[...S]avvy people-in-the-know should start getting accustomed to the idea. In other words, a preemptive strike on Iran should be seen not as a remote or far-fetched possibility, but rather as something that is just ‘business-as-usual’ in the Middle East strategic environment. If you talk about going to war often enough and for long enough, people get used to the idea and some will even begin to think if it is bound to happen sooner or later, than ”twere better to be done quickly.’
Watch the Colbert clip:
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Jeffrey Goldberg | ||||
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In between chortling about the “existential threat” to Israel posed by Iran, Goldberg fails to mention that the threat is not actually as simple as Goldberg or Colbert make it out to be. “One plus one equals two with the Israelis,” said Goldberg. “‘We can’t let this country develop a nuclear weapon if they seek our destruction.” Colbert chimes in, “For some reason they’re paranoid about people wanting them dead having a nuclear bomb.”
But in his Atlantic piece, even Goldberg acknowledged that the threat to Israel was not as simple as, like he put it on Tuesday, “one plus one equals two”:
Israeli policy makers do not necessarily believe that Iran, should it acquire a nuclear device, would immediately launch it by missile at Tel Aviv. [...]
The challenges posed by a nuclear Iran are more subtle than a direct attack, Netanyahu told me. [...]
Other Israeli leaders believe that the mere threat of a nuclear attack by Iran — combined with the chronic menacing of Israel’s cities by the rocket forces of Hamas and Hezbollah — will progressively undermine the country’s ability to retain its most creative and productive citizens.
The last point was made to Goldberg by Ehud Barak. It was a particularly convoluted threat, as pointed out by Salon‘s Justin Elliot, who noted that the idea behind Barak’s thesis undermines basic tenets of Zionism.
]]>In early July, news came that the Islamic Republic of Iran [...]]]>
In early July, news came that the Islamic Republic of Iran decided to issue fashion guidelines for men. Unveiling a large poster showing headshots of a half dozen men, in frontal and profile views, the Iranian culture ministry announced that certain haircuts were immodest and violated the Islamic Republic’s national and religious sensibilities. The ban covered gelled spikes and mullets, and the poster showed six acceptable styles, all seemingly ripped from the 1950s (the side part, the comb-back, and even a little flop over the ears are acceptable). Recovering from a beer-imbued long weekend, complete with fireworks, Americans returned to work on Tuesday to find a slew of articles and blog posts on the new restrictions. Even Stephen Colbert got in on the action, declaring that Iran had approved his own hairstyle. Everyone had a good chuckle.
The reaction seems innocuous – just poking a little fun at what is, on its face, a ridiculous regulation on a whole nation of people thousands of miles away. But laughing at the expense of Iran is not quite as harmless as it seems – not when the U.S. has occupying armies on two sides of Iran’s borders, and a large chunk of the D.C. strategic establishment speaks belligerently about U.S. or Israeli bombing runs on the country of 65 million. There’s something crass about it, actually. The fact that Americans feel free to laugh about Iran in a climate where a former CIA chief tells CNN he thinks attacking Iran “may not be the worst of all possible outcomes” speaks to the likelihood that Americans administer their empire from their unconscious minds. Humor, of course, is a gentle way to convince people – propaganda for the unwitting part of the brain.
In the modern era, humor has worked again and again to dehumanize target countries as a standard part of war propaganda. In a democracy, where support of the population at large is supposedly a prerequisite for attacking another country, jokes are a common means of dehumanizing, demonizing and generally placing the population of the targets of the attack into the category of Other. Empathy plummets; and civilians in the aggressor state find it increasingly difficult to put themselves in the (Islam-approved) shoes of those on the receiving ends of the bombs.
Most troubling is that liberals and progressives – those you might expect, ostensibly, to oppose a U.S. attack on Iran – are just as likely to laugh the country to war as hawks. Maybe more: Hawks in the media, at neocon rags and mainstream outlets alike, take Iran far more seriously. Those liberals snickering about mullets play into the same sort of joking that occurred in the run-up to the Iraq War – dehumanizing the soon-to-be targets. But instead of the Butcher of Baghdad, today’s monsters are the “mad mullahs” in Tehran.
Read more here, at AlterNet.
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