Intellectual wingnuts make no more sense than the Applebee’s kind:
The biggest problem for the United States is not Iran getting a nuclear weapon and testing it, it’s Iran getting a nuclear weapon and not using it. Because the second that they have one and they don’t do anything bad, all of the naysayers are going to come back and say, “See, we told you Iran is a responsible power. We told you Iran wasn’t getting nuclear weapons in order to use them immediately.” … And they will eventually define Iran with nuclear weapons as not a problem.
Iran getting nuclear bomb and not using it is worse than Iran getting a nuclear bomb and using it. That’s why we need to bomb them now, to stop them from getting a nuclear bomb and not using it.
Such a fine line between stupid and, uh….
4tehlulz
>mfw
Xecky Gilchrist
Such a fine line between stupid and, uh…
Really stupid?
Jay
Danielle Pletka used to work for Jesse Helms. Clearly, his evil-ness rubbed off.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
The worst thing in the world is for Iran to be responsible.
This is also the Republican agenda I guess: The worst thing in the world is for Republicans to be responsible.
Jenny
if Iran doesn’t use the bomb then it proves they can’t be trusted.
Special Patrol Group
Wingnut dude, you just blew my mind…
4jkb4ia
David Frum is married to Danielle Crittenden. Had to make sure.
I never thought Danielle Pletka was that bright, but I will to explain. If Iran can be trusted with a nuclear weapon, then Iran is not automatically evil. Therefore Iran can have soft power. Therefore we fought in Iraq for 8 years for basically nothing.
Svensker
It’s like how Obama not taking gun rights away is worse than him taking gun rights away because it is a double super secret trick move! Or something.
Yevgraf
Objections to Israeli aggression clearly demonstrates anti-semitism.
MikeJ
Iran doesn’t need nukes for regional hegemony. All they need is for dumb assed US administrations to invade their neighbors.
Bush and Cheney couldn’t have done more for Iran’s standing in the middle east if they had been (openly) on their payroll.
Trakker
Wingnuts today remind me of the arguments I used to hear back in 8th grade. For the first tenth of a second the argument makes sense, and then the brain kicks in and your jaws hits the floor.
John Cole
At this point, I’m reasonably sure they realize no one in the media is paying attention to them and they can just say whatever they want while they bang the drums of war.
The Dangerman
The biggest problem for the U.S. is a war starting in Iran and gas zooming to $5 to $10 a gallon.
smintheus
The actual real danger of Iran getting a nuclear bomb is that several other ME powers will almost certainly want to get their own bomb. And then Israel will be displeased. And then…
Jenny
Neo-Cons have never been intellectual, they’re just blow hards and good spinning the Big Lie (ie Saddam was behind 9/11; the WMDs were moved to Syria).
As Krugman says, they’re just a dumb person’s idea of what a smart person should sound like.
eemom
“I need someone to tell me where I’m at, and how to get out of being at here.”
— Bugs Bunny.
Larime the Gimp
Nope. It’s not about anything more than proving them wrong is worse than anything. At the end of the day, that’s what it comes down to. They would rather Iran blow shit up than have their worldview disproven.
Frankensteinbeck
No, this makes perfect wingnut sense. The deaths and suffering from war or the use of a nuclear weapon are not important. They’re very low grade issues, sidelines. This is about ideals, about the ideal of American supremacy. If Iran proves themselves responsible with nuclear weapons, America will no longer have the world’s support in bullying them however we feel like. THAT freedom and power, and the moral high ground that comes with it, are vastly more important than the lives saved by a nuke not being used.
This is entirely consistent with the rest of modern ‘conservative’ reasoning, isn’t it?
Corner Stone
@Jenny: I’m sorry. Did you just quote Kthug?
Schlemizel
@MikeJ:
Exactly, in 1999 Iran had two hostile nations on its borders with the tools and desire to undo them. By 2003 there were none. Besides making the ME less stable it makes the US the only possible counter balance leaving us tied to the area indefinitely.
Jeffro
Also, it’s a good idea to cut taxes in a recession, and it’s a good idea to cut taxes in boom times.
This is good news for John McCain (no matter what the issue was way back when).
We need a strong military in wartime and we need it in peacetime.
Let’s nuke them now, let’s nuke them later when they get the bomb, let’s nuke them if they don’t, let’s just nuke them.
Orwell is not so slowly climbing up the charts as the greatest thinker of the 20th AND 21st century.
jrg
We should have nuked Russia back in the ’40s. That would have stopped the cold war in it’s tracks.
Now excuse me for a moment. I’m going to go take a shit on the kitchen floor before my wife asks me to do the dishes.
Steeplejack
This is like the Old Spice theory of foreign policy.
eemom
@Yevgraf:
Are you snarking on the neocons’ use of “antisemitism” to deflect legitimate criticism of Israel?
