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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War / Iran so far away

Iran so far away

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I’m not quite as perturbed by news of the Iranian terror plot as Tim is. After the way the librul media undermined Dear Leader’s efforts in Iraq, the American public probably lacks the Churchillian resolve to bring freedom to the Iranian people. Don’t get me wrong, I dislike the Iranian mullahs, I’m convinced that they are even worse than our own mullahs, if only because they seem to have more influence over there.

But I’m curious. One of you reported, with journalism:

As I saw posted in TPM comments, Bolton’s boner can be seen from space. Should it last more than four hours, head for the shelters.

How are the other war bloggers faring? Does Hitch have one more war in him? What’s going on at Kaplan? How about Jeffblog or whatever Jeffrey Goldberg calls himself now?

I don’t have the stomach to check this out myself and I fear a lot of the action is on Twitter or Facebook or other places beyond my ken.

Reader Interactions

51Comments

  1. 1.

    piratedan

    I had heard that John McCain has been advocating “just build the damn fence” strategy around the entire country of Iran, but details are lacking because Jon Kyl put a secret hold on the press conference.

  3. 3.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    What Crazy-Bar will be set by Bachmann or Gingrich that Willard feels the need to jump over?

  5. 5.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Dougerhead: Especially now that multiple choice Mitt has lost patience with Perry’s holier than thou Christianism. Not to mention Cain’s shallow rise in the estimation of some. This has real comic potential.

  6. 6.

    Jenny

    The Mustache of Freedom is gonna freak.

    If Broder wasn’t dead this would have killed him.

    But seriously, this plot sounds like the next season’s story arc of “Breaking Bad”.

    Walter White and Gus Fring bomb the Saudis.

  8. 8.

    Tom Hilton

    Atlass Juggs is blasting Obama for having the DOJ handle it, instead of the “Pengaon” (her spelling).

    Michelle Malkin thinks it’s bogus, a diversion from Fast & Furious. At the other end of the ODS spectrum, emptywheel is also highly skeptical.

    ETA: guy at the American Spectator says “Obviously, the ramifications of this alleged conspiracy will have enormous implications.” When ramifications have implications, you know it’s serious.

  9. 9.

    RandyH

    Why the fuck are they reporting this as a “Terror Plot” anyway? I don’t get it. To me, it is an “Assassination Plot” of a foreign dignitary. I could not possibly care less if the Saudi Ambassador were assassinated on American soil. Just another homicide in my mind. Who really gives a fuck. And who would go hide under their beds because some Saudi crook was assassinated anyway?

    But to call it a “Terrorist” plot is WAY beyond the pale. WAY WAY WAY beyond it.

  12. 12.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Tom Hilton: FWIW people thought Clinton was doing a Wag the Dog when he went after bin Laden. Also too, in June of 1914, a chauffeur took a wrong turn in Sarajevo and, less than six weeks later, WWI happened. Sometimes weird shit is true.

  13. 13.

    Jenny

    @Tom Hilton:

    At the other end of the ODS spectrum, emptywheel is also highly skeptical.

    This.

    Sad. She’s a half a step away from being an overt “truther”.

  15. 15.

    Ash Can

    @RandyH: Apart from the fact that it would make for a complete fucking nightmare of an international incident by making the U.S. look like it can’t protect prominent foreign dignitaries here in an official capacity, no, it wouldn’t make any difference at all.

  17. 17.

    Warren Terra

    I suspect Hitch is too busy with his “the liberals are being nice to me because I’m dying of cancer” victory lap to cheerlead another war. Especially one that has the power to go wrong even before he dies.

    Also, he’s busy avoiding difficult questions about why he backed antidemocratic Arab dictatorships that kept the lid on the Muslimosity of their subjects (eg Tunisia).

  19. 19.

    Villago Delenda Est

    These are Shiites going after Sunnis. Centuries old feuds. Theocratic assholes going after other theocratic assholes.

  21. 21.

    General Stuck

    If is a giant bomb, just waiting to go off for a regional war based on age old rivalries of shite Iran and the Sunni Saudi keepers of broader Islam and it’s holy sites.

    When we leave, the fuse will be lit, for who really runs Iraq, and a re-ignition of the civil war suspended by the Sunni’s of Iraq, until we officially pull out as a military occupier, and the Sunni’s once again convince themselves they are the majority in that country and the sectarian battle lines get drawn tighter and tighter between the two sects of Islam.

    I suspect this was just an attempted early blow to draw first blood.

    What? you thought we were done in Iraq? and George Bush’s big surge success was permanent? Too bad we are addicted to their oil, too bad for us, the world, and especially ordinary people living in the ME.

    You can thank GWB and his neocon goons for interrupting the natural social evolution of the peeps living in one of the worlds most volatile regions. You don’t upset mother nature like that, and then get off the ride to hell, when you want.

    Tally ho.

  22. 22.

    Tom Hilton

    @Omnes Omnibus: I remember that. I actually argued over that (and over the Balkans) with lefty friends at the time.

    Side note: when I was in Sarajevo (1988), the bridge where it happened was named Princip Bridge…and there were a pair of footprints painted on the pavement, showing where Gavrilo Princip stood when he shot. Haven’t been back since the war, so I don’t know if he’s still officially a hero.

