It’s time for Americans to take action to fight the efforts of anti-victory groups that are undermining the twilight struggle against Islamic Fundamentalism.  Some political leaders and newspapers have mustered the courage to brave the Left's vicious demagoguery and condemn the Enemy Media, Democrat Party, and its radical liberal puppeteers in MoveOn.org and their traitorous ilk for their outrageous attacks against American military leaders; most have not. Yet America and the forces of freedom are winning, and the dhimmist Fifth Column is losing.

But with now less than a year left in the Bush presidency and the near certainty of a Hillary Clinton succession, time for victory is running out.  And I don't mean just in Iraq.

We urge you to contact your senators and representatives and demand military action against Iran to keep nuclear weapons out of the mullahgarchy's hands.  Doing so will save the lives of countless Iranians, countless Jews, and countless Americans - including our men and women in uniform.

Couldn't put it any better myself (and LORD knows I've tried):

When I first predicted a year or so ago that Bush would bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities once he had played out the futile diplomatic string, the obstacles that stood in his way were great but they did not strike me as insurmountable. Now, thanks in large part to the new NIE, they have grown so formidable that I can only stick by my prediction with what the NIE itself would describe as “low-to-moderate confidence.” For Bush is right about the resemblance between 2008 and 1938. In 1938, as Winston Churchill later said, Hitler could still have been stopped at a relatively low price and many millions of lives could have been saved if England and France had not deceived themselves about the realities of their situation. Mutatis mutandis, it is the same in 2008, when Iran can still be stopped from getting the bomb and even more millions of lives can be saved—but only provided that we summon up the courage to see what is staring us in the face and then act on what we see.

Unless we do, the forces that are blindly working to ensure that Iran will get the bomb are likely to prevail even against the clear-sighted determination of George W. Bush, just as the forces of appeasement did against Churchill in 1938. In which case, we had all better pray that there will be enough time for the next President to discharge the responsibility that Bush will have been forced to pass on, and that this successor will also have the clarity and the courage to discharge it. If not — God help us all — the stage will have been set for the outbreak of a nuclear war that will become as inescapable then as it is avoidable now.

Or, as the old Autolite commercial used to say, "You can pay me a little now, or a lot later."

[h/t: Double-H]

Even if you're a lot less cynical than I am, rants like this one from MSNBC's notorious nutter Keith Olbermann (with whom NBC just HAD to pollute their Sunday night NFL broadcasts this season) have to make you wonder about whether he ever thinks through the implications of his Bushophobic diatribes (h/t Media Research Center):

A transcript of the relevant portion of Olbermann's regular "Worst Person in the World" segment from the Monday, January 14 Countdown show on MSNBC: 

"Our winner, your friendly U.S. government, epitomized here by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mullen. This is about the little thing in the Straits of Hormuz, which the Administration tried to sell as a near act of war by Iranian patrol boats against three giant U.S. warships, complete with provocative maneuvers and somebody radioing the U.S. ships, quote, 'I am coming to you. You will explode after minutes.' Admiral Mullen, it was, who said of the video of the incident, 'To my knowledge, I have not seen one as both provocative and dramatic as this.' Five minutes later, though, he added: 'First of all, I haven't seen the full video myself.'

"Now, the Navy Times newspaper echoes a lot of online reporting saying that the threatening radio message may have come from a well-known marine heckler whose radio abuse is legendary around the Persian Gulf. Oh, and that the only Iranian boat that actually came close to one of the U.S. warships was unarmed. So you guys tried to fake another Gulf of Tonkin incident using some clown with a CB radio and the lethal threat posed by the S.S. Minnow? Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, on behalf of the Bush Administration, today's Worst Person in the World!"

This would be the same Admiral Mike Mullen who will be a seamless fit in the incoming Rodham administration, who just the other day called for Guantanamo Bay to be closed and the interred bloodthirsty jihadis turned loose, on the usual feckless grounds that it's "damaged our international image".  Sentiments so idiotic Keith can't help but concur with them.

As to the Gilligan's Island aphorism, let's consult the results of a wargame the Navy conducted a few years back in this very same scenario (h/t Strategic Forecasting):

The New York Times carried a story January 12, clearly leaked to it by the Pentagon, giving some context for U.S. concerns. According to the story, the United States had carried out war games attempting to assess the consequences of a swarming attack by large numbers of speedboats carrying explosives and suicide crews. The results of the war games were devastating. In a game carried out in 2002, the U.S. Navy lost 16 major warships, including an aircraft carrier, cruisers and amphibious ships — all in attacks lasting 5-10 minutes. Fleet defenses were overwhelmed by large numbers of small, agile speedboats, some armed with rockets and other weapons, but we assume most operated as manned torpedoes. [emphasis added] 

It would appear that the Caliphate's Skippers and Gilligans are bigger badasses than Keith Olbermann is giving them credit for.  Unless, of course, he's deliberately downplaying Iranian suicide attackers in the gleeful hope that the enemy can successfully pull off multiple USS Cole-type attacks, crippling our own Navy, blocking a critical global choke point through which a significant quantity of our imported oil is transported, and providing a fresh talking point for still more Bush-bashing.  All of these are cherished left-wing objectives that make traitors like KO positively drool with orgasmic lust.

And yet our warships in the Persian Gulf did not open fire.  One could argue that they damn well should have - I have - but the fact is they did not.  Which suggests that if this was an attempted "fake" reprise of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, it was botched with equal measures of timidity and incompetence.

The true concern is, indeed, that we held our fire.  It is of a piece with the Bush White House's meek acceptance of the bogus National Intelligence Estimate putting over the rank fiction that Iran isn't pursuing nukes, despite an avalanche of contrary evidence, and his pathetic multilateralist entreaties to Gulf sheikdoms to join us in an anti-Iran "coalition" that they have healthy reason to believe won't last past the end of the Bush presidency as any sort of practical proposition, which would leave them holding the bag with a nuclear-armed mullahgarchy not half a planet away but right in their grills.  In reality, the Bushies appear to be doing everything humanly possible to duck a confrontation with Iran whatever the pretext, and in so doing are making one on Tehran's terms more and more inevitable.

Which evidently is just ducky to K-Olb, who already has it blamed on Dubya and is doubtless angling for the blockbuster, ass-kissing, Dan-Rather-going-fishing-with-Saddam-Hussein-caliber interview with Adolph Ahmadinejad himself as we speak.

Does that make Olbermann the Worst Person In The World?  Hardly.  Biggest Asshole?  Now you're talking.

Somebody please help me understand this:

President Bush said Sunday that Iran is threatening the security of the world, and that the United States and Arab allies must join together to confront the danger "before it's too late."

Bush said Iran funds terrorist extremists, undermines peace in Lebanon, sends arms to the Taliban, seeks to intimidate its neighbors with alarming rhetoric, defies the United Nations and destabilizes the entire region by refusing to be open about its nuclear program.

"Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terror," Bush said in a speech he delivered about mid-way through his eight-day Mideast trip that began with a renewed push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace pact _ an accord he said whose "time has come."

"Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere," Bush said. "So the United States is strengthening our long-standing security commitments with our friends in the Gulf, and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late."

Okay, first: Why does the AP headline read, "Bush Insists Iran Biggest Terror Sponsor"?  That suggests that the AP believes Iran isn't a terror sponsor at all, indeed that they think it's obvious that the mullahgarchy is the veritable dove of peace coming down out of heaven to alight upon Adolph Ahmadenijad's windjacketed shoulder with the voice of Allah saying, "This is my beloved Neanderthal, in whom I am well pleased; bow down to him (or else)," and the President is some desperate, warmongering crank still trying to "smear" Tehran as "terror masters".  Which is akin to "insisting" that the sky is green on Tuesdays and Thursdays, orange on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Argyle on the weekends.  And yet I have to wonder how much of the public has been taken in by this brazen pro-Iranian propagandizing from our own media.  "After all," they can claim, "'Bush's own' intelligence agencies say Iran gave up nukes five years ago."  All of which means they're in the same quisling boat with the Enemy Media.  But if you don't pay attention to such things on an ongoing basis, how discerning can you really be?

Until an Iranian nuke goes off in Tel Aviv or Paris or Manhattan.  But that'll be Bush's fault, of course.  And even then, will he do anything about it?  What does "confronting this danger" that is more obvious than Michael Moore from orbit really mean?  Piling ineffective sanctions atop more ineffective sanctions isn't going to accomplish anything, other perhaps than to hasten the mullahgarchy's rush towards all-out war. "Strengthening long-standing security arrangements with friends in the Gulf" in practice means selling more arms to the Saudis. And as the dismal events of the past couple of years in the Palestinian Territories have amply demonstrated, "advancing democracy" in the Muslim world only advances freedom, even tangentially, if there are several hundred thousand heavily armed American troops present to make sure that far-from-natural linkage sticks.

