The Wolfowitzes and Krauthammers, and Peretzes, and Boltons, and the others of that pathetic ilk, they are only ever anywhere metaphorically. There is not a one of them with the courage to put his own ass(ets) on the line for any cause he claims to support. For that sorry lot, it's always "Let's you and him fight." while they cheerlead from a decidedly safe distance.

Neo-con pre-election narrative: Iran outside of Tehran is a howling wilderness of Islamo-Fascists who hate America and will back hardliners to the hilt and resist any attempt to work with the West. The election of Ahmadinejad will prove that. Lets bomb Iran.

(This BTW explains why the initial reporting insisted that us soft-headed liberals just didn't understand the simple facts on the ground.)

Neo-con post-election narrative after rising protests: Iran really is a pro-democracy urbanized population to whom the leadership has shown they will never listen. The crackdown on the protests will prove that. Let's bomb Iran.

Either story works. That is you can appeal to the racists by claiming that most Iranians are ignorant ragheads and so can be bombed without mercy. Or you can appeal to the PNAC delusionists by claiming that most Iranians are Democrats just waiting for the first bomb to trigger their revolt.

Just as all economic conditions and situations justify cutting taxes on the rich, so too do all political and diplomatic situations argue for bombing Iran.

Work backwards from your faith-based conclusion, that's how they roll in the modern Republican Party. In fact that is how they have always rolled in Movement Conservatism. You justify the status quo and received wisdom by continually increasing the strength of the argumentative foundation.

(And none of this is new, this is essentially how the Christian Scholastics and Talmudic Scholars and English Common Lawyers morked in medieval and early modern times. Assume the Bible, the Torah, or the unwritten British Constitution are inerrant, then find ways to make them fit the current situation.)

"...the Wolfowitzes, Krauthammers and other lovelies.."

Nice, M.J. Very sweet.

I think there is something that we are all missing here, and that is a mysterious love of violence and hierarchy that wells up from the psychic murk of those lovelies who call themselves "conservatives." The neocons are the most striking variant of this phenomenon. They have an almost childlike need for some sort of authoritarian "daddy" to tell them what to do. They are lovers of cops and soldiers--not that cops and soldiers are not needed or are by definition evil. Neocons are Manichean. They want "sides," and in that sense are tribal. They are seemingly unable to deal with a world that is complicated and ambiguous.

Their imagination is, in fact, unfathomable to those of us who attempt to be sensible and civilized and have values larger than the worship of Mammon and power.

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