Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
From the man who was the Washington, D.C. patron of Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress (the folks who fabricated intelligence on which the Bush administration relied for war with Iraq) and the biggest cheerleader for the unnecessary war with Iraq and staying in Iraq "100 years" or more, comes this reprisal of another classic hit from the Warmonger John McCain: Time to 'pull the trigger' with Iran:
Senator John McCain says the United States has been backing away from a brewing fight with Iran, while that country moves ever closer to having nuclear weapons.
McCain opened a Senate hearing Wednesday by saying that Iran will get the bomb unless the United States acts more boldly.
Speaking figuratively, the Arizona Republican says the U.S. keeps pointing a loaded gun at Iran but failing to "pull the trigger."
Yes, nine years bogged down in Afghanistan and seven years in Iraq with no end in sight to those conflicts is the perfect time to start a new war with the most populous (more than 71 million people) and militarily sophisticated state in the Middle East. Let's crush the "Green Revolution" populist uprising by Iranians against their repressive clerical regime in its infancy by uniting all Iranians against an outside aggressor, the "Great Satan" United States. Yeah, John McCain "knows foreign policy." The man is a freakin' idiot.
McCain's comments come the day after President Obama reached a major accord with the world's nuclear states on nuclear proliferation. At Security Summit, President Obama Calls For Action, Not Talk, to Secure Nuclear Stockpiles – NYTimes.com. Obama had a warning for Iran:
He issued a specific warning to Iran, which was not represented at the conference, saying that after four years of failed efforts on sanctions, the penalties he was trying to win at the United Nations Security Council had to be significant enough to get the attention of the Iranian leadership.
Speaking to reporters, Mr. Obama said he had insisted to President Hu Jintao of China that in dealing with Iran: “Words have to mean something. There have to be some consequences.”
Diplomacy is not good enough for the senior "statesman" (sic) John McCain who simply wants to "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran." Who can ever forget his classic hit from the 2008 presidential campaign:
UPDATE: Steve Clemons of the Washington Note and the New America Foundation has more with Keith Olbermann.
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Transcript Wednesday, April 14th – Countdown with Keith Olbermann (excerpt):
OLBERMANN: Game-plan this for Senator McCain‘s benefit. We pull the trigger on Iran and what happens afterwards?
CLEMONS: Well, I think first thing that happens is — that what we‘ve been hearing “death to the dictator” goes right back to “death to America” again. The CIA was involved in overthrowing a democratically-elected leader in Iran in 1953, and I think to many Iranians, this will look like it again. And if we bomb Iran, every major intelligence and military expert I know says it‘s only a delaying tactic. So, you end up with a much angrier Iran with nuclear weapons down the road.
So, while you can delay and you can pre-empt some of the activity we see now, it‘s a sure fire way of creating either a terrorist super highway right up to the edge of Israel, and an Iran that begins to flex its muscles globally on a lot of other fronts.
So, I think it‘s a very, very nasty picture that John McCain is talking recklessly about.
OLBERMANN: He seemed to be hinting afterwards that he meant this metaphorically — to do something, rather than just to exclusively mean this, this meant a strike against the nuclear facilities in Iran. Did he mean it metaphorically, or was this — was there a dog whistle to the nuclear cowboy crowd at minimum here?
CLEMONS: Well, I think, with all due respect to Senator McCain, this is what we used to see at the forefront of the George W. Bush administration, less so in the latter part of the Bush administration, but a lot of swagger, you know, a lot of attitude, toughness. Not thinking like allegedly one of John McCain‘s former heroes, Richard Nixon, would have approached this with a lot more complexity, depth, trying to think about how you shape the global order in a, you know, “Nixon goes to China” moment. John McCain is talking about sort of bilaterally hitting Iran on the head and abandoning all of our allies.
And I‘ll tell you, if we bomb Iran, it may create just exactly the kind of glue that would bring Russia, China and Iran together. The three of them, a global economic energy superpower like we‘ve never seen before that breaks the back of Europe and the United States and Japan.
So, bombing Iran could have untold, unbelievable unexpected circumstances. It doesn‘t mean you want to appease them, but you certainly don‘t want to be reckless like this and talk about pulling a trigger or singing jingles about bombing Iran.