Terrace Agenda

I do not customarily offer advice to a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear, and whose policies I work against. But here is an idea for Barack Obama to salvage his tottering administration by taking a step that protects the United States and its allies.

This winning first paragraph is brought to you by Daniel Pipes, writing a vomit-inducing post for the National Review.  Before we even get to his stellar solution to what ails the Obama Administration, should we even wonder at the likelihood that anyone would take advice that was offered with this kind of caveat?  That’s basically saying, “I’m doing everything I can think of to destroy you because I’m scared of you.  Can I help you to cross this busy intersection?”  Yeah, sure.  We don’t even need to wait for the light to change.

But we can trust the ol’ Piper, because he calls it like it is.  He’s ivy league, for chrissake–a fallen angel from the ivory tower, baby.  Libs eat that shit up.  He knows that Obama is a failure–it’s not Barack’s fault, it’s just that on the domestic front he’s “just one of many players.”  Gotta stand out and do something for the children, after all.  They came to see a show.

He needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a light-weight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge, and where he can trump expectations.

Such an opportunity does exist: Obama can give orders for the U.S. military to destroy Iran’s nuclear-weapon capacity.

Well, that certainly would trump my expectations, seeing as how I wasn’t expecting Obama to flip and go complete asshole on the country.  And as far as “dramatic gestures” go, I can appreciate how this one may have failed to impress the Pipe-ster.  What is difficult for me to grab onto is how, exactly, bombing yet another country in that region will help “stabilize” it, let alone, protect our country from what is supposedly the biggest threat to its existence, Teh Terror.

…if the apocalyptic-minded leaders in Tehran get the Bomb, they render the Middle East yet more volatile and dangerous. They might deploy these weapons in the region, leading to massive death and destruction. Eventually, they could launch an electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States, utterly devastating the country. By eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat, Obama protects the homeland and sends a message to American’s friends and enemies.

[emphasis mine]

Oh, right.  Muslim Heat Vision.  I had forgotten about that.

The real reason Pipes wants to see bombs over Tehran?

Not only does a strong majority…already favor using force, but after a strike Americans will presumably rally around the flag, sending that number much higher.

[snip]

Just as 9/11 caused voters to forget George W. Bush’s meandering early months, a strike on Iranian facilities would dispatch Obama’s feckless first year down the memory hole and transform the domestic political scene. It would sideline health care, prompt Republicans to work with Democrats, and make the netroots squeal, independents reconsider, and conservatives swoon.

[emphasis mine]

Gotcha.  A “rally around the flag” ties with trashing health care for the most petulant and disgusting reasons to ever drop bombs on other people’s shit.

Of course, this is the advice of a guy who said that he has “the simple politics of a truck driver, not the complex ones of an academic. My viewpoint is not congenial with institutions of higher learning.”  Yeah.  No shit, Sherlock.  Now, customarily, I wouldn’t offer advice to a wasted zygote whose writing isn’t worth the oil his greasy fingers left on the keyboard, but if he wants to change the public perception of him as a light-weight, bumbling idealogue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, and where he can take charge and trump expectations, maybe he should go ahead and bomb Iran himself.

I’ll even buy him the plane ticket.