First of all, there is no fucking way* that Iran would ever accept an agreement that would “satisfy” the U.S. and Israel that Iran isn’t developing nuclear weapons, because Israel is never going to be satisfied, and, if Israel isn’t satisfied, the U.S. won’t be either. Secondly, how is Iran supposed to start negotiating when our Secretary of State starts off by saying that she doesn’t take them seriously? Are they supposed to crawl on their hands and knees to the bargaining table, bewailing their sins and begging St. Hillary to forgive them?
President Obama bought himself an inch of bargaining space between himself and the right-wing Likudists who run the Republican Party by claiming that possession of a nuclear weapon by Iran would be unacceptable—and, presumably, cause for war—while possession of the capability for building nuclear weapons—apparently—not so much. Now Hillary seems to have given up that inch. So now we will have endless demands for negotiation, for inspection, for verification, for sanctions—the same farce and farrago we went through with Iraq—a tale told by an idiot, really, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, because Iran, like Iraq, is not a threat to the United States, and not an “existential” threat to Israel, either. The President, terrified of looking weak, of exposing himself to attack from all the hardliners who seem to dominate the State and Defense Departments, not to mention the CIA, the National Security Council, etc., etc., and not to mention the Republican Party and AIPAC, will continue the endless pushing and shoving that we went through during the entirety of the Clinton Administration, when Saddam Hussein, a toothless tiger who ravaged his own country but was no threat to anyone else, was billed and sold to the American people as a cross between Adolph Hitler and Genghis Khan.
The Clinton Administration did not invade Iraq, but the spadework was done. Saddam, who wanted nothing more than to oppress his own nation in peace, was turned into a madman hellbent on the destruction of the United States. Iran, which was somehow invisible during the Saddam years, is now the Hitler de jour. Never mind the fact that Hitler swallowed up two countries (Austria and Czechoslovakia) and invaded a third (Poland) after six years in power, while those mad Iranians have never invaded anyone in thirty. The Obama Administration is, willy nilly, laying the groundwork for Republican dirty work. Iran delanda est, Hillary? Give it a rest.
* “No fucking way”? OK, in diction I’m not so diplomatic, but in substance I’m the soul of reason. Would that Hillary would do likewise.
