back to imposing consequences...

Juan Cole has a lovely smackdown of christopher hitchens. I like a good smacking of smarmy asshole so the post is fun just in watching hitchens being spanked and sent to stand in the corner, but it also leaps into a declaration of how we ain't gonna go to war with Iran.

I agree, but how's we ain't gonna do it? The assertion that we'll have to have a draft to do it seems reasonable enough, but were reasonable assumptions enough to keep up from making military mistakes, we never would have gone into Iraq. There is much to be said for the tactic of provoke or fabricate a threat and then force the hand after you have already started the conflict. It works amazingly well with excitable siblings and it seems to amount to much of bush's foreign policy. You poke and poke and poke and threaten until you can get a reaction, then use that as an excuse to fight back (or with Iraq, having failed to get the necessary reaction, 'retaliate' anyway and pretend that it was self-defense all along, batting your doey eyes at your maleable parents/constiuents, harvesting their initial sympathy and later coaxing them to contort logic to defend their original endorsement). Having folks currently less enamoured with the idea of going and beating some new brown folks up ("what's wrong with the ones we're already knocking around?") is no guarantee that the pres and his won't squeeze out just enough support or leeway to do something which makes the conflict inevitable and not on our terms.

So you ask,"What can I do? What leverage do I have with the folks making decisions?" If you are an average person like me, only so much, but you can wield what little you do have like a petulant tyrant if you want, and in cases like this, I certainly do.

Now one can complain about Iran all they want and have most of the complaints be perfectly legitimate. Their government... not so pretty, but they aren't launching any strikes on American soil anytime soon. They currently aren't a direct threat and they won't be unless we send folks over there for them to kill and give them new reasons to be vindictive with the oil supply. This being said, there aren't good reasons for invading Iran that aren't also true of a dozen other coutries around the world (if one more person points out to me that they've been hanging gay people for being gay, i'm going to scream. What? They kill gay people just like republican leaders say they wish they could and I am supposed to find them a particularly new and dispicable threat? Honey, down in my beloved AL they set your faggot ass on fire.). The point being that taking the position that we shouldn't invade Iran can be made with strength and fortitude which one might not have on other subjects. Again, not because Iran is rosy and I necessarily believe that there aren't humanitarian reasons for military intervention in some situations, but we know 1)this administration can't do anything competently 2)invading Iran would only make us less secure 3)we don't have the resources to spare on such an undertaking right now.

So again I must what little influence I wield and say with absolute certainty, that I will argue with and call whomever an idiot who calls for an invasion in Iran up and to the inexplicable point that such a military interaction occurs. After that, anyone who supported it on the front end ceases to be a person I will speak to. Period. Such is the threat for aquaintances, which isn't much of a threat since I don't generally surround myself with small-dick hawkish assholes. But for public officials, I expand my scorn and ANY public official who promotes invading Iran will not get my vote in whatever election is next. I will aggressively campaign against them and promote their opponent. I don't care if they are democrat or what the hell, and I normally shy away from litmus voting but being sick of useless wars and such and dumb folks following and enabling the folly of morons, I think this is one I am fine being rigid about. So yeah, they are still in the fishing and groundwork building stage of demonizing Iran and making them scary and aren't at the overt attack stage yet, but we've seen this song and dance before and anyone who wants to dance along can say goodbye to my political support from now until eternity.

My consequences are limited to one person and my readership is small, so I have no delusions of granduer as a political mover and shaker, but I can do what I can do and I will.