At a farewell reception at Blair House for the retiring chief of protocol, Don Ensenat, who was President Bush's Yale roommate, the president shook hands with Washington Life Magazine's Soroush Shehabi. A grandson of one of the late Shah's ministers, Soroush said, "Mr. President, I simply want to say one U.S. bomb on Iran and the regime will remain in power for another 20 or 30 years and 70 million Iranians will become radicalized."We're all jaded. We don't get astonished easily these days. But if those words don't floor you, nothing will.
"I know," President Bush answered.
"But does Vice President Cheney know?" asked Soroush.
The president chuckled and walked away.
According to the Guardian, the advanced war plans on Iran are already underway:
Neo-conservatives, particularly at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, are urging Mr Bush to open a new front against Iran. So too is the vice-president, Dick Cheney.What can one say?
Any attack on Iran will create a terrorist reaction, since they have no other retaliatory options: Bush himself admits as much. Any terrorist action by Iran will open the way for conscription, ground war -- nuclear war.
What can one say?
If the reader will forgive a segue from the tragic to the absurd: Last night, I caught the 1975 Satanism epic The Devil's Rain. What a cast: Ernest Borgnine, William Shatner and Eddie Albert, with a young Tom Skerrit and a very young John Travolta. Ernie plays the Head Devil Guy -- and I dare you to witness this performance without thinking of Dick Cheney. The resemblance is particularly strong when Ernie sprouts goat horns. In truth, the whole film can now be interpreted as a prophecy of the Bush years.Heaven itself cleanses the cultists during the dripitty-doo-dah finale. Pray for rain.
