Doug Ross @ Journal

Iran Insanity Watch

The anti-military crew is out in full force this week, headlined by Maureen Dowd and Leonard Pitts. Both are using the Iraq example as proof the U.S. shouldn't meddle in Iran's affairs.

The tragic irony is that Dowd and Pitts are both contributors to the very instability in Iraq they decry. Lt. Col. Tim Ryan puts it more bluntly: the media, well-meaning or not, is "aiding and abetting the enemy."

U.S. war-bashers are given voice on Al Jazeera and then publicized far and wide in the insurgency as further evidence of a replay of the Clintonian "Mogadishu-Gambit" (also known as the "Turn-Tail-and-Run-Tactic"). That the U.S. has any credibility for staying power is due solely to President Bush. Dowd and Pitts would prefer a triangulating, poll-watching President; one who would have long ago abandoned any effort at a long-term economic renovation of the Middle East.

That is not to say that constructive criticism isn't warranted and needed. For starters, where is an alternative long-term solution to the virulent form of extremism spreading like H5N1 in the Middle East? After all, Wahhabism has been on the rise since 1924.

If Bush's plan -- economic gentrification channeled through Democracy-building -- isn't the answer... then what is? We've been waiting for years for just such instruction from Dowd, Pitts, and crew. Instead we hear crickets chirping and see an occasional thatch of tumbleweed roll by.

Put simply, Iran must be dealt with. Mutual Assured Destruction doesn't work when one side desires Apocalypse.

The most recent Ahmadinejad gem amply reinforces that fact. He stated, "Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation." By the way, he means the U.S. and the U.K., too.

Yes, he's really mellowed the rhetoric. He's ratcheted down a notch from his continual refrains of "Wipe Israel off the face of the Earth" and "Imagine a World Without the U.S.". So, I suppose he's now a moderate in the view of the Associated Press.

Hugh Hewitt rightly puts it best when he asks, "At what point will opponents of military action against Iran begin to deal with the regime's statements?"