Why Aren't We Bombing Iraq

Why Aren’t We Bombing Iraq Back To The Stone Age Already (Or As They Call It, “Last Thursday”)?

Around the same time we were starting to show effects against the Taliban last fall, the Administration floated trial balloons about making the Saddam Hussein regime our Next Target in the War on Terror. And I think everybody but a few muddle-headed do-gooders and some State Department Pukes (assignment to class: find an important difference between those two, and having the Marine Corps on call does not count) thought nuking Baghdad (not literally) was a pretty damn fine idea.

So why haven’t we been sending armoured and mechanized batallions to Kuwait already? Why aren’t the other two-thirds of 10th Mountain Division being moved to Turkey? I mean, it’s a pretty simple squeeze play: Mountain soldiers and Special forces (along with Turks and Kurds) moving in from the north, and big armoured columns scything through from the south. So where are the troop ships, the convoys of cargo planes? Troop movements this big can’t be hidden — and that’s a good thing. It tells the Bad Guy, “Your days are numbered, start packing for Sudan — we’ll bomb there next.” It puts the fear of God or Allah or Shiva or Whomever into them. And that’s healthy for our foreign policy, puts some backbone into our “allies,” and further tames the Arab “street.”

So I ask again — why the hell aren’t we building up over there?

Simple. We’re gonna let Iran do it.

Oh, don’t worry. We’re not about to let those hostage-taking Ayatollahs invade Iraq or anything like that. But let’s be clear: We know for a fact that the “Persian street” is ripe for rising up against their theocratic government. The population is overwhelmingly young, with little if any memory of the Shah, They want freedom. They want to wear decent women’s fasions. They want to make out in the park. They want their MTV.

And we want them to get what they want.

A push here, a shove there, some small arms discretely made available through air drops and overland from our New Friends the Turkomen, and… voila! A democratic Iran. Is it really that easy? No, of course not. Neither was Afghanistan. But it is doable. And before the dictator’s blood can be washed off the streets of Tehran, the people of Baghdad will ask themselves two questions: One, why can’t we do that?; and two, will the American’s help us, too?

And we need to reply: Of course you can have that and of course we will.

The time to start sending troops to Kuwait and Turkey is the same time we start giving a little hope to the good people of Iran.