Simpleton Sarah Says Nothing Of Importance About Iran

Look, I get why people like Sarah Palin. Really, I do. She's hot, fairly dumb, yet successful beyond her wildest dreams. In this she perfectly represents everything the American Midwest aspires to be. I'd really like to fuck her, although I like to pretend that I wouldn't enjoy it very much.

But one thing I don't do is take her particularly seriously. She's a simpleton and her chances of becoming president are about as a good as mine are. I've spent two years trying to map out a Republican nomination for Palin, and I can't do it. I can't see her beating Mike Huckabee in Iowa or Mitt Romney in New Hampshire or Michigan. That leaves Nevada and South Carolina for her to win in the early GOP primaries. If she loses either, her money dries up and she goes back to doing whatever the fuck it is that she does for a living.

Don't get me wrong, I'm quite sure that she's stupid enough to actually run (although I doubt that she will because she prefers making tons of money. White trash always does), but she'll wind up like John Connally or Rudy Giuliani if she does. Besides, it's not like that would be the first time that Palin has spent a shitload of other people's money to advance her popularity. Ask Alaska's oil companies. Or John McCain's 2008 donors.

For that reason, I give the Governor's views exactly the same weight that I would give those of any other Facebook blogger or reality TV show star, which is to say none. And on foreign and military policy matters, I think that she might have less gravitas than, say, Snooki.

I also know that she doesn't write any of the missives from her Facebook government-in-exile page. I know this because I've seen her try to talk, which always has, shall we say, mixed results. It's funny, to be sure, but it hardly helps her in her quest to be seen as a Serious Person by anyone other than Sean Hannity.

I can tell you without any doubt that Palin doesn't even bother thinking about foreign policy. That's what she keeps Randy Scheunemann around for. Mr. Scheunemann was responsible for John McCain's underwhelming "George Bush is a pussy! We need to bomb everybody more!" messaging a couple of years ago.

There are any number of reasons that I love this op-ed that Scheunemann wrote, had Palin sign in fucking crayon and sent off to USA Today, whose editors read about well as she does. In it, Sarah manages to be factually incorrect, makes insane statements without any supporting evidence, invoke the Holocaust, chide the Obama administration and still not say anything worth remembering or even offer a practical suggestion. It's a fucking scream to read.

Let's examine it at length, shall we? Since I'm not Gawker, I'm pretty sure that I can quote it at length and not be sued and equated with Wikileaks.

Iran continues to defy the international community in its drive to acquire nuclear weapons. Arab leaders in the region rightly fear a nuclear-armed Iran. We suspected this before, but now we know for sure because of leaked diplomatic cables. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia "frequently exhorted the U.S. to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons program," according to these communications. Officials from Jordan said the Iranian nuclear program should be stopped by any means necessary. Officials from the United Arab Emirates and Egypt saw Iran as evil, an "existential threat" and a sponsor of terrorism. If Iran isn't stopped from obtaining nuclear weapons, it could trigger a regional nuclear arms race in which these countries would seek their own nuclear weapons to protect themselves.

That's a fascinating paragraph and it follows a pattern that I've seen any number of Republicans and Republican asshole bloggers follow.

You see, the "leaked diplomatic cables" Governor Palin refers to came from WikiLeaks. Palin and others have called for WikiLeaks to be "stopped" by means up to and including official government censorship of American media and even assassination. Of course, the highly sensitive nature of the material doesn't stop them from endlessly repeating it to score points where they think that they can.

As to Arab diplomatic opinion, that goes to what countries say in private and what they say in private. The reason that Palin is touting the views of the Saudis, Jordanians and the U.A.E is that all of them have said quite the opposite in public. This becomes important later.

That wouldn't be the only catastrophic consequence for American interests in the Middle East. Our credibility and reputation would suffer a serious blow if Iran succeeds in producing its own nuclear weapons after we've been claiming for years that such an event could not and would not be tolerated. A nuclear-armed and violently anti-American Iran would be an enormous threat to us and to our allies. Israel in particular would face the gravest threat to its existence since its creation. Iran's leaders have repeatedly called for Israel's destruction, and Iran already possesses missiles that can reach Israel. Once these missiles are armed with nuclear warheads, nothing could stop the mullahs from launching a second Holocaust. It's only a matter of time before Iran develops missiles that could reach U.S. territory.

Actually no, a nuclear Iran would not pose any threat to the United States itself. This is because the likelihood of Tehran developing ICBM technology is virtually nil. China, a vastly more prosperous country than Iran, has had nuclear weapons for 46 years and still can't hit anything deeper than the western U.S with a ballistic missile. And it is thought to have a grand total of maybe 30 missiles that can do it.

