iran

Today's wingnutopia outrage of "why to hate Hagel" is brought to you buy that bow-tie wearing dweeb, Tucker Carlson's, conspiracy tabloid, The Daily Caller:

A pro-Hezbollah, pro-Hamas candidate for the Iranian presidency, a man linked to Iranian-controlled front groups, brought former Republican Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel to speak at Rutgers University in 2007, according to another professor on campus.

Hooshang Amirahmadi, who led Rutgers’ Center for Middle Eastern Studies when Hagel came to campus, is the founder and president of the American-Iranian Council. He arranged for Hagel’s speech on March 2, 2007, the faculty source told The Daily Caller.

Why that must mean that Hagel supports terrorism! Why can't we have good ole' Republicans anymore, like Dick Cheney, who would never do anything to help Iran!

Halliburton is the company that Vice President Dick Cheney used to run. He was CEO from 1995 to 2000, during which time Halliburton Products and Services set up shop in Iran. Today, it sells about $40 million a year worth of oil field services to the Iranian government.

But Cheney was just protecting capitalism by setting up offshore companies in the Cayman's so that they could circumvent sanctions against Iran in the 90's and sell them highly profitable nuclear parts.

Apparently selling parts to develop weapons of mass destruction to terrorist regimes is a sign that you are strong against terrorism. Well, at least to the pea brains of the Republican Party.

And let's not forget another Secretary of Defense and how much he opposed our former enemies:

This story is really amazing:

Two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to the car of an Iranian university professor working at a key nuclear facility, killing him and wounding two people on Wednesday, a semiofficial news agency reported.

The attack in Tehran bore a strong resemblance to earlier killings of scientists working on the Iranian nuclear program.

It is certain to reinforce authorities' claims of widening clandestine operations by Western powers and allies to try to cripple nuclear advancements.

The White House has denied any involvement in this.

You got to admit though that Hollywood couldn't write it any better themselves.

All the talk lately has once again been Iran. Yesterday Iran test fired some new missiles and Michele Bachmann instantly took to the teevee to show she has some big balls!

"What we need to do is take a very aggressive posture toward letting Iran know that we mean business, that we don't want them to seek a nuclear weapon," Bachmann said on CBS' "The Early Show," adding that her administration "will do whatever it takes" to send a "strong signal that the United States is on high alert."

She said that includes deploying Patriot missiles, ballistic missiles and other weapon systems in the U.S. and the Middle East. (watch at left)

I wonder how much that would cost our already cash strapped nation?

But it turns out that there isn't a real threat from Iran's show yesterday:

It turned out the missiles weren't that long range after all.

The Qhader missile, introduced in September, has a range of just 124 miles. The U.S. Navy's fifth fleet in Bahrain is 150 miles from Iran. Israel is four times farther.

"We've seen that they've photoshopped, for example, photographs of missile tests before to make it look more impressive than it actually is, so I would take all this with a grain of salt. I think this is mainly posturing. It's gamesmanship. And it's again meant to send a message that the Iranians aren't simply going to sit back while their oil is sanctioned," said Michael Singh, Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The war drums with Iran are getting louder when you listen to the GOP Presidential candidates. At last night's debate, both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich did their fair share of beating those drums:

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich said at the Republican presidential debate here Saturday night that they would be willing to go to war to keep Iran from attaining nuclear weapons if all other strategies failed.

Romney said that if "crippling sanctions" and other strategies fail, military action would be on the table because it is "unacceptable" for Iran to become a nuclear power.

Gingrich agreed, saying that if "maximum covert operations" and other strategies failed there would be no other choice. First, though, the United States consider "taking out their scientists," and "breaking up their systems, all of it covertly, all of it deniable," Gingrich said.

War isn't cheap. It isn't cheap at all and Afghanistan and Iraq have proven that, with a combined total running over $1 trillion per year. Iran also has a much stronger military than these other two countries, meaning a war with Iran will most likely cost much more.

