Can you clarify please.

If we allow iran to develop nuclear weapons, are we then responsible for any ensuing use of those weapons?

I am not sure what you are actually saying, but the post does raise a few questions.

1. In what way is Iran a less responsible neighbor than Israel? Which country has more of a history of invading its neighbors?

2. Why does Iran have any less right to have nuclear weapons than Israel?

3. Which side do you think would start the nuclear exchange? (That is, which government really thinks that obliterating itself is a good idea?)

4. Is it possible that US led invasions in the ME might cause countries there to seek better defense?

I just about keeled over when I read that quotation:

"Ledeen argued that war "provides a real test of character" and "creates a pool of leaders for the nation."

That is straight out of the Nazi liteature about "War will make us strong." These guys are farther out there than we can imagine!

A "real test of character" for the Neocon crowd during the Vietnam years included claiming your cyst makes you unfit to serve (Rush Limbaugh), claiming you really want to be a priest (George Will), claiming that teaching business law is vital to the war effort (John Ashcroft) and literally pooping in your pants (Ted Nugent).

Very little besides celebrate..

Go back and think about "shock and awe".. There were entire bars full of Americans cheering on the killing of people who had never done anything to us.

Same thing in Gulf War I..

We Americans don't even think of a large percentage of our own population as being human beings. Most of us will not give the slightest damn if we incinerate a million or ten million non-white foreigners who aren't even Christians.

The Daily Nightly blog is no longer posting comments critical of the decision not to report the Pentagon Generals story. Yesterdays comments section had only three comments (though I made a submission), and they appeared to be from Brian's personal fan club, who love him and think he is so cute!

By the way, Glenn, we're going to have agree to disagree about Canada. I sincerely believe that, compared to the US, it is paradise up here, and if you lived here also, you might think the same. It's all good though.

If we allow iran to develop its nuclear weapons, won't the nuclear winter that follows the inevitable nuclear exchange with Israel solve our global warming problems?

Shouldn't all the greenies support iran's efforts?

A bit more about Iran:

I just read a few news alerts (Bush oughta just love my use of the Google), and not only does Ahmadinejad say that Iran will continue to seek nuclear power, but also supreme leader Khamanei. This got my attention, because on most occasions that I know of, Khamanei is happy to let the figurehead President of Iran do the talking, and get all the Westerners all riled up. This time, the mullahs are willing to step up and poke the West in the eye.

I truly hope Scott Ritter is wrong about this imminent US attack on Iran. But I don't think he is.

One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today.

http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen080602a.asp

More proof, if any is needed, that Neoconservatism is a criminal conspiracy.

Now that Obama is looking like the Dem nominee, the need for a strike NOW is obvious. McCain and even Hillary might be willing to bomb Iran, but Obama? Probably not. He wants to TALK to Iran. We must bomb now, before it is too late.

An obvious point, but one I wasn't thinking of.

"Bush/Cheney have nothing to lose by bombing Iran -- they don't care how unpopular they are and they don't really care if other Republicans lose elected seats. Not to mention they don't care about the deaths of thousands of people"

- Svensker

This is not meant as an attack against Svensker, but Iran is a nation of roughly 71 million people. If our government proceeds with this unparalleled plan of evil to "obliterate" Iran, as Hillary Clinton and her fellow members of the extreme radical right and radical left hope to do, we're not talking thousands. We're talking a probable holocaust of millions of people being incinerated, not unlike what occurred 60 years ago. The cavalier talk of obliteration and nuclear war by our political crackpots and unquestioning media, something which the world has never witnessed or endured, begs a much larger question than "who will be the next president" - the bigger question is what will the American people do if their country is responsible for a modern day holocaust. Will there just being more angry talk, angry blogs, 'strongly worded' editorials and ‘powerful’ documentaries, or will there be violent retribution, a justifiable national uprising, a revolution in this country, against such an evil, tyrannical force?

A holocaust certainly requires a greater response than words.

"the truly depraved extremist group that brought us the invasion of Iraq"

I take it you're not a hillary supporter.

hillary's argument for the war: http://clinton.senate.gov/speeches/iraq_101002.html

What do you think about obama's plan to attack terrorist camps in Pakistan?

You hit it. It doesn't matter who is in power. Examine the career patterns of any given neo-con over the past ten-twenty years; there are established holding-areas on the other side of the revolving door where they can go to ground when a Dem administration is in office. Think tanks, fellowships, university departments and right-wind endowed chairs, NDU and so forth.

Obviously, they don't go away. They continue to speak, to organize, to publish and to program.

In some ways, they're more dangerous then because they have more time to plan, solicit support in the defense 'periphery', recruit, publish revisionist accounts that paper over everything that went wrong on their 'watch' (and more stab-in-the-back nonsense), disseminate the half-baked theories and frameworks, which will then be taken up, diluted and fragmented, and then popularized for rhetorical leverage later by Fred Hiatt, David Brooks, Robert Kaplan and other 'popular' writers ... all without having to account for anything contemporary that they've been in charge of.