framing stupidity

The scenario for a bombing attack on Iran is in play, although of course it would be a tremendously stupid move on the part of the U.S. to act it out. Iranian oil would immediately be removed from the world market, causing a global price shock, and the Iranians have the missile capability to strike both the U.S. Navy (in the close confines of the Persian Gulf) and Saudi Arabia refineries should they decide to respond aggressively. It isn’t like we have the troops for a ground assault. One can imagine fantasy mongers in Washington D.C. relying on internal rebellion to enact regime change.

This scenario should be little cause for worry; one assumes the U.S. would (intelligently) wish to avoid a catastrophically destabilizing war in the Middle East.

Maybe it comes down to a question of how many nitwits does it take to pimp a war.

Washington Times Editorial, May 5th
During the Vietnam War, critics of U.S. policy repeatedly demanded an "exit strategy" that would bring American troops home from Indochina. Judging from Iran's continued refusal to come clean about its nuclear-weapons programs -- on display at a United Nations conference in New York this week -- it's time for the Bush administration to formulate an Iran exit strategy.
…
Since then, things have continued hurtling downhill. Iran still claims that it has the right to continue to pursue uranium enrichment whenever it wants to. As the UN conference began this week, European diplomats were talking about something called a "managed crisis" with Iran -- in essence, a formula for suspending talks until fall. This means that Iran will be able to continue its atomic-weapons activities without having to pay any penalty.

The EU negotiation strategy is a failure. A dramatically different one is needed to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat.

The formulation in this editorial is especially rich, that is, comparing the Vietnam exit strategy to get out of a war – to an `exit strategy' from NOT BEING AT WAR to something “dramatically different” .

Nitwits.