These candidates have also said they will reduce the national debt, bring our budget under control and not raise taxes. Our military costs, cost of Medicare and Social Security and interest on loans eats up our yearly revenue alone. We have no room for additional defense spending without adding to the deficit or increasing revenue.

Now with these facts laid out, when will a debate moderator ask the trillion dollar question - how will you pay for this war?

The news of the day hands down is the news that Iran has been working on a second nuclear plant. This comes as a surprise to the world, but not the world leaders and intelligence communities:

American officials said that they had been tracking the covert project for years, but that Mr. Obama decided to make public the American findings after Iran discovered, in recent weeks, that Western intelligence agencies had breached the secrecy surrounding the project. On Monday, Iran wrote a brief, cryptic letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying that it now had a “pilot plant” under construction, whose existence it had never before revealed.

Of course this covert project that has been underway for several years is going to somehow become the fault of President Obama, and evidence of that lie has already started on Drudge:

The construction of this plant started and mostly occurred while George Bush was in the White House and has been no secret to the government, yet Drudge wants us to think that Iran pulled a quickie on the administration. If this is a surprise to Obama then it should be a down right shocker to Bush.

All the Republican critics of President Obama’s handling of Iran have resorted to the old Gipper offense. Mostly what they are saying is Obama should “do what Reagan did”. Richard Cohen, and I can’t believe I am saying this, sets the record straight on this:

Some of Obama's critics have faulted him for not doing what Ronald Reagan (belatedly) did following the fraudulent election in the Philippines in 1986. After some dithering, Reagan virtually forced President Ferdinand Marcos into exile. How neat. How not a precedent for Iran.

Marcos was, to exhume a dandy Cold War phrase, an "American lackey." The Philippines itself was a former American colony. We knew the country. Hell, at one time, we virtually owned it.

The equivalent would be Obama having to break up a prison riot, and he should do what Reagan did to stop a school yard fight. There is no comparing the two items. But this is to be expected from a party that has raised Ronald Reagan to the level of a deity.

Something interesting is happening that isn’t getting much attention. There seems to be a growing fracture in the GOP over how President Obama is handling the situation in Iran. On one side you have people like John McCain complaining that we aren’t meddling enough in the election, then on the other side Republicans like Mel Martinez, Bob Corker and John Thune are commending the President on his handling of the situation. To those Republicans able to show support for the President, they are now joined by a heavy hitter name in the GOP when it comes to foreign affairs – Henry Kissinger.

I truly believe for some Republicans they are genetically disposed to saying President Obama is failing, no matter what he does. Obama could fix global warming, get rid of our deficit, totally turn the economy around to a point of prosperity that we have never seen and totally defeat al Qaeda while bringing peace and democracy to the entire Middle East. With all these successes people like John McCain would still consider President Obama a failure. That’s why the media shouldn’t pay them any attention.

CBS has published a New Republic article entitled “Meet Iran’s George W. Bush”, in which they talk about the similarities between the election in Iran and the 2004 election for George Bush. Now the right is up in arms over this.

Gateway Pundit:

THIS IS WAY-WAY OVER THE TOP----
CBS compares Iran's Holocaust denier, womens right's abuser, America-hating radical to George W. Bush.

NewsBusters:

In today's "Will Bush Derangement Syndrome Ever End" segment, CBSNews.com published an article from The New Republic comparing Iran's crazed leader who believes the holocaust never happened and Israel should be wiped off the face of the planet to -- wait for it! -- America's 43rd president.

Isn't that special?

Wizbang Backup:

This is an outrage! CBS has a piece on their website that is so out of line it's one of the most agregious and disgusting examples of media malpractice I think I have ever seen.

So did these people express the same outrage every time FOX news called President Obama a terrorist or change his name to Osama? Nope. So either they think its ok to say things like this about a democratic president, or they think Osama isn’t as bad as Ahmadinejad. Either reason is totally inexcusable.