Iran.
Let's accept for a second the State Department's claim that Iranian officials are lying when they claim they are irradiating uranium for peaceful purposes only. Let's assume they are in fact "going nukular"--developing weapons.
Why the hell shouldn't they?
Bush administration officials claim that if Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons, they will become an "aggressor nation." This is said without irony.
According to reporter Seymour Hersch--whose information, unfortunately, is almost always correct--there is serious discussion within the Bush camp of not only using force against Iran, but in fact using nuclear weapons. The administration denies this, and since everything they say is a lie, we have to assume that this option is indeed being considered. The ultimate cost of such action--in a real world sense, what it would do to the environment, how many lives would be needlessly lost--is unknowable.
But this kind of "consequences, schmonsequences" attitude is all too typical of defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. His handling of the situation in Iraq has been wrong-headed from day one, and even right-wingers are starting to use words like "hubris" to describe him, presumably because words like "dangerously incompetent" and "batshit insane" just don't seem nuanced.
In any rational world, Rumsfeld would have been fired long ago. But he has a friend in the White House. "I'm the decider," Mr. Bushie said--an actual quote, unfortunately--and the decider in chief says Rummy gets to stay.
Meanwhile, with Bush's poll numbers sliding and Republicans everywhere getting nervous, the Democrats are trying to decide who to run for president--I'm sorry, I meant "decider"--in 2008. So far the front runner is Hillary Clinton.
Holy shit. We're hosed.
