Jesus Is Coming... on a Wave of Nuclear Fire!

Born-Again psychotics across the South can rejoice today as news comes that Israel is secretly planning to attack Iran with nuclear weapons.

My initial reaction is to say "So What? The United States has a contingency plan for invasion and/or destruction of every country on Earth, including contingency plans which include first-strike nuclear bombing. Just because Israel has such a plan for a nuclear Iran, doesn't mean they intend to carry it through."

My second reaction is that with this psychotic in the White House, Israel might be stupid enough to carry through on a nuclear first-strike on Iran.

While some might think this is the height of madness, let's not forget what the Israelis have to gain from a rash first-strike using nuclear weapons: erhm... uh... oh, right, nothing but the enmity and disgust of the entire world community.

To be the first country to use nuclear weapons in combat since the US bombed Nagasaki isn't the kind of "We're Number One!" slogan that Israel should want for itself. Firstly, any sort of unprovoked attack of this nature simply gives permission for all of the nuclear Islamic countries in the region (Turkey, Pakistan, probably Saudi Arabia and whomever else over there bought bombs from A.Q. Khan) to nuke the holy fuck out of Israel in retaliation. Secondly, if Israel thinks it has a tough time in the United Nations now, try going it alone without the support of the United States. I have no doubt that American public opinion would be overwhelmingly against ANY nation which used nukes without serious provocation.

Let me reiterate: "Iran -might- build a bomb in two years or so" is NOT serious provocation. Not when Israel has between 100 and 300 nuclear bombs. It's not like the lessons of Mutual Assured Destruction are lost on the Persians... why else do you think they're so eager to build nuclear bombs? To defend themselves against a perceived threat from Israel, of course.

Everyone in the Mainstream Media likes to pretend that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is some sort of crazy person determined to obtain nuclear weapons so he can nuke Israel. He doesn't help deter this kind of thinking when he hosts Holocaust Denial Parties. The fact remains, though, that the Iranian Presidency is primarily a domestic governance position. Ahmadinejad won't ever even SEE one of those nukes. The control of the military, foreign policy, nuclear policy, and Iran's main economic policies are clearly within the power of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

Ahmadinejad's election represented three things: (1) the ascendancy of the Iranian generation who fought the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war (and who therefore hate America for sponsoring Iraq in that war), (2) his campaign promises to increase direct financial aid to the country's poor & working poor residents, and (3) the fact that the Supreme Leader wanted Ahmadinejad to be the next president because he didn't want an equal partner or rival as president. The Iranian presidency was the last holdout of Iran's reformists, and the victory of Ahmadinejad gave total control of Iran's state institutions to hard-liners. Khamenei controls the Parliament, the judiciary, the army, radio and television, and he now controls the presidency as well.

This allows the Supreme Leader to play a subtle game, the same subtle game that Dr. Martin Luther King played in the 60's with Malcolm X: use your enemy's fear of a crazy person to obtain the common-sense things that you -really- want. It's a time-honored tactic of negotiating: Good-Cop-Bad-Cop. The crazier that Ahmedinejad acts, the more that the Supreme Leader seems like a reasonable alternative to bargain with. It's all a matter of shifting perception of Iran from out-of-control country ruled by dictatorial clerics to Iran as a right-of-center country ruled by an out-of-control madman where the clerics are the moderating influence. Israel surely knows this, as do the smarter elements of the US State Department. The question now is will those who understand what's really going on have any influence over the reactionary Right-Wingers who are running things in both countries?

As to the question of whether or not Bush would back an idiotic Israeli nuclear first-strike, it's probably a "Yes." Why? Because this administration -ALWAYS- backs ideology over reality. Bush probably thinks that Americans will rally to him and celebrate his starting a nuclear war in the Middle East. Perhaps some of them will, too... after all, right-wing fundamentalists have flooded Israel with cash over the last eight years in an attempt to influence Israeli domestic and foreign policy, and I'm sure that fundie nutjobs like Pat Robertson are on the phone with Tel Aviv every day assuring them that "America" is behind a nuclear strike.

Why? Because Christian nutjob literalists think that Isreal must stand together as one country in order for Armageddon to come and for Jesus to return to Earth in a fiery battle to the finish with Satan's son, The Beast 666. I'm not going to dignify these stupid Fairy Tale beliefs except to point out that their precious Bible states that The Beast 666 will rise from "The Eternal Sea" which many Bible "scholars" have taken to mean the eternal roiling sea of politics, that The Beast 666 will profess to be a heavily religious person, that he will support Israel at all costs, and that The Beast 666 will rule for Seven Years before his final battle with Jesus happens. I can only think of ONE current world leader who that prediction describes, and his name is George W. Bush.

Have fun in Hell, Christians!

I also feel that Bush would welcome an Israeli nuclear first strike as a testing-ground for using the same technology himself. He's been developing these weapons in secret over the objections of Congress and against long-standing nuclear treaties himself, so no doubt Bush will be eager to see these nuclear bunker-busters tested in real-world situations. It's a win-win for The Bush 666: he gets to test out his battle strategies and the ensuing nuclear war in the Middle East will bring about his final battle with Jesus Christ. Yay!

UNDERGROUND NUCLEAR BOMB EXPLOSION FOOTAGE

Yeah, those Iranians won't be mad if we help do this to them. It's not like they're terrified of Earthquakes or anything. Setting off thermonuclear bombs underground certainly couldn't trigger a loose fault line or anything, could it? I'm sure that Bush's planning has considered the world repudiation which would arise from our allies accidentally triggering a massive quake...

Meanwhile for those of us who find nuclear war to be an unappetizing alternative to negotiation, take comfort in the news that our new Bush-sponsored generation of nukes might not even fucking work. Yes, Bush manages to even screw up stupid shit that he WANTS. The NYT reports that America's first new nuclear warhead in over twenty years will likely end up a sort of Frankenbomb hybrid of two competing designs. Instead of choosing between designs submitted by teams at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Reliable Replacement Warhead (TP loves the name) will fuse elements of both designs, an approach that some believe is as likely to result in a dud as a functional weapon. "It's one thing to have all the components working and another to have them all working together," said one Berkeley scientist.