The recent threat by President Bush, that he will start World War III if Iran gains knowledge of how to build a nuclear weapon, is a clear violation of the United Nations charter which outlaws the threat of force in international affairs. Hell, I gained the knowledge on how to build a nuclear weapon while doing research for a high school paper on the Manhattan Project. It doesn’t mean I had the capability to create one.

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland’s and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

When the relatively moderate Mohammed Khatami was elected president in Iran, American conservatives pointed out that he was just a figurehead. Real power, they said (correctly), especially control of the military and police, was wielded by the unelected “Supreme Leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Now that Ahmadinejad is president, they claim his finger is on the button. (Oh wait, Iran doesn’t have a nuclear button yet and won’t for at least three to eight years, according to the CIA, by which point Ahmadinejad may not be president anymore. But these are just facts.)

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Fareed Zakaria rightly points out that the Right’s argument for war with Iran has “lost all connection to reality”. Neocon ideologist Norman Podhoretz, who consulted with Bush on the topic, irresponsibly claims that Ahmadinejad is a Hitler-type figure who wants to control the world under a “culture of Islamofascism.” Apparently, Goldwin’s Law applies to the idiocy of right-wing discussion as well.

Giuliani went a step beyond the normalcy of Neocon insanity to state that Ahmadinejad is even worse than Stalin and Mao, who displayed some “residual rationality”. Aside from the irony of wingnuts calling other leaders irrational, Zakaria also states that “conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history’s greatest mass murderers”. In addition to firefighters and 9/11 rescue workers, is Giuliani trying to piss off genocide survivors as well? Talk about shameless.

h/t Crooks and Liars