  23. 23.

    RandyH

    @Ash Can:

    But we shouldn’t have to protect them. They should have their own security. Do we get that kind of security in foreign countries? Don’t think so…

    Edit: But my point was that this is not a “Terrorist Incident” as it was treated by the News Media. This is a threat against a foreign power taking place here. No reason to hide under your beds, Americans. It’s not a threat to us but to a foreign power. Go back to sleep. But apparently Saudis are more important than Americans in this country.

  24. 24.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Tom:

    Capt’n Ed called this an act of war and we need to respond appropriately (paraphrase).

    I agree.

    Nuke Capt’n Ed from space. It’s the only way to be sure.

  25. 25.

    Jenny

    @Tom Hilton:

    “alleged conspiracy”

    ODS at it’s brightest. The Obama DOJ reports an Iranian assassination plot, and for the first time in their existence, the wingers use the word “alleged” and rush to Iran’s defense, accusing officer Obama of planting a bloody glove at Ahmadinejad’s pool house.

  27. 27.

    lamh34

    @MikeTheZ: but a majority of Dems voted for cloture (excetp Tester and Nelson), so all the headlines I’ve seen other than Reuters are “Senate Republicans Block Obama’s Jobs Act”. So the spin begins.

  28. 28.

    clayton

    Jeffblog or whatever Jeffrey Goldberg calls himself now

    This why I love you, in a brotherly way.

    That blog is a mess of women who have bought into misogyny and men who love that they have. Now that the hausfrau’s spawn is in school, he’s reduced to fighting himself. It’s pathetic; don’t go there.

    ETA: Hell, I read that as the Protein Wisdom guy, not the diaper guy. Same thing though.

  30. 30.

    lamh34

    wait, wait, C Everett Koop endorsed Herman Cain???? um does anyone really care who C.E endorses???

  31. 31.

    Maude

    @Tom Hilton:
    I didn’t think Princip was seen as a hero as much as a catalyst for WWI. The Archduke was known to be a good guy. His wife was also killed. She wasn’t hated.
    Anarchists aren’t rational. McKinley was shot by one.

  32. 32.

    Jay B.

    @Tom:

    Just like we went to war with Chile after Pinochet assassinated a Chilean former diplomat and an American in DC for Operation Condor. Well, of course, we helped Pinochet and all the other murderous fuckers in S. America, but still.

  34. 34.

    RandyH

    @lamh34:

    C Everett Coop is still alive? Does he know where he lives, even? He was like seventy about 30 years ago when he actually mattered. Damn.

  35. 35.

    The Dangerman

    This should illustrate the difference the Bush and Obama
    administrations; some in Bush’s Administration would say “great, you’ve covered your ass now”, let it happen, and get it on with Iran. Obama chose differently, obviously.

  37. 37.

    Jay B.

    @Maude:

    The Archduke was known to be a good guy.

    No he wasn’t. Not to excuse his murder. But he was the idiot scion of a tottering royal house and was widely loathed by royalists and subjects alike.

    Anarchists aren’t rational. McKinley was shot by one

    So? Lincoln was shot by a Southerner. Are Southerners rational? (Answer: some are, some aren’t!)

  42. 42.

    J. Michael Neal

    @Omnes Omnibus: Hey, I’m coming down to Madison for the big games this weekend. The country’s #1 and #3 teams according to USCHO. (I still think the Gophers are better than Cornell and should be #2, but if we can sweep, then I’m pretty sure we’ll jump right over that.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    @Tom Hilton:

    Michelle Malkin thinks it’s bogus, a diversion from Fast & Furious.

    I called it.

    That’s what the split is going to be for the warbloggers on this one: who do they hate more, Mexicans or Muslims?

  45. 45.

    Lawnguylander

    Circa 1997, I was psyched to get a first class upgrade on my way home from Chicago and who comes and sits next to me but Koop. I would have tried to talk to him but we never even made eye contact. He started out grumpy and wheezy and landed in LGA grumpy, wheezy and hammered. Every ten minutes or so he would hold out his glass until a flight attendant gave him a new gin and tonic. So, yeah, I’m surprised he’s still alive, too.

  46. 46.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @J. Michael Neal: Make sure you catch a drink at the Old Fashioned on the Square. I won’t be around for the festivities – my mom’s 70th birthday party is this weekend (and my nephew’s 10th).

  47. 47.

    El Cid

    @Tom Hilton:

    Atlass Juggs is blasting Obama for having the DOJ handle it, instead of the “Pengaon” (her spelling).

    Maybe she meant that she was especially confident in the village government of the tiny village of Pengaon, India.

  49. 49.

    Tom Hilton

    @Maude: No, definitely a national hero. (And Princip was more nationalist than anarchist. He had his reasons, such as they were, for hating the Austrian monarchy.) That was when it was Yugoslavia, though, and the Yugoslav government had its own reasons for promoting that view. What I don’t know is whether that carried on into post-Yugoslav Bosnia.

  50. 50.

    mclaren

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    Repeat until (Democracy = 0).

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