Published Aug 1, 2004

Apparently the administration would like us to think that Iran was, or, perhaps, is now, behind al Queda. I’ll admit that, unlike Iraq and chemical weapons, there seems to be some actual evidence here. But, I still call bullshit. Why?

  1. First of all, allowing terrorists to pass doesn’t equal supporting them; there’s a real line between ignoring and aiding, as anybody who’s had a friend with a chemical dependency issue knows quite well. A lot of countries don’t exert full control over their borders and don’t pay attention to every individual who may not belong; if all countries had tight borders and watched immigrants closely, none of the gardens in Los Angeles would ever be properly maintained.
  2. Second of all, there’s, at best, a tenuous historical link between al Quaeda and Iran. Al Quaeda is an explicitly Sunni revolutionary group, and Iran has, historically, exported only Shi’ite revolution. The two are more contradictory than most Americans would like to think. Sunni revolution gave us Taliban Afghanistan, a 16-th century agrarian authoritarian state. Shi’ite revolution gave us the Islamic Republic of Iran, a modern state with a representative legislature, functioning judiciary, public K-12 and university system, research institutions, a literate population, and a capitalist economy. It’s not France, but it’s a far cry from Albania, too. Iran would not export a kind of authoritarianism that would undermine their own authoritarianism.
  3. Speaking of the Taliban, Iran and the Taliban did not get along at all. Iran supported other forces in Afghanistan (the ones we did, actually), and didn’t object in any way when we invaded. Why would Iran help their former enemies’ friends?
  4. The people who are telling us that Iran is helping al Queda told us:
    • That Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, none of which we’ve found
    • That Iraq helped al Quaeda, which they did not
    • That we wanted to catch Osama bin Laden, which apparently we don’t, otherwise we’d have more people in Afghanistan running around after him
    • That we invaded Iraq to liberate it from oppression, which would be nice if we’d mentioned it before the actual invading part
    and so forth. So, this is not a bunch of people with a lot of credibility. Would the administration lie? Quite possibly!
  5. Oh, and none of this has been mentioned before. Not after 9/11, when the country could’ve been amped up to invade anyone. Not during the buildup to the Iraq war, when we could have lumped the two former enemies together as states supporting terrorism, posessing chemical weapons, and building nuclear weapons. Not right after the Iraq war, when we were in the Middle East, looking strong, looking like we could do anything (actually, everybody talked about us invading Syria then). No, this is only brought up 3-4 months before the election. That can’t be any kind of fast one they’re trying to pull, could it?

Nope, this is crap. And I hope the administration knows it, because we don’t have enough soldiers to invade Iran. Not unless we want to start a draft. Then, fortunately enough for the Bushes and Cheneys, they had daughters who wouldn’t need to dodge the draft like daddy did.