Feels like the old days.
With all the Republicans who have switched sides on the question of what to do in Syria, it's almost refreshing to see Sen. Lindsey Graham continue to sing the old hawk ballads like they never went out of style. His bottom-line argument is that we need to bomb Syria because if we don't Iran will build a nuclear weapon and go to war with Israel, possibly leading to the destruction of Charleston, South Carolina, or New York City.
I'm not even kidding. That is the actual argument he made to a local gathering of constituents:
Graham wound up his case on Syria intervention by raising the stakes considerably. He painted a frightening picture of cascading world events that would reverberate far beyond the borders of a civil war in one Middle Eastern country.
If the United States doesn't deal with Syria, Graham promised Iran would acquire a nuclear weapon by 2014, the King of Jordan would be deposed and Israel would start preparing to protect itself.
"I believe that if we get Syria wrong, within six months -- and you can quote me on this," Graham said, pausing for dramatic effect. "There will be a war between Iran and Israel over their nuclear program."
But it wouldn't even end there, Graham surmised. Undoubtedly, he said ominously, the Iranians would share its nuclear technology with U.S. enemies.
"My fear is that it won't come to America on top of a missile, it'll come in the belly of a ship in the Charleston or New York harbor," he said.
Learn more about his warmongering below the fold.
Now this is how you warmonger. You simply explain to the nice people that if we do not act now against a nation with little to no offensive capabilities, terrorists will kill you and destroy your entire town. None of that pussyfooting around with "sending a message," none of that old "nation building" nonsense, just some good old fashioned "support this military action or YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN WILL DIE IN A SEA OF HELLFIRE."
He's one of the serious ones, mind you. Top-notch foreign policy mind, when it comes to blowing things up. It's the predictions of imminent doom that makes one a top-notch foreign policy mind, in fact; you could get just as far claiming that the acceptance of gay marriage is going to cause terrorists to attack Charleston, or that not cutting food aid to children will cause the terrorists to attack Charleston, or that raising the minimum wage will cause terrorists to attack Charleston, or whatever else you like—it hardly matters, so long as you can come up with some scenario in which terrorists attack Charleston. Now that will get your Sunday show ticket punched in a hurry. Everybody wants to hear foreign policy analysis like that.
It is a bit surprising that the only scenario that does not result in hypothetical terrorists attacking Charleston is bombing wide swaths of the Middle East into rubble. You would think that particular policy would cause considerable resentment, in those countries, but we have learned at this point that terrorists and foreign nations and foreign leaders are primarily motivated by far more subtle things like Our Freedomz and whether or not they consider American leadership to be sufficiently manly on any given day. I admit, I do tend to put more credence to this theory than I used to, given that our own decisions as to who needs bombing and why often seem equally muddled, ideological, and capricious.
Email your member of the House of Representatives, letting him or her know your opinion about a military strike on Syria—whatever your opinion may be.