Something Worth Worrying About
I hadn't been following the Iranian election very closely, but the outcome--victory for a hard-line, anti-US candidate who has publicly committed to continuing Iran's nuclear program--should be cause for concern whatever one's political leanings. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sounds bad enough anyway; the real issue in my view, though, is how he's likely to strike our own hard-liners in power.

Donald Rumsfeld, that great tribune of freedom and decency, has labeled Ahmadinejad "no friend of democracy", echoing statements by the Idiot King that Iran's election was rigged and unfair. (Unconfirmed reports have it that upon this statement from Bush, Irony coughed twice weakly and finally passed from this world.) Given the plunge in popularity of our other current war, and the matching quagmire in which Bush's awful domestic agenda is stuck, with Independents as opposed to the president as Democrats, it wouldn't surprise me one bit to see this crew hope for a second "rally 'round the flag" effect by launching air strikes or other measures against Iran.

Yes, we don't have the resources, in military manpower or otherwise, to prosecute a second war effort in the Middle East. Yes, such an act would probably further cement the low regard in which much of the world holds us. And yes, any attack against Iran would also produce a patriotic response--including from the reformers and younger Iranians in whom Americans have invested hope for that country--on the other side. But all these considerations speak to rational analysis and concern for the future... and if such ideas were valued in the Bush administration, we wouldn't see so many current policies it has put in place.

So expect the war drums to start beating--maybe in a month, maybe in six, maybe when that Supreme Court vacancy opens, maybe right before the 2006 midterms. The emergence of a viable new villain, coupled with the desperate straits the Republicans find themselves in, makes it almost inevitable. The media will march along, and Democrats will once again try to figure out how to explain that opposition isn't treason, and that mindless jingoism isn't patriotism. Hopefully we'll do a better job of it this time.