Meanwhile, though, back at the Standard Fox Ranch, warmonger factions are hyping the Columbia event to demonize Ahmadinejad and Iran and lay the groundwork for a US bombing campaign against Iran. Hugh Hewitt had at least nine posts on “Columbia’s shame.” Over at Contentions there’s a Niagara of mouth foam flowing. Paki-bashing Barack and triangulating Hillary are silent. The Dancing Fraud asks the UN to try Ahmadinejad, while McCain and Rudy are in full “faster, pussycat, kill kill” cry.

A conspiracy theorist might surmise that the whole invitation was a scripted psychodrama produced to prepare the way for war: pansy academic liberals invite this strange little man to speak, unleashing a tsunami of protests by the manly and the freedom-loving against an unpleasant character they blow up into a mini-Adolf. At the last minute even the infeliz Lee Bollinger joins the circle, as all join in singing “From the Halls of Montezuma” instead of “Kumbaya.”

As detestable as the mullahcracy is in many ways, such a war is neither justified nor wise. The Iranians, not wishing to appear weak, make bellicose noises and ship arms to our adversaries. Who’s going on TV this time with the RPG or IED fragments inscribed in Farsi and the illegible satellite photos of “nuclear facilities”?

Lord, have mercy.

http://larison.org/2007/09/21/demonising-policy-disagreement/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/books/review/Gelb-t.html?_r=2&ref=books&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin