Iraq "Rendezvous": Cheney, "Bubble-boy" and Ahmadinejad Up the Ante

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Yipes!

Listening to Vice President Cheney and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad exchange threats of war while both nations hover, like vultures, over the moribund carcass of Iraq's insurgency-racked shotgun democracy, I was reminded of David Low's famous 1939 cartoon, "Rendezvous." Mr. Low, you'll recall, depicted Hitler and Stalin as bloodthirsty tyrants, tipping their hats in salutation while standing over Poland's corpse. Thus, Hitler saluted Stalin: "The scum of the earth I believe?" Stalin replied: "The bloody assassin of the workers, I presume?"

But, unlike Hitler and Stalin, who collaborated to effect Poland's dismemberment, Cheney and Ahmadinejad play 'winner take all." Thanks to the criminal dishonesty and gross incompetence of Cheney, his fellow "cabal-mate," Rumsfeld, a sycophantic Condoleezza Rice and their "Bubble-boy President," George W. Bush, the debacle crafted in Iraq by America's war party has strengthened both the position and confidence of Iran - not only in Iraq, but throughout the Middle East. Moreover, America's debacle in Iraq has emboldened Ahmadinejad -- Cheney's ultraconservative "double" -- to contemplate a clash of civilizations aimed at the eradication of Israel. Now, both bloodthirsty megalomaniacs seem ready to wage war.

For Cheney - and, thus, for Rumsfeld, Rice and their "Bubble-boy" -- the pretexts for war will be Iran's pursuit of the bomb and its "putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful to the future of Iraq." To be persuasive, however, they must once again count on the patriotic suspension of disbelief by the mainstream news media and widespread public ignorance of foreign affairs, both of which served them so well during the run-up to war in Iraq.

Ahmadinejad waxes confident in the knowledge that Iran's oil can be leveraged against the American economy, that virtually all Iranians will unite behind him in the event of a U.S. attack, that America's conventional military forces have been stretched to the breaking point and that an attack on Iran might ignite a Middle East explosion that destroys Israel.

Walter Uhler