Tuesday, January 31, 2006
The Fickle And The Faithful
Evangelical Outpost wrote a letter to the President yesterday. Joe, like many of us, is looking at possible military action against Iran and pointing out how incredibly fickle the American people can be when it comes to military action.
Firstly, the consequences are too horrific to contemplate. A nuclear explosion in Israel or anywhere in America is a horror that makes it worth risking all political good will.
Secondly, we have to get to this while we have a President with the cojones to see it through. If we wait, we may not finish before this guy has to leave office and a lesser person might leave before the job is done - see reason 1. Secondly, if we wait way too long, the next office holder may not start at all - see reason 1.
No doubt the hand-wringers will fight this tooth-and-nail we have to ignore them. Much as the scientist in me wants to see a nuclear explosion - not in a populated area and not in anger.
Related Tags: Iran, Israel, nuclear explosion, fickle electorate
The American public is?how can I put this delicately?a well-meaning but fickle bunch. Our people are like that buddy you had in college who would rouse you to sucker punch the loudmouth bully at the pub, yet would mysteriously turn up missing once the fight had begun. The American public may encourage you to throw the first punch at the barfight but by the time the beer bottles start flying they'll already be at Starbucks sipping espresso macchiatos and denouncing your "preemptive, unilateral, and unprovoked" act of aggresion.Joe makes his case with some truly saddening polling data. He's right, of course, so what this tells me is we have to act now. For two reasons.
Keep in mind that the Japanese had to attack Pearl Harbor before we entered World War II (Hitler, it should be noted, had to declare war on us before we entered the European theater). And it took the death of over 3,000 Americans before we decided to take the threat of global terrorism seriously. What this means is that Iran will have to attack us on our soil before the American public will truly support any long-term military action against that dangerous regime.
If you decide to take military action against Iran you should know that you will only have the support of the U.S. military, Israel, a few hundred hardcore conservative bloggers, and a handful of talk radio hosts.
Firstly, the consequences are too horrific to contemplate. A nuclear explosion in Israel or anywhere in America is a horror that makes it worth risking all political good will.
Secondly, we have to get to this while we have a President with the cojones to see it through. If we wait, we may not finish before this guy has to leave office and a lesser person might leave before the job is done - see reason 1. Secondly, if we wait way too long, the next office holder may not start at all - see reason 1.
No doubt the hand-wringers will fight this tooth-and-nail we have to ignore them. Much as the scientist in me wants to see a nuclear explosion - not in a populated area and not in anger.
Related Tags: Iran, Israel, nuclear explosion, fickle electorate
