Wag the Camel
http://http://select.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/opinion/12dowd.html

Maureen Dowd,
The New York Times, April 12, 2006

Talk about a fearful symmetry. Iran was whipping up
real uranium while America was whipped up by fake uranium.

Obsessed with going to war against a Middle East country
that had no nuclear weapon, the Bush administration lost
focus on and leverage over a Middle East country hurtling
toward a nuclear weapon.

That's after the Bush crew lost focus on and leverage
over an Asian country that says it has now produced a
whole bunch of nuclear weapons.

To paraphrase Raymond Chandler, if brains were elastic,
these guys wouldn't have enough to make suspenders for
a parakeet.

While ***** Cheney was getting booed as he threw out the
first pitch for the Nationals - it bounced in the dirt
and Scooter wasn't even there to catch it - Iran was
jubilantly welcoming itself to the nuclear club and
spitting in the eye of the U.S. and U.N.

Speaking before a mural of fluttering white doves,
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bragged that his scientists
had concocted enriched uranium. They will now churn out
nuclear fuel as fast as they can.

Are they making a bomb? Nah, said the Iranian president,
furthest thing from their minds.

Are we going to bomb them before they can get a bomb?
Nah, said the American president, furthest thing from our minds.

The nuclear doves announcement was embarrassing for Mr. Bush,
who had said on Monday that he was determined to prevent
Iran from getting the know-how to enrich uranium.
But the Persian logic cannot be faulted.
If you pretend to have W.M.D., the U.S. may come and get you.
Ask Saddam. If you really have W.M.D., you're bulletproof.
Ask Kim Jong Il.

I'm sure the mad-as-cheese Mr. Ahmadinejad cannot believe his luck.
The down-the-rabbit-hole Bush administration is tied up in Iraq,
helping to create a theocracy friendly to Iran while leaving Iran to
do whatever it wants on W.M.D.

In this week's New Yorker, Seymour Hersh writes about the Pentagon
planning for a possible strike against the nutty "apocalyptic
Shiites," as the former C.I.A. agent Robert Baer calls the
Holocaust-denying Ahmadinejad and his chorus line of clerics.

Mr. Hersh quotes a source close to the Pentagon saying
that Mr. Bush believes "that saving Iran is going to be
his legacy." Which makes sense, in a wag-the-camel way,
since saving Iraq is not going to be his legacy.

The Bush hawks, who have already proven themselves
cultural cretins in Iraq, seem to still be a long way
from that humble foreign policy they promised. A former
defense official told Mr. Hersh that the plan was based on
an administration belief that "a sustained bombing campaign
in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead
the public to rise up and overthrow the government."
The official's reaction: "What are they smoking?"

Just as Rummy dismissed questions back in August 2002
about a possible invasion of Iraq as a media "frenzy" -
even as plans were well under way - the defense chief
shrugged off The New Yorker story as "Henny Penny,
the sky is falling."

Noting that the president is "on a diplomatic track,"