Letter to Obama

Norman wants to bomb bomb bomb Iran.

Iranian theocracy.. uh uh.. nuclear power.. uh uh.. long-feared.. ah ah.. messianic regime.. uh ah.. apocalyptic weapon.. ooooooooooh!

Was it good for you too?

Christopher Hitchens proffers some advice to the incoming president, emphasizing that these words of his were written last November. One point of interest:

On the assumption that you will be held to what you have already repeatedly stated, and on the further assumption that you fully intended to be taken seriously, there will be four very urgent claims on your time. These will be Iran, Iraq, Pakistan/Afghanistan, and Russia (if we are fortunate enough to hold it to just those four).

So, make that five, then. On the first of them:

Having said, quietly but firmly, that the Iranian theocracy cannot be permitted to crash through every treaty and agreement and undertaking it has ever made or signed and declare itself a nuclear power, you will quite simply have to declare what the logical and probable consequences of this statement actually are. The Bush administration, despite its reputation for bellicosity, never managed to clarify the implications of its own statements on the matter. And it broke its own promise not to bequeath the problem to the next administration. You will have no such room for maneuver: the long-feared coincidence of a messianic regime with an apocalyptic weapon will either occur on your own watch or will be conclusively prevented from occurring. This is not a difference that can easily be split. Nor is it a question that can be subcontracted to Israel, since nobody will believe that if the Jewish state acts in any capacity it is acting independently of ourselves (or failing to make use of Iraqi airspace, which will come to the same thing).