A glorious war plan for Iran*

Arthur Herman
George Mason University

Dear Dr. Herman,

There's a lot to like about your plan to attack Iran. Our experience in Iraq and Israel's success in Lebanon are great examples of how bombing the hell out of a country's infrastructure will quickly bring the enemy to his knees.

However, the boldest piece of your plan, seizing Iran's off-shore and coastal oil facilities, may look better on paper than it would on the battlefield. We're looking at over 100 facilities there. It's going to take more than a small force of combined marines and special forces to capture and hold them. I don't think we have enough spare troops to pull it off. Especially now that it looks like we're going to solve the Iraq problem by rotating all of our troops in and out of there until their privatized social security accounts kick in.

That's why I think you should add giant robots that shoot heat rays out of their snakelike appendages to your plan. I'm thinking something along the lines of the ones in War of the Worlds. Not only would they be able to take and hold the oil facilities, they'd also scare the living hell out of the Iranians and their Islamunistofascist allies. The whole Middle East would convert in droves. In less than a week, we could be looking at one big Alabama between the Nile and the Indus. Then we could get down to the serious business of rebuilding their economy by loaning them money to build shoe factories to supply our Wal-Marts.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

*Yeah, I stole Greenwald's title, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let anyone else use my favorite adjective without putting up a fight. By God, he's going to be sorry when his infrastructure is gone and he's facing vaporization by my robot's snake-like appendage.

Elsewhere: Jews on First has more on the Little Green Schoolhouse in Mrs. Malkins America story I wrote about yesterday. And if you didn't listen to the This American Life story to which I linked in my earler post, do it now. There's nothing like hearing it directly from the people who lived it (Click on the blue speaker icon for free streaming audio. The story begins at about 7:10).