the tottering Imperial power of Britain. But that’s beside the point, keep it simple.
And so, we are left with the Neo-Con mantra, “Don’t worry, Bomb’s Away!” I love the smell of a simplistic world view in the morning. It smells like victory.