Daniel’s Pipedream

Daniel Pipes has joined jumped on board the good ship Bomb Iran, along with Norman Podhoretz and Joe Lieberman.

Pipes cites “talented outsiders,” that is to say psychopaths, who focused “exclusively on feasibility, not political desirability or strategic ramifications: Were the Israeli national command to decide to damage the Iranian infrastructure, could its forces accomplish this mission?” Of course, in the process of destroying Iran’s “heavy water plant and plutonium production reactors under construction at Arak, a uranium conversion facility in Isfahan, and a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz,” the Israelis would be spreading radioactive fallout across Pakistan, India, China, Russia, Japan, and other downwind countries in Asia and the Pacific Rim, not that this or “political desirability” are of concern to the Israelis or their cheerleading neocon cohorts.

Of course, simply bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, resulting in the potential death of thousands, if not millions in the above mentioned countries, Pipes tells us “the IDF could reach Kharg Island, through which over 90 percent of Iranian oil is exported, heavily damaging the Iranian economy,” thus inflicting economic suffering and misery on millions of additional people, mostly average working people, albeit “dark-skinned” Muslims “with strange eating habits and less-developed notions of hygiene,” as Pipe famously characterized them.

Whether the justification… is Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program, Iran supporting Hezbollah or Iran allegedly arming the Sunni insurgents in Iraq, the justification for the attack on Iran will be incidental. What matters is to remind the Iranians who is in charge and who has the power.

One way or another, Pipes and his crazed compatriots will get their attack against Iran, not because the country is developing nuclear technology but rather because it serves as an example of a relatively strong and proud Muslim nation, something the neocons and Israelis detest, as they detested Saddam Hussein’s version of Arab nationalism and his support of the Palestinians. As we know, and as Zionists such as Oded Yinon tell us, the idea is to balkanize the Muslim world and spread as much chaos and misery—and, apparently, radiation—as possible.

Expect more of this as Bush prepares to exit office. As Pipes and crew realize, the Israelis will be unable to attack Iran, but the United States, already present in large numbers in the neighborhood, will be able to pull off an attack. For as the swami of the neocons, Norman Podhoretz, has promised, after consultation with Bush, the United States will attack Iran before Bush the Junior departs Washington.

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