So, once again, we have Dubya's lofty, vaguely bellicose rhetoric flitting about the rhetorical ether looking for a policy to support that he has no intention of promulgating.  As I consult my dictionary, I see the term "confront" exposited as "to face in hostility or defiance; oppose".  Is there any signal, any hint whatsoever, that the Bush Administration intends to "confront" Iran in the true sense of that term over its drive for nukes, its support of global terrorism, the nexus thereof, or anything else?

Not beyond words.  Which get emptier every time he utters them, a desultory match for the collective national stomachlessness for the war with Iran that is inevitably coming, whether we want it or not.

Thanks for your help.  I think I understand it now.  I'm off to do what I always have to do after swallowing a bunch of air.

It's cosmically appropriate, somehow.

Three full days after a trio of US warships was feint-attacked by Iranian naval patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz, the American government got around to the obligatory empty bluster about the latest mullahgarchic provocation.

Said Arabist SecState Condolezza Rice:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice slammed Iran on Monday for harassing U.S. ships in the Strait of Hormuz and said the renegade nation is "the single greatest threat to the kind of Middle East we all want to see."

In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Rice said "Iran should not engage in such provocations. That's what it was and it needs to stop. The U.S. is going to defend its interests. It's going to defends its allies."

Reading this quote I can't help but picture Eddie Haskell's mother Agnes scolding him for his latest skullduggery, with her wagging her finger at him and him standing there, smugly putting forth an appallingly obvious mask of contrition as he mentally plots his next batch of slick iniquitues.

Except, of course, that the mullahs don't pretend to be remorseful for their escalating serious of aggressions against us, stretching all the way back to their sacking of our Tehran embassy twenty-eight years ago.  And yet we keep taking it and taking it and taking it, occasionally putting forth rhetorical "slams" like Secretary Rice's offering, never, EVER intending to back it up with anything more than more whining to the UN and wallowing in corrupt, ineffectual, sieve-like sanction resolutions.

Meanwhile, the man that National Review once lionized on its cover as "the conqueror" threw in his two cents of Monopoly money:

U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday said Iran committed "a provocative act" in the Strait of Hormuz when Iranian speedboats approached three U.S. Navy ships and threatened that the ships would explode.

"It's a dangerous situation and they should not have done it, pure and simple," Bush told reporters at the White House. "I don't know what their thinking was but I'm telling you what I think it was."

Actually, he never did tell us what he thought the Iranians' thinking was.  The fact that their buzzing of our ships was "provocative" is self-evident.  My guess is that he wanted to prove to the press that he could pronounce the word "provocative" without it coming out like "provatacive."

I think I have a pretty good idea of what the Iranians' thinking was, if the President doesn't (or, more likely, feels he can't disclose publicly).

1) They want to test our tactical defenses and reaction time to see if they could successfully pull off an attack, and determine what it would take to do so.

2) They want to test our will to see how much they can get away with and how far they can push us without triggering a response.

3) They want to show they world that they are the strong horse and we are a pitiful, helpless, castrated giant that can be bitch-slapped endlessly and with impunity until we finally capitulate to the imposition of a Global Islamic Caliphate.

4) If they do succeed in finally triggering a devastating American response, then they have their glorious apocalypse to bring back the twelfth imam that they and their "green aura boy" have been lusting after.

I think you can see that #1 is far less of an issue (or concern) than #2 and #3.  And the longer we let #2 and #3 continue, the more inevitable #4 becomes.

Bush and Rice insist that Iran is a huge threat whose warmongering has got to stop.  This is of a piece with the President's past declarations that the mullahs "will not" be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.  Fine and dandy, gentlebeings.  But the question remains: In the words of Buford Tannen, "Mighty tough words; are you man enough to back 'em up with more than just a pie plate?"

Unless and until we are willing to send the next such flotilla of Iranian speedboats and their crews to the bottom of the Persian Gulf in a signicantly larger number of pieces than that in which they started for such a "provocation," or the equivalent situational response thereof - to say nothing of doing what it will actually take (i.e. Operation Iranian Freedom) to prevent a nuclear mullahgarchy - it'd be preferable if the Bushies just clammed up.

Remember nine months ago when the Iranian navy brazenly attacked a British warship in the Persian Gulf and captured fifteen British sailors and marines?  Or, indeed, seven years ago when al Qaeda attacked the USS Cole in Aden harbor with a well armed dinghy and blew a huge hole in its side?

You shouldn't wonder at the establishment of that context:

Five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats harassed and provoked three U.S. Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route off the Iranian coast, over the weekend, CNN reported on Monday.

Citing unidentified U.S. officials, CNN said the Iranian vessels came within 200 yards (meters) of the U.S. ships in the strait on Saturday.

A radio transmission from one of the Iranian ships said, "I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes," CNN reported, citing a U.S. official.