Or are you snarking on Cole’s use of “antisemitism” to mock the neocons’ use of “antisemitism” to deflect legitimate criticism of Israel?
Or better yet, are you snarking on my use of “antisemitism” to criticize Cole’s use of “antisemitism” to mock the neocons’ use of “antisemitism” to deflect legitimate criticism of Israel?
Inquiring minds wish to know.
shortstop
Millions upon millions slaughtered or wingnuts being publicly proven wrong about something?
In the scale of unthinkable human tragedies, it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Roger Moore
@Larime the Gimp:
This. The reason Iran getting the bomb and doing absolutely nothing with it is terrible is because it would prove that the neocons were a bunch of Chicken Littles when they freaked out about Iran getting the bomb. That’s obviously far worse than a few million brown people being incinerated in a nuclear war- at least if you’re a narcissistic asshole neocon.
DFS
It’s a psychology-of-previous-investment thing, I think. They’ve thrown so much time and effort into ginning up a war with Iran that it would be a terrible waste to have to find a whole ‘nother boogeyman and start over again.
Pakistan is being prepped as the emergency alternative, though.
The Dangerman
I watched a little bit of Fox tonight (I’m a masochist; I followed up by jamming bamboo under my fingernails as a chaser)…
…and the two dumb fuckers on screen were theorizing that the reason Newt is doing so well in the poll is because Republicans believe he is so much smarter than Obama that Newt will kick his ass in the debates.
I doubted their analysis, figuring they really couldn’t be that stupid…
…and then this shit crossed my path. They may be that stupid.
Zandar
Clearly we need rubber nuclear weapons.
Palli
Such a fine line between stupid and, uh….Cheney/Bush & the Iraq War
Egg Berry
@Palli: that’s not a line.
Jeffro
@DFS: Sort of a ‘sunk-cost fallacy’ writ large?
OUCH
Suffern ACE
I couldn’t agree with her more. If Iran doesn’t use nuclear weapons, we won’t know how many weapons they have built. If they use nuclear weapons, we will know how many they had before they used them. There are known unknowns and unknown unknowns. While the latter are somethimes more dangerous than the former, the fewer of both the better.
wilfred
This is just ignorant. The point that Pletka, an Israel Firster, is making is that Iran can achieve it’s strategic goals by merely having a nuclear weapon. Using one would ensure its own destruction hence her tacit admission that Iran would never use any such weapon.
OTOH, an Iranian nuclear presence would have a great effect on emigration to Israel and immigration out of it, leading to an eventual Arab majority. Pletka is speaking for Israel, not the US. An Iranian nuclear presence alters the strategic balance a) by being a dterrent to Israeli expansionism, b) discouraging immigration to Israel. One recnt study said that 30% of Israelis would leave Israel if Iran had a nuclear weapon.
Odie Hugh Manatee
.
Indeed they are. I’ve been perusing one winger trainwreck site, RedState, for some time now and this is exactly what the Noot supporters are saying. Get Noot into a debate with Obama and he will destroy the president’s so-called intellect. The anti-Noots there are deriding the pro-Noot/debate faction, telling them even if Noot wins in the debate, he’ll still lose the election.
This Noot debate stuff is fascinating, it’s like he’s their Great White Hope who can save the day. The anti-Noot faction has been having fun slamming the pro-Noot faction, especially the evangelical women at RedState. They really despise him…lol!
The Republicans know that if their slate of candidates were pies, the only difference between them would be the flavor of the shit they have to choose from. Right now, no matter who gets chosen there will be anger and division afterwards.
Which is a very good thing.
Quaker in a Basement
Do I have this right? Pletka lies awake at night worrying about the threat of not getting blown up?
An Idiot
People like her have a view of the world that revolves entirely around their enemies, that considers their enemies to be not only the most important thing in the world, but the entire reason for there to be a world. A sane person would be relieved by the revelation that someone else might not be an implacable and incomprehensible enemy that only ever thinks of murdering them in their bed by any means, but to the wingers and fundies, that revelation looks like nothing less than an existential threat. It represents the total collapse of everything they’ve ever understood about the world.
Really, they’ve never recovered from the collapse of the USSR. They defined their entire lives around the assumption that an apocalyptic Manichean battle between the Decent God-Fearing Suburban White Folks and the Merciless Godless Commie Puppy-Eaters was inevitable, imminent, and most of all glorious beyond all other causes, and yet it never came. The USSR simply wasn’t sustainable in the long term. They destroyed themselves in the end.
Jamie
This is just a demonstration. Wignuts don’t care about Iran, per se. They care about where money goes.
Kristol would deep-throat the ayatollah if it meant five more years of the Fox gig.
Chris
All they’re saying is that the worst possible outcome for them would be for their paranoid delusions to be proven wrong.
It’s probably the first and last time you’ll ever read such an honest appraisal of their own priorities.
