Yo! Is everyone prepared for this? The "cakewalk" war in Iran, I mean?

The conservative Murdoch-owned Sunday Times of London has this less-than-cheerful report on Iran's own preparations for war in Iran suicide bombers ‘ready to hit Britain’ by Marie Colvin, Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter 04/16/06.

Iran has formed battalions of suicide bombers to strike at British and American targets if the nation’s nuclear sites are attacked. According to Iranian officials, 40,000 trained suicide bombers are ready for action.

The main force, named the Special Unit of Martyr Seekers in the Revolutionary Guards, was first seen last month when members marched in a military parade, dressed in olive-green uniforms with explosive packs around their waists and detonators held high.

Dr Hassan Abbasi, head of the Centre for Doctrinal Strategic Studies in the Revolutionary Guards, said in a speech that 29 western targets had been identified: "We are ready to attack American and British sensitive points if they attack Iran's nuclear facilities." He added that some of them were "quite close" to the Iranian border in Iraq. (my emphasis)

Now, big talk is big talk. And forty thousand is a lot of suicide bombers. But a war against Iran is not just going to be a "slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am" bombing campaign and everyone cheers afterwards about "Mission Accomplished".

The same paper carries a column by Andrew Sullivan, who Eric Alterman calls "Little Roy" in reference to Joe McCarthy's counsel for his Communist-hunting Sentate Committee who continued his devotion to rightwing causes after he went on to become a Mob lawyer.

Sullivan was an enthusiastic fan of the Iraq War. And he was one of the most visible media types smearing anyone who criticized Dear Leader Bush and his holy war in Iraq as unpatriotic, anti-American, etc., etc.

In this column, he's arguing against an Iran War. Which is fine by me. If Pat Buchanan can occasionally do something useful by opposed stupid and/or unjust wars, for whatever reason, so can Little Roy.

But part of his argument is this:

In the current climate, there's a real danger that the very debate could intensify divisions within America, with those who strongly oppose Bush refusing to back this president in any other war.

Now, just how is this a bad thing? Not only is Bush dishonest and willing to wage wars against countries that are no threat to us in violation of international law. He's also spectacularly incompetent at it.

Of course, it's a simple-minded claim. Anyone could fantasize up a situation where we could back a war even with Bush as President. I mean, suppose Saddam has secretly shipped his plywood planes of death with 35,000 liters of anthrax to Canada, and suppose the Canadian government one day might decide to turn those over to some terrorist group or other, and suppose that terrorist group decided to one day unleash the fleet of death-plywood drones against us, followed up by a couple of mobile bio-weapons labs. Certainly Americans would back a war in retaliation for that. (Hey, it's no more bogus a scenario than the Iran-is-16-days-from-a-nuclear-bomb howler that the Bush administration tossed out there last week.)

But in what possible way could it be a bad thing for Americans to be super-skeptical about anything the Bush administration would want to do involving war?

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