Juan Cole becomes the first Bush administration commentator to wonder if the president will revive the right of powerful men to deflower maidens. It’s a logical progression but perhaps a bit premature, as it were. However, it appears as if at least one member, as it were, of the executive branch may have been thinking along those lines.
In a metaphorical sense, though, the president has already exercised the privilege.
Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker story on concerns within the Bush administration that some senior officials are seriously considering an aerial assault on Iran involving the use of nuclear weapons has drawn considerable excited comment, including from me — I even wrote up the administration’s damning indictment of Iran, which isn’t due out for a couple of months, and provided a timeline for the assault — and the president, who calls the chatter “wild speculation,” but in a less than reassuring context: an insistence that diplomacy is the cornerstone of his approach to Iran.
The doctrine of prevention is to work together to prevent the Iranians from having a nuclear weapon. I know — I know here in Washington prevention means force. It doesn’t mean force, necessarily. In this case, it means diplomacy. And by the way, I read the articles in the newspapers this weekend. It was just wild speculation, by the way. What you’re reading is wild speculation, which is — it’s kind of a — happens quite frequently here in the nation’s capital.
It’s not exactly a denial, and given the regularity with which wild speculation about the administration turns out to be true, it’s not all that convincing. It is, however, a bit less narrow than his mid-2002 comments about war plans for Iraq.
I told the Prime Minister there are no war plans on my desk. I haven’t changed my opinion about Saddam Hussein, however. He is — this is a person who gassed his own people, and possesses weapons of mass destruction. And so as I told the American people, and I told John, we’ll use all tools at our disposal to deal with him. And, of course, before there is any action — military action, I would closely consult with our close friend. There are no plans on my desk right now.
The clear implication being, of course, that they were on the Oval Office coffee table or the night stand in the presidential bed chamber.
A great many people have discounted the idea of an attack on Iran involving nuclear weapons as being exclusionarily insane. But the president has already popped the cherry on preemptively attacking and occupying another country, and there really isn’t any reason to assume he’s incapable of doing the same with respect to using nuclear weapons at the beginning of a war instead of at the end. If he’s bent on attacking Iran with regime change and the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities in mind, the question of whether to use nuclear weapons shrinks from the larger one of whether it’s rational to attack Iran or use nuclear weapons under any circumstances to the smaller one of whether the goals of the attack are achievable without nuclear weapons. If they’re not, which may be the case, refraining from their use becomes irrational.
He’s the lord of the manor; he can do what he wants, and he has to make his decisions based upon what’s best for our country. And I think I’ve proved conclusively that what’s best for this country is an irrational and probably catastrophic attack on Iran.
Pop.
Droit de seigneur for Bush?
Juan Cole becomes the first Bush administration commentator to wonder if the president will revive the right of powerful men to deflower maidens. It’s a logical progression but perhaps a bit premature, as it were. However, it appears as if at least one member, as it were, of the executive branch may have been thinking along those lines.
In a metaphorical sense, though, the president has already exercised the privilege.
Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker story on concerns within the Bush administration that some senior officials are seriously considering an aerial assault on Iran involving the use of nuclear weapons has drawn considerable excited comment, including from me — I even wrote up the administration’s damning indictment of Iran, which isn’t due out for a couple of months, and provided a timeline for the assault — and the president, who calls the chatter “wild speculation,” but in a less than reassuring context: an insistence that diplomacy is the cornerstone of his approach to Iran.
It’s not exactly a denial, and given the regularity with which wild speculation about the administration turns out to be true, it’s not all that convincing. It is, however, a bit less narrow than his mid-2002 comments about war plans for Iraq.
The clear implication being, of course, that they were on the Oval Office coffee table or the night stand in the presidential bed chamber.
A great many people have discounted the idea of an attack on Iran involving nuclear weapons as being exclusionarily insane. But the president has already popped the cherry on preemptively attacking and occupying another country, and there really isn’t any reason to assume he’s incapable of doing the same with respect to using nuclear weapons at the beginning of a war instead of at the end. If he’s bent on attacking Iran with regime change and the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities in mind, the question of whether to use nuclear weapons shrinks from the larger one of whether it’s rational to attack Iran or use nuclear weapons under any circumstances to the smaller one of whether the goals of the attack are achievable without nuclear weapons. If they’re not, which may be the case, refraining from their use becomes irrational.
He’s the lord of the manor; he can do what he wants, and he has to make his decisions based upon what’s best for our country. And I think I’ve proved conclusively that what’s best for this country is an irrational and probably catastrophic attack on Iran.
Pop.