ETA: or what Larime and Franken said.
Chris
@Schlemizel:
Yep – we did all their work for them. And of course, removing the anti-Iranian regimes allowed more pro-Iranian parties to come out of hiding and go back into business. Really, if there’s one nation that benefited most from this whole “war on terror” mess, it’s them… well done George.
Yeah, that’s why honestly I’m not at all fussed with the notion of China (or Russia) gaining power in the region – especially if they do it in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Instead of juggling nitro, let’s just toss it to someone else and let them have all the fun.
NR
@Svensker:
Or it’s like how Obama implementing all this right-wing policy means he’s actually a super secret progressive, or something.
Citizen_X
IF that’s true, which I doubt, then 30% of Israelis are full of shit. Sez who? Sez the 30% of Americans who didn’t flee to Brazil when the USSR got the bomb.
It would be yet another MAD-cold war. The world’s had a couple of them already.
ABL
But what about nookyular bombs?
Chris
@The Dangerman:
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
My take on it: just like Herman Cain was “their black” (thank you, Ann Coulter), Newt Gingrich is “their intellectual.”
@An Idiot:
Do you read techno-thrillers, by any chance? The genre tends to be dominated by conservatives (Tom Clancy invented it, others imitated it), and if you read enough of their books, the 1990s is when they all went completely fucking nuts. Without a Soviet Union around, they all kind of started flailing around looking for a New Big Enemy. The obvious one was China; North Korea and Iran were around too; but you also got some batshit insane ones like Japan, India, United Korea, united fascist Europe, several variations of United Islam, and several variations of Russia, Back To The Dark Side. It was a hell of a thing… lucky for them that 9/11 came along and gave them a new purpose.
General Stuck
@NR:
Probably the dumbest comment ever made on this blog. Consider yourself immortalized, NR.
Satanicpanic
The left has invested too much time in making sense. We should just write off all that effort and be nuts from now on.
wilfred
@Citizen_X:
here:
This from a wikileak cable:
http://www.juancole.com/2010/11/wikileaks-on-israel-iraq-and-the-iranian-specter.html
eemom
@wilfred:
The implication behind that assertion — that “the Israelis” “lobbied” to START the Iraq war — is bullshit propaganda on the exact same level as “Iraq had WMDs” — equally devoid of evidence, and equally contrary to the evidence that exists.
oh, and the 2007 cable to the effect that Israel was concerned about the effects of U.S. withdrawal from Iraq at that point is not any kind of evidence of what got us in there in the first place. I wouldn’t bother to mention that obvious fact to someone arguing in good faith, but that’s not who I’m dealing with here.
Mino
If Israel is on the same trajectory as we seem to be, their enemies to democracy are more likely internal than external, ie. their own damn government.
wilfred
@eemom:
Fuck you. The good faith I have is for my country – I don’t give a shit about Israel and less for its apologists.
Evidence? Here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2003/01/25/israel-american-jews-and-the-war-on-iraq/
DanielX
@An Idiot: Exactly so…but more than that, they need an enemy. It defines their existence and purpose. After all, without some sort of foreign existential threat, what need for their warnings and views with alarm? No more neocon gravy train with AEI or the Heritage Institute. I mean, what would happen to the Kagans if peace broke out? Their rice bowl would be broken right along with it and they’d actually have to find a way to make an honest living…Bloody Bill Kristol might not have a forum for his totally wrong predictions.
Jerzy Russian
@Svensker:
Add another layer of bait-and-switch and you are pretty close.
r€nato
@4jkb4ia: no, we didn’t fight for 8 years in Iraq for nothing. We fought for 8 years in Iraq in order to substantially improve Iran’s position in Gulf politics. Hoocoodanode that taking out Saddam might turn Iraq into a near client state of Iran?
This was YET ANOTHER unforeseen consequence of that war, along with the fact that in the absence of Saddam Hussein, Iraqis did not spontaneously create a Western-style, Israel-friendly democracy, no WMDs were found, the cost of the war was a couple of orders of magnitude greater than what they predicted, the casualties were orders of magnitude greater than what they predicted, and the war lasted much, much longer than what they predicted.
Oh yeah, and Obama is the worst president ever, worse than Carter even.
Catsy
This is the cry of someone who sees their legitimacy and raison d’etre evaporating before their eyes.
This particular flavor of asshole has defined most of their foreign policy starting with the premise that Iran is evil and can’t be reasoned with.
Iran getting and then responsibly not using a nuclear weapon would be their worst nightmare, because it would simultaneously destroy the basis for taking seriously every argument they’ve ever advanced on the topic, and eliminate any mainstream support for their warmongering.
It would almost entirely discredit their ideology. That makes it an existential threat to them far worse than if Iran actually nuked someone, which would validate and empower their faction.
It makes perfect sense if you think about it. They’re just usually not stupid enough to say it out loud.