Only two days until Iran's promised response (like we can trust their promises?) to the UN ultimatum, here's a roundup of relevant and interesting links. Here's one:

Americans are now most aware of the Iranian role in promoting fascism: 58 percent in the poll think Iran is now the "main promoter of Islamic fascism in the Middle East," and 76 percent believe Iran must be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons "at any cost."

The UN doesn't issue ultimatums. By definition, an ultimatim is the last word. The UN issues hems-and-haws, and statements that if you don't do this, we'll stamp our feet.

How many of the 78% are willing to go to Iran to die to keep Iran from building nuclear weapons? Four, five, or so. They rest will stay home and stamp their feet. Put your life where your mouth is or shut up.

I would go, but I'm too old. I have friends who WILL go, and they're perfectly willing to do so. They know what is at stake.

So Bernie, YOU shut up.

How many of the 78% are willing to go to Iran to die to keep Iran from building nuclear weapons?

Enough, I'm sure. After all, how many would it take? A few thousand, at most. You speak as if the task -- shutting down Iran's nuclear weapon program -- is actually hard. Why's that? I can see that it would be hard to shut down the Iranians if you wanted to do it without making Dominique de Villepin shake his fist on CNN, without maybe killing 1,000 approximately-innocent Persians, without having to boost the Pentagon's budget by 10% for the next decade, or without making the New York Times write a really scathing series of editorials.

But, um, if that's your definition of "hard"...I dunno. Seems kind of wimpy.

Put your life where your mouth is or shut up.

A strange standard. Can one complain to the police about someone driving dangerously, and be willing to pay the policeman's salary via taxes, without yourself offering to fight the offending driver to the death? What is this, some kind of high machismo code, worthy of the terrorists themselves, where if you're not willing to bet your life you can't be considered at all serious?

Plenty of stuff is serious enough without rising to the level of betting your life. I don't need to bet my life to prosecute a dispute with my bank, or an employee. It's hard to see why the problem of Iran should rise to to a far higher level of importance. The mullahs are a serious annoyance, but hardly an existential threat. They need to be dealt with sharply and definitely, but doing so is not going to prove a gamble for our very existence. (It will be a gamble for their very existence, but that's their problem, not ours.)

"Countdown To The Apocalypse"

Rand.....thorazine. Look it up.

Brian, "sarcasm." Look it up. If you can handle the big words.

"Brian, "sarcasm." Look it up. If you can handle the big words."

So you were mocking your own remarks in "five minutes to midnight"?

So you were mocking your own remarks in "five minutes to midnight"?

What "remarks" would those be? All I did was cite some interesting reading.

Rand,
Why is "Countdown to the Apocalypse" in War Commentary if you were trying to be funny?

Why is it that you don't understand the difference between "sarcasm" and "funny"?

It was a commentary on the nutty ravings of Ahmadinejad, which we should not entirely discount, as you seem to. One of the things that we learned (at least those of us with any sense) from 9/11 was that when people tell us they want to kill us, we shouldn't ignore them.

"It was a commentary on the nutty ravings of Ahmadinejad, which we should not entirely discount, as you seem to."

BTW, you should be amused to hear that Ahmadinejad now has a blog, and that it has an English version. Comments are reviewed before being posted, but if you feel like having a little fun you can probably occupy some minor flunky in his office reading your tirades. Seems kind of an odd way to kick off the end of the world, especially being the fundie he is, don't you think?

I'm considering posting a comment under the byline "Great Satan Jones" and asking if he's trying to upstage Bush in the lunacy department, but that could put my IP on some kind of Iranian hacker deathlist and flag it for NSA monitoring at the same time. What do you say, Rand? Up for it?

And there you have it, a lefties troll's answer to everything. The way to stop bloodshed in the Middle East is to act like the Frenchman from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. May BS be the first to comment on Ahmadinejad's blog:

I unclog my nose in your direction, sons of a window dresser. So, you think you could outclever us french folks with your silly, knees-bent, running-about, advancing behavior? I wave my private parts at your aunties, you cheesy-leather, second-hand, electric donkey bottom biters.

As I recall, Iran has merely a handful of centrifuges.

