Could you just tell me now, please? Are you going to blow up Iran? If so, are you going to do it before November 7?
Or not?
Are you waking up and staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night agonizing? Or are you sleeping straight through as a result of having already decided one way or the other? Because, frankly, sir, I'm tossing and turning. A couple of nights ago, I lay in a cold sweat, thinking about you and what you're thinking about Iran. So, tell me already. Is you is? Or is you ain't?
There's this fellow named Atrios who also says he "...can't really figure out what the administration is doing with Iran. Maybe there's a master plan, maybe the crazies are all fighting for control in the background, maybe there's nothing going on."
Short of telling me directly, I don't suppose you'd give me Judith Miller's old security clearance so I can poke around on my own? Better yet, forget the security clearance and just have Dick Cheney perform his instant declassification magic? (No forgeries, please.)
Look, there's no need to soften me up with your
lame-ass propaganda. What I want to know is, are you tapping your foot to the drumbeat that
Bill Kristol and
Newt Gingrich and
Walter Williams are pounding out? Are you nodding your head and saying "yup" whenever Cheney opens his mouth about Iran? Are you thinking about putting the jumpsuit on again? Have you made up your mind to turn the jingo talk into the jingo walk?
Or, have you finally, somehow, suddenly, miraculously, wised up?
I know you're probably busy preparing for the Nine-Eleven speech, which has got to be tough given your heavy summer reading schedule. Maybe you've decided to say something about Iran that day. If you have, you really must let me know now. Because on that day I had planned not to be anywhere near any electronic device that would give me access to your voice cheapening the memory of those who died in 2001, tainting that loss the same as five years of your anti-democratic, bully-boy policies have done. If, however, you're going to include your decision about Iran in that speech, I'll change my plans.
But, really, as Kristol would say, why wait?
A poker player keeps a straight face, you say? Pshaw. If you've been bluffing, your bluff's been called.
Iran's leaders either think you won't attack, or they figure they can absorb the casualties their continued enrichment of uranium might provoke. Iran lost twice as many people in their war with Iraq two decades ago as the United States lost in every war it fought in the 20th Century. Perhaps those leaders think the potential casualties and the wrecking of the infrastructure would strengthen their status the way they perceive Hezb'allah's status to have been strengthened by Israel's incursion. Perhaps watching the American tiger get his tail chomped next door in Iraq gives them confidence they can handle whatever happens, even if, like next door in Iraq, the cost in lives and treasure is high. No pain, no gain. Perhaps they just think that even if they don't have anything to do with the next terror attack, the U.S. will blow them to kingdom come anyway. That, since it makes no difference whether they defy or kowtow, they opt to stand tall.
So, give me some relief, Mister Bush. Show me your cards. Have you, as with Iraq four years ago, already made your decision to attack while pretending to the world that a diplomatic resolution is what you seek? Have you chosen to blast Iran? Did you decide just to take out the Natanz centrifuges and the Arak heavy-water reactor construction site and a few other points of interest? Or are you going whole hog, even dropping some Big Ones? Have you decided that a few hundred or a few thousand or a few hundred thousand Iranians are expendable if it means keeping Tehran from building some Big Ones of its own? Have you figured that, in the eyes of Americans, smashing Iran will make up for the strategic and human catastrophe you unleashed in Iraq?
Or have you decided to abandon all that? Did some smidgen of common-sense tumbling around in the crannies of that brain of yours finally surface to say "get a clue"? Did you actually listen to the generals, ex-generals and defense experts saying "hold your horses." Did you read the Royal Institute of International Affairs' conclusion that: "Iran has been the chief beneficiary of the war on terror in the Middle East"? Your war on terror. Did you think, perhaps, I'll try something different this time?
Or have you taken to heart the counsel of secessionist ideologue Walter Williams:
Does the United States have the power to eliminate terrorists and the states that support them? In terms of capacity, as opposed to will, the answer is a clear yes.
Think about it. Currently, the U.S. has an arsenal of 18 Ohio class submarines. Just one submarine is loaded with 24 Trident nuclear missiles. Each Trident missile has eight nuclear warheads capable of being independently targeted. That means the U.S. alone has the capacity to wipe out Iran, Syria or any other state that supports terrorist groups or engages in terrorism -- without risking the life of a single soldier.
Terrorist supporters know we have this capacity, but because of worldwide public opinion, which often appears to be on their side, coupled with our weak will, we'll never use it. Today's Americans are vastly different from those of my generation who fought the life-and-death struggle of World War II. Any attempt to annihilate our Middle East enemies would create all sorts of handwringing about the innocent lives lost, so-called collateral damage.
Such an argument would have fallen on deaf ears during World War II when we firebombed cities in Germany and Japan. The loss of lives through saturation bombing far exceeded those lost through the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Did that resonate. er, ring a bell with you, Mister Bush? Did the thought that you might be seen as wimpier than the Greatest Generation when it comes to frying civilians give you nightmares? Your dad is a member of that generation, right? Decorated and everything. Has concern about what he and others think about the size of your
cojones spurred you to choose to start another slaughterfest?
If you have decided to blow up Iran, there's something else you could tell me. Will you do as Glenn Greenwald and my blogmate emptywheel think you might?
The President clearly has been involved in discussions where it was told to him that he does not need Congressional authorization to fight wars and that Congress cannot force him to end a war by voting, for instance, to revoke the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq. Clearly, the President believes he can stay in Iraq even if such authorization is revoked.
That the President believes Congress is powerless with regard to war matters seems independently clear from the President's emphatic declaration that "We're not leaving, so long as I'm the President." Senators have introduced and debated legislation to compel troop withdrawals from Iraq, but the President quite clearly believes that such debates are meaningless because only he -- not the American people's representatives -- decides if and when troops are to be withdrawn from Iraq.
The significance of these views for the Iran situation is obvious. It seems quite clear that the President believes he has the power to begin a war with Iran without Congressional approval, or even in the face of Congressional opposition to such a war. That view is plainly contrary to core principles of our system of government. In Federalist 69, Hamilton sought to assuage fears that creating a President would lead to monarchical rule, and to do so, he contrasted the "inferior" powers of the President with those of the British King, particularly in the area of war-making (last emphasis added):
The most material points of difference are these: -- First. The President will have only the occasional command of such part of the militia of the nation as by legislative provision may be called into the actual service of the Union. The king of Great Britain and the governor of New York have at all times the entire command of all the militia within their several jurisdictions. In this article, therefore, the power of the President would be inferior to that of either the monarch or the governor.
Second. The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first General and admiral of the Confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies -- all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature.
How much clearer could that be? The President does not have the power to simply deploy armies at will.
So, Mister Bush, if you have decided to blow up Iran, will you do what you've done already so many times since you walked into the Oval Office: ignore Congress, ignore the Constitution, make your own law, be a law unto yourself?
I know I'm pleading in vain. I know you're going to keep me in suspense. Make me keep wondering if what you're planning to do in the next few months is push the killing machine a little farther into the Middle East. Make me ponder whether I or my kin will be some of the people getting fragged from Iranian blowback. Make me wonder if my Iranian-American friends, who visit Isfahan twice a year, will be there when you give the order. Make me wonder if you like the sound of "World War III."
Five years ago, the events of Nine-Eleven had even Iranians saying: today we are all Americans. Have you decided to kill those Iranians, Mister Bush? Have you decided that the leaders of Iran, who can't possibly build a nuke until 2009 at the very earliest, are an imminent threat? Or do you even care whether they're an imminent threat? Should I be sleeping soundly, or not at all?