APOCALYPSE NOW

The Reactionary Utopian
April 27, 2006


APOCALYPSE NOW
by Joe Sobran

"To bomb, or not to bomb?" asks the cover of the
April 24 issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, and if you know
the magazine, you can guess the answer, provided by an
editorial and two articles within.

The United States must attack Iran soon. The
dithering of the Bush administration must cease. The mad
mullahs who are trying to get nuclear weapons threaten
not only the United States, but Israel. Time for another
preemptive war, complete with regime change, democracy,
and purple fingers.

Such is the conclusion of the brainy
neoconservatives who gave us the Iraq war. Evidently they
trust the Bush team to manage a far more difficult war
against Iran with equal finesse.

Sure, they admit there will be costs. Terrorism will
erupt throughout the Middle East and elsewhere, maybe
even in the United States itself. The Europeans won't
like it. Anti-Americanism will spread explosively around
the world. And of course there will be countless other
unpredictable consequences (on oil prices, to begin
with).

All this can be expected even if we assume that the
Bush team brings it off with more competence than it has
brought to previous crises. Vice President Cheney summed
up the administration's pragmatic view when we faced the
threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction:
"The risks of inaction are greater than the risks of
action." Words to live by!

And let us not forget Condoleezza Rice, the
mushroom-cloud lady, who never cries "Wolf!" unless she's
pretty darned sure there's a wolf out there. Maybe she's
right this time. We can't completely rule it out.

These people know so much more than we do. They have
the best intelligence at their fingertips. That's one
more reason to rely on their proven good judgment and put
our lives in their hands. When have they ever misled us?

Islam, Bush has said, is a religion of peace that
has been hijacked by a few fanatics. Some, observing him,
might say the same about Christianity. Bush makes one
wonder where religion ends and psychosis begins. Is his
foreign policy driven by a conviction that we are in the
End Times, and that the Lord has anointed him to lead us?
Is it mere accident that many of his remaining supporters
believe so?

Last week one of those supporters assured me that
the War on Terror is necessary because the Muslims are
determined to exterminate us. As proof, he quoted a verse
from the Koran about destroying infidels; he'd read this
in a book by Hal Lindsey, the apocalyptic "new
evangelical" author. I guess that's what you'd call a
theological slam-dunk, and it seems akin to Bush's way of
thinking about the world.

Smoking guns? For Bush the appropriate image is the
loose cannon. In domestic policy alone he would rank as a
disastrous president; but with his finger on the nuclear
button he threatens to become an utter nightmare. With
other fanatics egging him on, we may yet see those
mushroom clouds Miss Rice worries about. No wonder Colin
Powell got out of this administration while the getting
was good; but will he ever give the public a frank
account of what he saw inside it?

Even Pentagon war planners are alarmed at what Bush
has done -- and at what he may yet do. The retired
generals who called for Donald Rumsfeld's removal were
really talking about Bush (the neocons were right about
that). And Bush's dismissal as "wild speculation" of
Seymour Hersh's report on his preparations for war on
Iran was actually a chilling nondenial.

The Democrats have shamelessly encouraged him to
prevent Iran from getting nukes by any means necessary;
Ted Kennedy is one of the few Democrats who have insisted
that these means must not include a nuclear attack, which
Bush hasn't ruled out.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are still playing
follow-the-leader, even if it means following him over
the precipice. We can hope only that the poll figures and
the approaching elections will bring them to their
senses.

The scandal of our time is that so many important
people have failed to say what is obvious and urgent:
that this president is out of his mind. Whether it's
clinical madness or fanaticism, it's something more
serious, and more dangerous, than stupidity. And the men
around him can't or won't restrain him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read this column on-line at
"http://www.sobran.com/columns/2006/060427.shtml".

Copyright (c) 2006 by the Griffin Internet Syndicate,
www.griffnews.com. This column may not be published in
print or Internet publications without express permission
of Griffin Internet Syndicate. You may forward it to
interested individuals if you use this entire page,
including the following disclaimer:

"SOBRAN'S and Joe Sobran's columns are available
by subscription. For details and samples, see
http://www.sobran.com/e-mail.shtml, write
PR@griffnews.com, or call 800-513-5053."