Iran (Still) Sucks

I apologize for not having something up earlier this week. Coming back from vacation, I had to swing into overdrive coming back to work, so by the end of the last two days, I was in no condition to make any sense. But today is closer to normal, so here we are.

Everyone’s been covering the “new and improved” Middle East war, but I want to add my two cents anyway.

Right off the bat, I don’t mind if anyone bombs the Iranian Theocracy back to the Stone Age from whence they came. They’ve been a thorn in our side for decades, whether pulling terrorist acts themselves, like they did back in my high school senior year of 1979, or sponsoring the terrorism against us by other actors.

The original Iran Hostage Crisis lasted from high school to college, and it was a big deal to my friends and me. We followed all the updates closely. Two of my buddies and I each had t-shirts made up that said, “Iran Sucks.” We used to walk around the mall together, wearing them, feeling all rebellious.

Yes, I still have it. No, it no longer fits. Note the size comparison to one of my current shirts. Those were the days!

So there was no love lost there, and I wasn’t terribly bothered when the news came out that Israel hit Iran. I was enthused that they targeted all military and nuclear-processing sites, leaving the civilian population out of it. I was less enthused when we sent our own planes over there. I thought Israel was doing a bang-up job all on their own. Maybe they needed our bunker-busting bombs.

OR, maybe TFG, after sitting through his lame little parade, wanted to see some real shit and put these things into action. (Well, the B-2s, at least. I don’t think they were paraded down the street.)

It’s one thing for these fragile male egos to merely see all their firepower and hear of its dominance. It’s another thing to watch shit go BOOM. I’m sure it tickled the boy parts of all the new toady military brass, as well as the Commander in Chief’s little mushroom cap. I’m sure he wants to be seen as a tough, wartime president.

Of course, it seems that his own insecurity (and I mean that literally) signaled Iran that something was coming down, giving them time to scurry away with their enriched uranium before the big ones fell, so in the scheme of things, they were mildly inconvenienced, rather than decimated.

Gee, when had this guy EVER done something that wasn’t underwhelming? He even gets “shot” in a ho-hum fashion.  (This guy was NOT shot. Guaranteed. If a bullet of that caliber even touched his ear, it would be gone, not nicked.)

But I digress.

Another angle not to be dismissed is that this gives the Republicans a chance to throw some more money at their defense contractor donors. We gotta restock the bombs we used, don’t we? Can’t let the inventory run low.

I also think this will be used as a pretext for civil rights violations going forward. Sending the military to squash protests, tampering with or canceling elections… It’s Iran, the all-purpose boogieman.

I bet TFG would LOVE to secretly sit down with the Mullahs and take some notes on how a tiny minority has been able to squash dissent and run roughshod over millions for so long. I don’t think he cares about the Theocracy part, but his enablers do. It’s one more tool in the box to appear righteous while simultaneously behaving like a disciple of evil.