Could someone please tell me not to worry about this?
Oh, thank you, Victor Davis Hanson, thank you so bloody much:
"Experts warn that we are not talking about a Clintonian one-day cruise-missile hit, or even something akin to General Zinni’s 1998 extended Operation Desert Fox campaign. Rather, the challenges call for something far more sustained and comprehensive — perhaps a week or two of bombing at every imaginable facility, many of them hidden in suburbs or populated areas. Commando raids might need to augment air sorties, especially for mountain redoubts deep in solid rock...
"Politically, the administration would have to vie with CNN’s daily live feeds of collateral damage that might entail killed Iranian girls and boys, maimed innocents, and street-side reporters who thrust microphones into stretchers of civilian dead. The Europeans’ and American Left’s slurs of empire and hegemony would only grow...."
Hm. Well, still, once we bite the bullet and take care of this little situation, then everything can return to normal, and we can all enjoy the coming summer - I'm planning on all kinds of fishing on the St. Croix! - and gradually the natural serenity that still defines American existence will -
"Economically, we should factor in the real possibility that Iranian oil might be off the global market, and prepare — we have been here before with the Iranian embargo of 1979 — for colossal gasoline price hikes. This should also be a reminder that Ahmadinejad, Saddam, Hugo Chavez, and an ascendant and increasingly undemocratic Putin all had in common both petrodollar largess and desperate Western, Chinese, and Indian importers willing to overlook almost anything to slake their thirst. Unless we develop an energy policy that collapses the global oil price, for the next half-century expect every few years something far creepier than the Saudi Royals and Col. Moammar Gadhafi to threaten the world order..."
Oh, stop it.
Here's what I keep returning to: the Star-Tribune, Newspaper of the Twin Cities, recently published an editorial in which the normally quite avoidant writers stated that Iran "cannot be allowed" to have a nuclear weapon.
Obviously, I'm not insanely predicting that these same editors will be actually willing to back that up once it comes time to deal with it. It'll be a lot easier to pretend that the "international community" will prevent the thing that "cannot" occur. Or would have, had the demented W not gone all cave troll on the situation.
But if their still-hypothetical resolve actually does represent something we nearly all agree to: Hanson's Hell will be our choice, right?
So far, I am not overly fond of this young century. Can we have a mulligan?
"Experts warn that we are not talking about a Clintonian one-day cruise-missile hit, or even something akin to General Zinni’s 1998 extended Operation Desert Fox campaign. Rather, the challenges call for something far more sustained and comprehensive — perhaps a week or two of bombing at every imaginable facility, many of them hidden in suburbs or populated areas. Commando raids might need to augment air sorties, especially for mountain redoubts deep in solid rock...
"Politically, the administration would have to vie with CNN’s daily live feeds of collateral damage that might entail killed Iranian girls and boys, maimed innocents, and street-side reporters who thrust microphones into stretchers of civilian dead. The Europeans’ and American Left’s slurs of empire and hegemony would only grow...."
Hm. Well, still, once we bite the bullet and take care of this little situation, then everything can return to normal, and we can all enjoy the coming summer - I'm planning on all kinds of fishing on the St. Croix! - and gradually the natural serenity that still defines American existence will -
"Economically, we should factor in the real possibility that Iranian oil might be off the global market, and prepare — we have been here before with the Iranian embargo of 1979 — for colossal gasoline price hikes. This should also be a reminder that Ahmadinejad, Saddam, Hugo Chavez, and an ascendant and increasingly undemocratic Putin all had in common both petrodollar largess and desperate Western, Chinese, and Indian importers willing to overlook almost anything to slake their thirst. Unless we develop an energy policy that collapses the global oil price, for the next half-century expect every few years something far creepier than the Saudi Royals and Col. Moammar Gadhafi to threaten the world order..."
Oh, stop it.
Here's what I keep returning to: the Star-Tribune, Newspaper of the Twin Cities, recently published an editorial in which the normally quite avoidant writers stated that Iran "cannot be allowed" to have a nuclear weapon.
Obviously, I'm not insanely predicting that these same editors will be actually willing to back that up once it comes time to deal with it. It'll be a lot easier to pretend that the "international community" will prevent the thing that "cannot" occur. Or would have, had the demented W not gone all cave troll on the situation.
But if their still-hypothetical resolve actually does represent something we nearly all agree to: Hanson's Hell will be our choice, right?
So far, I am not overly fond of this young century. Can we have a mulligan?
posted by Lonesome Payne at
5:02 PM
