Has Iran Already Nuked Us!?

This morning's newspaper headlines sure were exciting, weren't they?!?!?!?!

As of right now, the New York Times' headline screams:

Iran Is Warned Over Nuclear ‘Deception’

The Washington Post cries:

Iran Admits Second Nuclear Enrichment Site

OH NO! Drudge takes the predictably sober approach and whispers:

CAUGHT BY SURPRISE: IRAN BUILDING SECOND NUKE PLANT[ital. in original]

ACK!

Why, I think we might already be at war with fucking Iran! Or close, at least! The Times today dutifully contemplates that,

"After months of talking about the need for engagement, Mr. Obama appears to have made a leap toward viewing tough new sanctions against Iran as an inevitability."[emphasis added.]

Fellatio-enthusiast Thomas Friedman wrote this week that we [America!] should threaten Iran with immediate sanctions and the possibility that "Israel might do something crazy." I wonder what Obama and Friedman talked about when they played Golf the other day.

The Post ledes by raising the prospect of sanctions as well.

"President Obama and the leaders of France and Britain blasted Iran's construction of a previously unacknowledged uranium enrichment facility and demanded Friday that Tehran immediately fulfill its obligations under international law or risk the imposition of harsh new sanctions."

It sure sounds like the media is congealing around this new meme like the unthinking wad of lard that they are. And thankfully, the same horrifying tactics that gave us Catastrophe Iraq! are on full display yet again, for fun.

After reporting that Iran sent a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency informing them of the existence of the Plant, Politico goes on to say:

"“A very cursory admission to the IAEA years after the commencement of construction of the facility whose use is undeniable does not constitute living up to its obligations,” an American official said."[emphasis added.]

OOOOOOO!!!!!!! That's so scary, guys! An anonymous source is claiming with certainty that a new enemy can/will/already has killed us all! That sounds like a slam dunk case, right there.

Others have joined Friedman's calls for more human sacrifice to please the God of American Stability. Meat-puppet David Ignatious--who writes about politics with as much insight as John Madden does about Proust--spends his column today telling his readers that we are in a scary new cold war, but he and his anonymous insider friends are seriously doing their best to keep us safe, guys. Ignatious writes:

So why didn’t the Obama administration lay down an even stronger marker in response to this breakout -- by threatening, say, to intercept ships at sea that it believed were carrying parts for the Iranian nuclear program?

The answer, explained the senior official in a telephone interview, is that the U.S. wants to preserve consensus among its allies for much harsher sanctions, even as it heads toward a face-to-face negotiating meeting with the Iranians on Oct. 1.The U.S. has privately communicated with the Iranians in recent days that it wants those talks to go forward, the senior official said.

Asking why Ignatious granted anonymity to that senior official is like asking why banks rip people off--no matter how despicable we may find that practice, that's what they think their job is.

But let's back up just a little. Ignatious nobly wonders why the US didn't "intercept ships at sea that it believed were carrying parts for the Iranian nuclear program." That is really a remarkable sentence because it highlights, in a nutshell, how our punditry class thinks, which is to say they are blood-thirsty war-mongers, no matter how banal their demeanor appears. What meat-puppet Ignatious is describing is an act of war. You know, bang bang. Look at how casually he posits this question, the consequences of which would undoubtedly lead to massive civilian suffering and death, both American and Iranian. Yet to Ignatious, it seems odd that America didn't strike first.

To read an evisceration of another pundit warrior, read Greenwald's vicious dismantling of David Brooks, here.

And to read a historical account of how familiar all this Iran scare-mongering is, go here.

Watch out for a ratcheting up of the scary Iran meme this weekend on the Gas-bag Happy Hour with George Stephanopolous, or on This Week with Dickheads. I won't be watching them, but if anything happens let me know if you want to.