Why We Will Bomb Iran

In March 7, 2007, in the TimesonLine, Irwin Stelzer writes about a lunch at the White House with President Bush. He pointed out: “It was an intimate affair: the historian Andrew Roberts and I had to squeeze our chairs together to allow the vice-president, Dick Cheney, to pull his up to the table. . . . In addition to Roberts and myself the group included the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, neocon Norman Podhoretz and theologian Michael Novak.”

He went on to note that “The president divulged with convincing calm that when it comes to pressure, “I just don’t feel any”. Why? His constituency, he feels, is the divine presence, to whom he must answer. Don’t misunderstand: G_d didn’t tell him to put troops in harm’s way in Iraq; his belief only goes so far as to inform him that there is good and evil. It is the president who must figure out how to promote the former and destroy the latter. And he is confident that his policies are doing just that.”

On June 2007 Norman Podhoretz wrote in Commentary Magazine, "The Case for Bombing Iran." He decries Europe's unwillingness to prevent a second Holocaust by conducting a massive bombing raid on Iran. He goes on: "Not so George W. Gush, a man who knows evil when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly courageous willingness to endure vilification and contumely in setting his face against it. It now remains to be seen whether this President, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will."

It seems Mr. Podhorets listened to President Bush and decided to pen his article. He thought: "If Bush thinks G_d is his only constituency then why not play upon that belief. Tell him that he has been “battered” and “weakened” by his enemies. Then tell him that it is G_d’s will that he had to suffer this in order to prevent a “second Holocaust”. He can only do this by destroying Iran’s nuclear and other military strikes.

When you have a man to lunch and he agrees with you about your divine mission and he suggests a noble idea to fullfil it then you are likely to do this.