April 13, 2006
If You're Not Pissed Off... (April '06 Edition)
filed under: Stuff to be pissed off aboutThis could actually just as easily be categorized under "Stuff to Worry About" - because it's very, very, very scary.
You'd think that once their messianic, capito-utopian dreams of instant democrification of the Middle East through Operation Iraqi Adventureland wrecked upon the shoals of oh, I don't know, REAL LIFE, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars gone and 2,500 dead US soldiers, the neo-con freaky deakies squirming within the current administration would have chilled out. Reconsidered, maybe just a bit, their utter conviction that all those very tan people over there could be manipulated on the macro like barely-AI enemy forces in a massive Sim game. That they might at least tap the brakes before going into full-blown hype-the-threat-to-scare-people-into-supporting-military-action-in-the-Middle-East mode.
No. No they wouldn't. Here they go again.
Over at Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall follows the stench back to its source. A recent Bloomberg article is headlined, he reports, with the bone-chilling "Iran Could Produce Nuclear Bombs in 16 Days, US Says."
Holy shit, right?
Except, to start that 16 day doomsday clock going, Iran would have to install all 50,000 centrifuges that they have room for. To make any kind of nuclear bomb, at any speed, they'd have to have 16,000 centrifuges - PLUS, the makings and design of the nuke itself.
How many do they have right now? How many centrifuges did they use to pound their chests this week about what a mighty nuclear nation they are?
180.
This is why Juan Cole's recent headline, in a rare burst of levity from the Cassandra-like professor, reads "Iran Can Now Make Glowing Mickey Mouse Watches."
So we have the UN's anti-proliferation branch saying that Iran is at least 10 years away from being able to build a nuke. Remember them? The guys who were - oh, I don't know - RIGHT about Iraq's non-WMDs?
So fine, right? We don't have to be as worried about the bad guys as we thought we did.
Yeah - that's THEIR bad guys. OUR bad guys we still have to be very, very worried about.
Because who (back to Marshall's post) was peddling the "ZOMFG IRAN has n00ks we're F*XX0rD!" storyline?
His name is Stephen Rademaker, and he's the "Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation." He works for Robert Joseph, the "Under Secretary, Arms Control and International Security."
And Robert Joseph, sez TPM, is the same dude who made sure the "sixteen words" about Nigerian uranium made it into the President's state of the union speech. He's one of the administration's "scare 'em with nukes" goons.
They're doing it again.
So the President of Iran, faced with reformist discontent in his country, grabs some glory by fronting all belligerent at the US and Israel. And the President of the US, faced with rising discontent at home and a long-standing "everyone HAS to support a war preznit" fetish, starts talking tough about another A-rab bogeyman with his finger on the big red button.
Says Juan Cole: "Bush and Ahmadinejad could be working together toward the Perfect Storm."
Says JarJar Binks: "Miso people gonna DIE?!"
Says me: I got sucka'd once. They got me scared, pre-Iraq war. I didn't *support* the war, but I didn't actively oppose it. I gave them, God forgive me, the benefit of the doubt.
In the words of our esteemed leader: "fool me once... shame on... you don't get fooled again."
Posted by rjt at April 13, 2006 10:26 AM