Arguments, arguments, and more arguments on Iran
beware the chest-beating and the rhetoric
We know all the lines, and they rhyme with everything we’ve been hearing since September 12th, 2001.
“We cannot allow Iran to have nuclear weapons, because they will use those weapons to terrorize and kill innocent civilians. Since we cannot allow them to have those weapons, we must terrorize and kill innocent Iranians.”
“Iran has been 2 months away from a nuclear weapon for the past 20 years. This means they must be stopped immediately, or they will surely have a weapon in 3 months.”
“We know Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon because we know they are enriching uranium. We know they are not enriching uranium for peaceful purposes because we know they are trying to build a nuclear weapon.”
“It is a shame that we were wrong about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction in 2003 because it ended up getting us in an unnecessary guerilla war. We are sure we learned our lesson and won’t make the same mistake because we apologized and wrote think pieces in our think tanks. Since we are sure we learned our lessons, we know for sure we’re not wrong about Iran developing nuclear weapons.”
“We know that regime change in Iran is popular and possible because Prince Pahlavi told us. We know Prince Pahlavi is smart and understands the Iranian people because his dad was the king. We know he is sure to change Iran from a dictatorship to a democracy because his father was a beacon of democracy. He gave us a very nice presentation on how monarchy is the democratic will of the Iranian people.”
“Every country has a right to defend itself. As every country has a right to defend itself, we have a right to launch a preemptive surprise attack on Iran. We know they were planning on attacking us because they started launching missiles right after we bombed them.”
“We know Iran is not interested in diplomacy, because when they engaged in diplomacy, they made their own demands which didn’t precisely match ours.”
“Their media outlets, scientists, academics, medics, and other civilians are legitimate military targets because they are employed by a terrorist regime, so they are fair game as targets. We know it’s a terrorist regime because they have supported people who target civilians like the media, academics, medics, and so on.”
We’ve heard the lines, and most of us recognize the rhyme. The question is, who is buying it?