I Care for Myself Too Much to Write About Iran

Once upon a time, I wrote the following about the growing likelihood of an attack by the United States on Iran:

I see no point in documenting the further steps on this route to hell, for the same reason I avoid a certain kind of horror film: it is the contemplation of cruelty, murder, barbarism and sadism for their own sake. Such exercises in psychopathology have no interest to me, and I will leave the dreadful task to others.

I said that after having written a few dozen articles about a possible U.S. attack on Iran, its causes, its meaning, and its likely consequences.

The passage comes from "The Worsening Nightmare," published on August 15, 2007. That's history for you. It'll kill you.

I discuss many issues in that article, all of them as critically significant now as they were over four years ago. Some specific details have altered, as have some of the players. What is most astonishing and horrifying is how much has not altered in any respect.

Since most readers aren't inclined to follow links, and to answer those who moan, "Oh, oh, oh, who could have known?," I offer this excerpt:

The great majority of people remain resolutely focused on the trivia of the day, and the latest "controversy" of the moment. Developments over a period of years and even decades bore them, and they have no interest in understanding them. Our politicians specialize in such ignorance, and most bloggers indulge their stupidity, and imitate it to varying degrees.

And most Democrats and their dedicated partisans (and I regretfully include almost all liberal-progressive bloggers in this category) remain absolute in their determined refusal to see the continuity of our foreign policy, from the annexation of Hawaii, through the Spanish-American War and the occupation of the Philippines, through Woodrow Wilson and the Open Door doctrine of global hegemony, to global interventionism, and all the other issues I've discussed in my "Dominion Over the World" series.

The Democrats don't object and they completely fail to mount serious opposition to our inevitable course toward widening war and an attack on Iran, not because they are cowards, not because they're afraid of being portrayed as "weak" in the fight against terrorism, and not because of any of the other excuses that are regularly offered by their defenders. They don't object because -- they don't object. That is: they agree -- they agree that the United States is the "indispensable" nation, that we have the "right" to tell every other country how it is "permitted" to act, that we must pursue a policy of aggressive interventionism supported by an empire of military bases. They agree about all of it; moreover, in most critical respects, they devised these policies in the first instance, and they implemented and defended them more vigorously and more consistently than Republicans, with the exception of the criminal now residing in the White House.

They agree. Try to wrap your head around it. Try to absorb the indisputable fact, which has been proven over and over and over again in the last century, and particularly in the last 60 years.

The heightened focus on Iran is the result of the new IAEA report. Numerous stories all make the same point: the report is based on "credible" information, i.e., credible intelligence.

This, too, is a subject I have repeatedly analyzed in enormous detail. You can begin with "Played for Fools Yet Again: About That Iran 'Intelligence' Report," from December 2007. Again, an excerpt:

I therefore repeat my major admonition, and give it special emphasis:

NEVER, EVER ARGUE IN TERMS OF INTELLIGENCE AT ALL.

It is always irrelevant to major policy decisions, and such decisions are reached for different reasons altogether. This is true whether the intelligence is correct or not, and it is almost always wrong. On those very rare occasions when intelligence is accurate, it is likely to be disregarded in any case. It will certainly be disregarded if it runs counter to a course to which policymakers are already committed.

The intelligence does not matter. It is primarily used as propaganda, to provide alleged justification to a public that still remains disturbingly gullible and pliable -- and it is used after the fact, to justify decisions that have already been made.

And still, everyone discusses "intelligence" endlessly, and how important it is that we get it "right" -- that is, that the "intelligence" be "credible." If you understand why the true restatement of that last phrase is, "that the propaganda be credible," perhaps you'll stop engaging in this exercise in inanity.

As my title from four years ago had it: Fools.

Beyond all this, and I say this for approximately the eighty-seventh time, "So Iran Gets Nukes. So What?" Actually, since I've argued this point so often, I now ask: So THE FUCK what?

I have only one life to live, one life to find joy and love. So do you. At this point, further discussion of this subject becomes the contemplation of evil for its own sake. Unless you are irreparably damaged and suffer a compulsion to damage yourself further, that is a pastime to be avoided.

On the other hand, there is one course of action you might consider in light of the horrific, world-shattering consequences of an attack on Iran. My very bad health keeps me housebound. I hope none of you suffers the same or a similar restriction. Assuming you do not, if a few million of you should descend on Washington and take up permanent residence in the streets surrounding the White House and the Capitol, you would have my full, fervent support. Stay there until the national government disavows all plans to attack Iran. While you're at it, stay there until the national government dissolves itself altogether. I had been ready to list several other actions of special importance the national government should take. But self-dissolution is the simplest and surest way of addressing the innumerable problems. Besides, getting rid of the motherfuckers is the point. (At this point, if they're part of the national government, they're motherfuckers. No exceptions.)

And in line with the preceding article, make no mistake: you would be compelling our monstrous, evil national government to act in the way you demand -- to act humanely, decently, in a genuinely civilized manner, with reverence for the sacred, irreplaceable value of a single human life.

That would be a noble endeavor, nobly undertaken. Go to it, with all my blessings.