Monday, April 17, 2006

The "Don't Nuke Iran" Petition

This is so bizarre it has to be a hoax. Moveon.org apparently has the marijuana legalization staff mixing with the antiwar staff. But it's there on their web site, so apparently it's legit.

It says:
Petition: Don't Nuke Iran

Reports that the Bush administration may be planning a nuclear attack against Iran are alarming. A strong statement of opposition from the American public before that idea becomes credible is important. Please sign our petition and then alert your friends, family and colleagues by asking them to sign the petition.

"President Bush and Congress should rule out attacking Iran with nuclear weapons."
http://political.moveon.org/dontnukeiran/
As arrogant and stupid as our leaders are, they're not that stupid. This is not going to happen. We are not going to "nuke Iran," even if it does bring back memories of the song "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran."

There are more reasons this "petition" is useless. We've never, ever, made a "no first strike" pledge. Not for the Soviet Union or anyone else. It would be strategically stupid to do so. Every Democrat president in the nuclear age has understood this.

There's no chance in hell that a petition by Moveon.org would influence Bush's decision about something like this, especially if he were crazy enough to do it (and he's not--he's a lot of things, but crazy isn't one of them). And Congress has no say in it, so it doesn't matter even if they do care about a petition.

They don't say what those "reports" say, where they came from, etc. Which makes this whole thing seem like inflammatory fluff, the kind of thing we usually see from Rove and his RNC cronies. Shame on you, Moveon.

By any chance was this thing posted on April 1?
Postscript
See William Arkin's "The Pentagon Preps for Iran" in The Washington Post for info on contingency planning.