Allowing them a bomb is very bad. To blow up 1500 linked centrifuges without a U.N. resolution to authorize same (when they need 10x that number to actually make a bomb) gives the Iranian government a political victory unless we remove the regime at the same time. The forces to accomplish the latter would be very much greater than the forces needed to accomplish the former.

Can we successfully end an Iranian nuclear program Osirak style? If not, then to attempt it Osirak style would seem imprudent, even if legitimate.

We underestimated the force needed to re-build Iraq. Let us not underestimate the force needed to tackle Iran.

What does "end an Iranian nuclear program" mean Bob?

If it means end for all time, no we can't do that.

If it means end the program for a period of five years or so, yes we can do that without extreme effort. And in five years time we can do it again if necessary, and so forth until Iran has a non-fascist government that doesn’t support terrorism.

And does anyone seriously believe it matters what Iran says tomorrow? Who thinks they’ll stick to whatever conciliations they agree to make?

"And there you have it, a lefties troll's answer to everything. The way to stop bloodshed in the Middle East is to act like the Frenchman from Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

Oh, and I thought the solution was to reverently regurgitate PNAC missives and declare Jihad at the first hint of analytical thinking. Be realistic, Rand: Irritating Ahmadinejad's interns is the closest you'll ever come to confronting your beloved "Islamofascists," so maybe you can pay that paltry homage to the God of War and break a sweat typing slightly off-template.

If we shoot at the mullahs we need to shoot to kill. Regime change and nation building.

Otherwise, I am reminded of Clinton blowing up some tents with Tomahawks (although the error there was giving Pakistan advance warning that ordnance would be overflying their airspace - someone placed a phone call to bin Laden and he scrammed).

Iran surely has dummy nuclear facilities as well as real ones. Without special forces and paratroopers on the ground for on site investigation of multiple sites, we cannot be certain we have ended the program. Air power alone will be insufficient (even with tac-nuke bunker busters).

Without special forces and paratroopers on the ground for on site investigation of multiple sites, we cannot be certain we have ended the program.

I'm not disagreeing that these would be good ideas, but I'd just like to point out that it doesn't take much damage to derail a technologically complex project like building a deliverable nuke from scratch. You don't have to blow up everything -- just a few key components or facilities will do.

Furthermore, we don't have to end it once and for all. We can easily play whack-a-mole with the beast for a decade or two. Just sit back and smack down anything that looks obnoxious as soon as it bobs up. It's not like you can build one of these things overnight.

Well, OK, maybe you can build one overnight. But I'm not especially worried about one. Iran isn't likely to use one nuclear bomb, because the retaliation would be ferocious. What one worries about is a whole pile of them, an institutionalized nuclear threat that can be deployed in regional or even international conflicts.

On second thought, maybe even that isn't such a big deal. Pakistan and India were all hot to develop nukes so they could really settle the other's hash, but what has actually happened (probably to their mutual surprise) is that now they're in a Mexican stand-off like the US and USSR used to be, and neither can twitch a muscle for fear of nuclear holocaust in their major cities. They frankly act more peaceable now then ever they did without nukes. Makes you wonder whether Captain Kirk was right, and the fastest way to peace is to make sure everybody can utterly obliterate everybody else. Sheesh, what a species.

It's a MAD MAD MAD MAD world....Mutually Assured Destruction is an old idea, but darned if it doesn't seem to still work.

Mac wrote: “It's a MAD MAD MAD MAD world....Mutually Assured Destruction is an old idea, but darned if it doesn't seem to still work.”

But Israel already has MAD on its side, even if its enemies do not. This does not seem to be stopping Iran, Syria or Hezbollah - they really are mad. Also, distributed state independent guerrilla forces are far less vulnerable to MAD than states. Relatively speaking, they loose less than states in a MAD event – they make a relative gain out of it. It would not surprise me if organisations like Hezbollah and Al qaeda actively seek to instigate a MAD outcome. They would be well placed to takeover in the aftermath.

They would be well placed to takeover in the aftermath.

To rule over the cockroaches and radioactive rats, you're saying?

Fair enough. Seems appropriate.