Juan Cole: Giuliani running for velociraptor-in-chief.....

[Junkdrawer]

The Iran hawks
Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton think a tough line on Tehran will sell politically. They could be right.
By Juan Cole

Oct. 17, 2007 | Future historians may conclude that the key issue in the 2008 presidential campaign was not Iraq, but whether the United States should go to war with Iran. Sparring over Iran dominated the Republican debate in Dearborn, Mich., last week, while a Senate resolution condemning Iran's Revolutionary Guards as terrorists divided the Democrats, some of whom (including Sen. Barack Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi) feared that it might give Bush a pretext to launch another war. Unexpectedly, Tehran has emerged as a preoccupation of candidates -- as a litmus test for attitudes toward war and domestic security.

The Republicans are competing to see who can wax most bellicose. The two candidates with the greatest need to compensate for their socially liberally pasts, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, have been extra warlike. Giuliani in particular seems to be running for velociraptor-in-chief.

.....

Of the four senators among the Democratic candidates, only Hillary Clinton voted for the non-binding Kyl-Lieberman resolution on Sept. 26. The Kyl-Lieberman resolution, which passed 76-to-22, with 29 Democrats voting in favor, says, "the United States should designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization ... and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists." Jim Lobe, among the best journalists covering neoconservatism in Washington, wrote that unnamed "Capitol Hill sources" told him that the resolution was crafted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker, interviewed on "Democracy Now," concurred that the amendment was pushed by the Israel lobby.

.....

The Iraq problem is so intractable that bringing it up with voters is dangerous, since they will then ask about policy prescriptions, and most experts agree that the U.S. has no good options. Iran, in contrast, looms as a vague sort of threat on the horizon and politicians can therefore pull out of their tool kits their favorite instrument -- speaking hypothetically without committing to a particular course of action. The problem, as Chris Dodd and Barack Obama saw so clearly, is that in attempting to change the conversation to Iran, American politicians and their morbidly aggressive constituents may be vastly widening the quagmire, playing Katrina to the Middle East's New Orleans.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/10/17/iran/print.html

[Swamp Rat]

1. BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: "Giuliani in particular seems to be running for velociraptor-in-chief." :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[bklyncowgirl]

2. He does have that jerky head movement thing. I like it.

I was trying to come up with an animal that reminds me of Rudy G.. Weasel, Ferret nah, too cute. Hyena, jackal, maybe.

Velociraptor--now that fits.