Past is prologue

I missed it a couple of weeks ago, but the Washington Post's lead chickenhawk, Charles Krauthammer [love that last name] is calling for a pre-emptive attack on Iran:

"[Iran] should be ripe for revolution. The regime is detested. But the mullahs are very good at police-state tactics. The long-awaited revolution is not happening.

Which makes the question of pre-emptive attack all the more urgent. Iran will go nuclear during the next presidential term. Some Americans wishfully think that the Israelis will do the dirty work for us, as in 1981, when they destroyed Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor. But for Israel, attacking Iran is a far more difficult proposition. It is farther away. Moreover, detection and antiaircraft technology are far more advanced than they were 20 years ago.

There may be no deus ex machina. If nothing is done, a fanatical terrorist regime openly dedicated to the destruction of the 'Great Satan' will have both nuclear weapons and the terrorists and missiles to deliver them. All that stands between us and that is either revolution or preemptive strike."

But where is our good friend, the Hitchenator, on this one? Will he make it a neo-con hat-trick: support for attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq ...and Iran? We await his pronouncement with the same anticipation we have for the repeatedly delayed but nonetheless upcoming release of Oasis' next album.

Meanwhile, as noted on ZNet by Mike Whitney,

"The question of a war with Iran is further complicated by Israel’s repeated threats to destroy any facility they believe is being used to develop nuclear weapons. In a recent blog by Noam Chomsky, the details of transactions between Israel and the US are cause for growing concern.

Chomsky says, 'Not reported but quite important is the dispatch to Israel of 100 F16-I's, advanced jet bombers, with the very specific announcement that they can reach Iran and return, are updated versions of the F-16s that Israel used to attack the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, and are equipped with "special weapons" (according to the Israeli Hebrew press)'."

And then there's Bush's gap-toothed National Security advisor this weekend gone on the CNN's Sunday political talk show, Late Edition with Wolf 'Credulous' Blitzer:

"National security adviser Condoleezza Rice also said the Bush administration sees a new international willingness to act against Iran's nuclear program. She credited the changed attitude to the Americans' insistence that Iran's effort put the world in peril."

"We cannot allow the Iranians to develop a nuclear weapon. The international community has got to find a way to come together and to make certain that that does not happen."

But before any ABB brigaders get all 'I told you so' on us, they should note that Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, is hardly less hawkish on the matter.