IRAN: The Dangers of Donald

IRAN: The Dangers of Donald

It's not about stopping a nuclear Iran. It's about regime change. The difference is a walk from sanity into lunacy.

Iran’s radical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
in a fiery sermon demanded that “Iran’s enemies”, or the
West, bow down before Iran and apologize for having held back Tehran’s
nuclear program for three years. He also warned the West that it would “burn”
in the “fire of the nations’ fury”.

“Those who insulted the Iranian nation and set
back Iran’s movement for progress for several years must apologise”,
Ahmadinejad said at a rally in the eastern town of Rashtkhar. His comments
were aired on state television and carried by the official news agency.

“You must bow down to the greatness of the Iranian
nation”, he said, addressing the West.

He added that if the United States continued to seek
to use “bullying” tactics then “every nation of the world”
would chant “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.

“If you do not return to monotheism and worshipping
god and refuse to accept justice then you will burn in the fire of the nations’
fury”, Ahmadinejad said.

Iran’s
Ahmadinejad: West will burn in nations’ fury
(h/t)

All righty then. Back at you, little man.

We're going to launch “tactical” nukes at this nut job?

Why? We haven't unified the Muslim and Arab world against us enough with
Iraq?

Bush went into Iraq on a preemption sled that was a “slam
dunk” and still ended up screwing the soldiers by not having a clue how
to get out. Does anybody believe for a second these guys can pull off anything
short of Middle East Armageddon if we decide to bomb Iran? Bomb Iran.
It writes so ludicrous that when I read it back I can't believe what I've just
written.

Let's hope we don't have a bunch of Colin Powells this time around.

The adviser added, however, that the idea
of using tactical nuclear weapons in such situations has gained support from
the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel whose members are selected by
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “They’re telling the Pentagon
that we can build the B61 with more blast and less radiation,” he said.

The chairman of the Defense Science Board is William
Schneider, Jr., an Under-Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration.
In January, 2001, as President Bush prepared to take office, Schneider served
on an ad-hoc panel on nuclear forces sponsored by the National Institute for
Public Policy, a conservative think tank. The panel’s report recommended
treating tactical nuclear weapons as an essential part of the U.S. arsenal
and noted their suitability “for those occasions when the certain and
prompt destruction of high priority targets is essential and beyond the promise
of conventional weapons.” Several signers of the report are now prominent
members of the Bush Administration, including Stephen Hadley, the national-security
adviser; Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence;
and Robert Joseph, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International
Security.

THE
IRAN PLANS, by Seymour Hersh

The
dangers of Donald Rumsfeld go deep and way beyond Iraq. His vision
of the military is what is tipping the scale in Iran. Along with Dick
Cheney, his protégé, Rummy has infected the Pentagon with
a new theory of what the military can do at different levels. The object is
to allow as much autonomy from oversight as possible. Sound familiar? Think
Iran-Contra on steroids.

The new mission for the combat troops
is a product of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s long-standing interest
in expanding the role of the military in covert operations, which was made
official policy in the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review, published
in February. Such activities, if conducted by C.I.A. operatives, would need
a Presidential Finding and would have to be reported to key members of Congress.

” ‘Force protection’ is the new buzzword,”
the former senior intelligence official told me. He was referring
to the Pentagon’s position that clandestine activities that can be broadly
classified as preparing the battlefield or protecting troops are military,
not intelligence, operations, and are therefore not subject to congressional
oversight. “The guys in the Joint Chiefs of Staff say there
are a lot of uncertainties in Iran,” he said. “We need to have
more than what we had in Iraq. Now we have the green light to do everything
we want.” (source
– emphasis added)

Rummy's next plan makes “stovepiping” look smart.

The real issue is that we're not just talking about Iran developing
a nuclear bomb, which should make Israel,
especially, but everyone else certainly nervous, too. What Bush, Rumsfeld and
Cheney want is regime change. The difference is a walk from sanity into lunacy.