A nuclear Iran would, on the other hand, be problematic to Washington's imposition of its will on the Middle East. That's true. But that's a diplomatic challenge, not an existential one and the distinction is sort of important. More problematic to American foreign policy is the light useage of phrases like "could not and would not be tolerated", which seems to imply that you would do something to prevent it when you can't or won't. That makes everyone take you less seriously. Remember how George Bush couldn't live with a North Korean nuclear test? He seems to be doing just fine, four years after the fact.

Israel is perfectly capable of defending itself and, more importantly, Iran knows it. Tehran could have hit Jerusalem with missile-based chemical weapons years ago if they were that determined to commit suicide. Notice how they didn't?

I'm not going to deny that "Iran's leaders have repeatedly called for Israel's destruction" because the evidence is there for anyone interested enough to look for it. But didn't we just learn that the Arabs are saying things in private very different than what they've said in public? Oh, and haven't all of America's "friends and allies" in the Middle East actually acted affirmatively to destroy Israel in the past? Say what you will about Iranian attitudes towards the Jewish State, but they've never invaded it, like, I dunno, Jordan.

Let's say that Iran develops one nuclear-capable missile (and developing the delivery system is much harder than developing the weapon), or even ten. Israel has well over a hundred. I keep hearing about Tehran being part of a suicidal death cult, but I have yet to see any evidence of it. Iran has had any number of opportunities to provoke ruinous wars with the United States and Israel. Why haven't they?

Even without nuclear weapons, Iran has provided arms used to kill American soldiers and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran is also the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. It has shielded al-Qaeda leaders, including one of Osama bin Laden's sons. Imagine how much worse it would be for us if this regime acquired nuclear weapons.

This is the argument I love most of all because it's so hypocritical and stupid.

Once upon a time, the United States provided arms to kill foreign invaders in Afghanistan, in this case the Soviet Union. Since stinger missiles don't just build and deploy themselves, Moscow was probably pretty sure that they came from Washington. Would that have been a casus belli for the Soviets to do the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and China to ... do whatever Sarah Palin is suggesting Obama do to Iran? Strategic destabilization of rival powers in foreign lands is sort of what countries do.

Does anyone really think that the Shi'ite mullahs in Q'om would pass nuclear weapons along to the Sunni terrorist group that considers the Sh'ia apostates and even worst than the Americans and Jews? If so, are you fucking serious, or just powerfully ignorant? On the other hand, imagination is a powerful thing, especially if you're Randy Scheunemann.

President Obama once said a nuclear-armed Iran would be "unacceptable." Yet, Iran's nuclear progress still continues unchecked. Russia continues to support Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactors. It also continues to sell arms to Iran — despite the Obama administration's much-touted "reset" policy with Russia. The administration trumpets the United Nations sanctions passed earlier this year, but those sanctions are not the " crippling" ones we were promised. Much more can be done, such as banning insurance for shipments to Iran, banning all military sales to Iran, ending all trade credits, banning all financial dealings with Iranian banks, limiting Iran's access to international capital markets and banking services, closing air space and waters to Iran's national air and shipping lines, and, especially, ending Iran's ability to import refined petroleum. These would be truly "crippling" sanctions. They would work if implemented.

Yeah! If only George W. Bush or John McCain thought of things! And only the last one constitutes an actual act of war, since you would need a blockade to pull it off. On the other hand, Congress passed and President Clinton signed the completely illegal Iran-Libya Sanctions Act of 1996, which criminally imposed secondary sanctions against corporations and individuals that did business with Iran and weren't Dick Cheney's Halliburton. I would have the fair governor do the math on how long ago 1996 was.

Some have said the Israelis should undertake military action on their own if they are convinced the Iranian program is approaching the point of no return. But Iran's nuclear weapons program is not just Israel's problem; it is the world's problem. I agree with the former British prime minister Tony Blair, who said recently that the West must be willing to use force "if necessary" if that is the only alternative.

Yeah, because it isn't a pernicious anti-Semitic slur that Washington is controlled by Jerusalem, so what could fighting Israel's wars hurt? It's also very easy for Tony Blair to get back on the war train, since he can't get elected to anything after Iraq going so horribly wrong. Remember, ol' Tony was shived by his own finance minister and party.

Who precisely Palin means by "the West" is an open question. Britain and Europe? Not likely. The United States? The American people have already tired of a war fought in the place that launched an attack that killed 3,000 of them. Basically, you have a "West" that is comprised almost entirely of the GOP and the Likud Party. Neither of which has much of standing army.

Given the size, population and topography of Iran, I figure that you'd need about a million troops for that. It took 550,000 just to get Iraq out of Kuwait, which was a tiny geographical area. The removal of Saddam from Baghdad was done with about 130,000 and that ... didn't work out so well. Iran is three times as big as Iraq, has three times the population, is three times as hostile to foreign invasion, and is full of mountains and other challenging shit.

