You will not invade Iran

[imomus]

I just want to say one thing very firmly and clearly to the newly re-inaugurated President Bush.

You will not invade Iran. Is that clear? You will not turn the square above into a 'green zone' for stooge politicians of your choosing and a restricted, embedded international press corps. You will not impose by force your conception of 'freedom'. You will not occupy Teheran and Ispahan, after a brief but terrible aerial bombing campaign, with your fucking jeeps, your mercenary 'contractors', your torture squads. You will not kill hundreds of thousands of Iranians now alive. You have no right even to be thinking about such a thing, let alone threatening it. Who the fuck do you think you are to go round the world invading countries one by one?

Hopefully the intelligence squads supposedly preparing a feasibility report on an invasion of Iran at this very moment will tell you the same thing I'm telling you. You (and Tony Blair) will not do this. If you do, I and millions like me will feel an intense revulsion not felt since the Spanish Civil War or Vietnam. We will make life a misery for you, and we will actively resist you every step of the way. I'm talking about individuals, governments, nations. You will become the black sheep of the entire world. You will excommunicate a great nation, your own, from all compassionate consideration. You will become a symbol of the problem, not the solution.

I'm hoping you will continue to be bogged down in the bloody morass of ever-worsening violence you have already perpetrated in Iraq and will not have the resources to commit any more crimes against international law. The violence in Iraq is appalling (it is your fault, and it was predictable). It seems callous to wish that violence to continue, but I can't help agreeing with this analysis in Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po newspaper:

'The main international issue to be faced during President Bush's second term in office will be an Iran war. The US' main attention will focus on West Asia. If the US can quite smoothly realize the goal of transforming Iran, then the US' main strategic direction will shift to East Asia in future, and China will face direct US pressure; if the US' war and political reform in Iraq is not smooth, then this shift will be delayed for a number of years.'

For the sake not just of Iran, but of the far east, we can only hope that the Iraq debacle keeps you tied up for years to come. Of course that's the second-best solution. The best solution is that you simply mind your own business for the next four years. Why not bring 'freedom and democracy' to your own nation first? Why not fight tyranny there? You could start by resigning.

Comments

bad guys

[(Anonymous)]

I think the most important thing for Americans to come to terms with right now is that they are seen internationally as the bad guys: aggressors, invading other people's countries, killing people, torturing them. This isn't about covert imperialism any more. In any argument, as everyone knows, the first one to mention the Nazis loses, but liberal American citizens are in the same position as liberal germans in the 1930s: there is a hegemony that is mainstream, and coercive, and ugly, and violent, but it's not violent against you yet, and before it goes off invading people, interning them, and hurting them, you have a chance to act definitively, and if you don't fight it then you are part of the problem. And, er, the same goes for the British. Rant over, I guess, but fuck, isn't it weird how you don't even feel like you have the right to the rhetoric to discuss this kind of unfamiliarly grave situation without sounding a bit Hollywood?

Re: bad guys

[dr--ben.livejournal.com]

when momus steps outside of knowing ironic oblique pop critique you know you've accidentally stumbled into morally unambiguous territory...

Re: bad guys

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

Zing!

Re: bad guys

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

The Reichstag fire parallels alone make me think that Germany 1933 is the best frame of reference against which to understand what is happening in the USA now.

Re: bad guys

[risk1911.livejournal.com]

the problem is this administration and its team of civilian policy makers have applied the Christian religion into their banner as they ride off into war, and as we all know, you can't change the minds of the religious which is what liberals are saying about the war in Iraq.

there is a stern side to me who knows this "democratization" must happen for mankind to progress. the means is what's questionable.

there is a hegemony that is mainstream, and coercive, and ugly, and violent, but it's not violent against you yet, and before it goes off invading people, interning them, and hurting them, you have a chance to act definitively, and if you don't fight it then you are part of the problem.

that reads a bit dramatic in an "us against them" sort of way. what occured in Germany resembles 9/11 and the policy changes the U.S. has undergone but one must keep in mind that the United States is the only Superpower at the moment. China is the only other nation that stands formidable. presently the U.S. government has swung to one side but the American Constitution is designed in a way to bring balance back eventually. the American people will find a way to bring balance back.

but fuck, isn't it weird how you don't even feel like you have the right to the rhetoric to discuss this kind of unfamiliarly grave situation without sounding a bit Hollywood?

LOL.