Don't for a second that the Iranians are as dopey as Saddam was, and put their whole program in one easy-to-bomb building in the middle of nothing. Assume that it's spread out, has built-in redundancies, and is in hardened underground bunkers in populated areas. You can try to take those out with bombing, but you'll fail and be faced with an Iran with a reason to give nuclear material to terrorists and the capability to do it. Remember how it took six months of staging before the two previous Gulf Wars? I'm pretty sure Tehran does, too.

Is the United States going to commit a million men to deal with Iranian nukes? No, because they don't have that many. Neither does Israel. And no one else is willing to go, even if you could persuade Russia and China to not veto such an action in the U.N Security Council.

Let's get real, Sugar Tits. If military action was going to happen, it would've already. It's not and anyone who knows anything about anything - including the Iranians - already know it.

So what's your plan, Sarah-Randy?

But we also need to encourage a positive vision for Iran. Iran is not condemned to live under the totalitarian inheritance of the Ayatollah Khomeini forever. There is an alternative — an Iran where human rights are respected, where women are not subjugated, where terrorist groups are not supported and neighbors are not threatened. A peaceful, democratic Iran should be everyone's goal. There are many hopeful signs inside Iran that reveal the Iranian people's desire for this peaceful, democratic future. We must encourage their voices.

Great. Regime change. That's only been U.S foreign policy since the fucking Carter administration. It's worked out beautifully, 30 years and billions of dollars later. Maybe you can try selling anti-tank weapons to the "moderate elements" ... y'know, again.

By the way, how many Middle Eastern countries are there - including "America's friends and allies" - where "human rights are respected, where women are not subjugated, where terrorist groups are not supported and neighbors are not threatened." Can you name five? Four? Three? How do you impose Western values on your Middle Eastern enemies that you can't - or won't - impose on your fucking friends? There are currently 50,000 U.S troops in a democratic Iraq that won't recognize Israel or denounce Hezbollah.

When the brave people of Iran take to the streets in defiance of their unelected dictatorship, they must know that we in the free world stand with them. When the women of Iran rise up to demand their rights, they must know that we women of the free world who enjoy the rights won for us by our suffragist foremothers stand with our sisters there. When Iranians demand freedom of religion, freedom of conscience and freedom to simply live their lives as they choose without persecution, we in the free world must stand with them.

We can start by supporting them with diplomacy and things such as radio broadcasting, just as we did with those who suffered under the former Soviet Empire. Most of all, we should support them with confidence in the rightness of the ideals of liberty and justice.

Just as Ronald Reagan once denounced an "evil empire" and looked forward to a time when communism was left on the "ash heap of history," we should look forward to a future where the twisted ideology and aggressive will to dominate of Khomeini and his successors are consigned to history's dustbin.

If you ever wondered why I get scared when idiots are allowed near history, now you know. There's just no evidence that Reagan believed that the Berlin Wall would be torn down in his lifetime when spoke there in 1987. But Sarah Palin, being Sarah Palin, thinks that something like Iran, with it's complicated history and unimaginable security situation, can be reversed within Barack Obama's presidential term. That's not just ridiculous, that's fucking retarded.

On Iran in particular, I think that Obama has been doing exactly the right thing. The Cairo speech, where he admitted the unforgivable overthrow of Mossedeq, was the best place to start. Imagine if Britain violently overthrew James Madison and trained vicious secret police to torture Americans. Do you really think that Andrew Jackson would just forgive them? If you do, you really don't know your American history.

Yes, the Tehran is paranoid, but it has every reason to be. It has a quarter of a million troops on its borders visiting from a country that has threatened to overthrow their government for thirty years and had already done so before. Remember when there were a few Russian troops and missiles in Cuba? Remember how the United States reacted? Explain to me how the Iranians should react differently.

Most importantly, we're never going to change the neighborhood that Iran lives in. Israel has nukes, and is suspicious of Iran. Most of the Arab states, who hate Persians even more than they hate the Jews, could get them quickly. Pakistan - a completely unstable and potentially jihadi Sunni state - already has over a hundred of them. Oh, and there are nearly a quarter of a million American troops covering a significant portion of Iran's borders.

Iran's opposition movement is mostly urban and largely already crushed. I didn't turn my Internet presence entirely green two years ago because I didn't want to encourage kids to die for nothing. There will be a second Iranian revolution, but it will be a slow and gradual one. The Soviet Union took seventy years to topple and China may take another century. These things take time.

And it might not make a difference. Iran will still be a Shi'a island in a Sunni sea surrounded with potential nuclear enemies. The fact that it's democratic doesn't necessarily mean that Iran will like Israel any better than it does now. Iraq certainly doesn't. And as India proved during it's first fifty years, there's no rule that a democracy has to act in American interests.

Palin doesn't get that, which is fine because she'll never be president. It's Randy I'm worried about. That dumb prick could easily be National Security Adviser soon.