After the threatening radio communication, U.S. sailors manned their ships' guns and were very close to opening fire, it said.

There was no immediate U.S. comment.

The incident occurred on the eve of a visit to the Middle East by U.S. President George W. Bush, who said last week that one of the aims of his trip was to counter Iran's ambitions in the region.

It seems to me that the captains of those US warships could have done a lot more to "counter Iran's ambitions" in the Middle East than a state visit from a one-time warrior president who is now just playing out the pacifist string.  Indeed, it makes me wonder what, if any, reaction the Bushies would have had if these Iranian attackers had followed through on their threats and taken out one of the American vessels.  Offered a bigger incentive package to persuade them not to do it again?  Decree that the next time Adolph Ahmadinejad visits America, he can only give a speech on the new American Gladiators program when his face is buried in Hulk Hogan's armpit?  Stomp, whine, and cry for another UN Security Council resolution?

Of course not.  The answer is obvious: don't speak so "provocatively," and only go to Iran's "region" to assist them in the realization of their ambitions.  Hey, can't be rude to so gracious a host - right?

The mullahs weren't the only enemies preparing a warm welcome for President Bush:

American al-Qaida militant Adam Gadahn urged Islamist militants to welcome President Bush with bombs when he visits the Middle East this week.

“Welcome him not with flowers and applause but with bombs and traps,” he said in an Arabic aside on a 50-minute video posted on the internet on Sunday, which was mostly recorded in English and aimed at the American public.

Gadahn, who is also known as Azzam the American, devoted most of the tape entitled “An Invitation to Reflection and Repentance,” to a detailed explanation of the shortcomings of U.S. foreign policy and Western Christian civilization and their defeat at the hands of Islam and Muslims.

Yeah, Gadahn is just one Islamist crank.  But then so, once, was Osama bin Laden.  And never forget, they believe all this seemingly fanciful propaganda they spew.  They believe they're on the winning side, that they'll ultimately outlast us and our cultural short attention span, that the Global Islamic Caliphate is inevitable.  The near-attack in the Persian Gulf over the weekend proves they're serious.  Our letting them get away shows, redundantly, that we are not.

And for what, pray tell, is Dubya making this pilgrimmage to the region where human civilization originated?  Do you really want to know?

President Bush heads to Israel and the West Bank this week, hoping his first visit as U.S. leader will open the throttle on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

But in the six weeks since Bush declared at an international gathering in Annapolis, Maryland, that "the time is right" to make peace, two perennial obstacles to Mideast peacemaking have already reared up: Israeli settlements and violence.

What is it about American presidents in their closing days in office that they always think they can wade into this intractible conflict which can only be settled by war and somehow wave a magic diplowand and transmogrify spears into pruning hooks?  Why can't they see that such a high profile intervention simply serves as a rallying point for the enemies of peace (and I don't mean the Israelis) to ramp up the murder and mayhem?  Why can't they leave the Jews and Pals alone to settle matters for themselves?  If there ever is to be peace in "that region," that's the only way that it can evey ultimately happen.

GDub has nothing on King Sisyphus.

Except, hopefully, dramatically better security arrangements.

Sounds to me like the Iranian Queerless Leader has placed his bets on who he thinks will be the final pair in the U.S. presidential race - if, you know, orthodox Muslims engaged in such sinful pursuits as gambling, and plotting mass murders, and stuff like that there:

Iran's supreme leader suggested on Thursday that ties might one day be possible with the United States, the Islamic state's arch foe for almost three decades, although he said it would harm Iran to restore relations now.

"Not having relations with America is one of our main policies but we have never said this relationship should be cut forever," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in the central province of Yazd, state television reported.

"Certainly, the day when having relations with America is useful for the nation I will be the first one to approve this relationship."

Not that the Bush Administration hasn't been softer than a black banana on the mullahgarchy over the past few years, or that our enemies are necessarily all that conversant about the details of American domestic politics, but would "conciliatory" rhetoric like this be issuing forth from Tehran if the mullahs thought that the next president of the United States wasn't going to be Hillary Clinton?  Or, if a miracle on a par with the parting of the Red Sea were to take place, Mike f'ing Huckabee?

At the very least, it would seem that they drew wilier conclusions from that recent mullah-smooch known as the latest National "Intelligence" estimate than our own "intelligence" community did.  Certainly nobody in the presidential race who would buck that monument to pacifist ignorance (if there is any such candidate) is anywhere near serious viability.

The only question seems to be, shall we say, the degree to which Islamic Iran will be the rider in this "relationship," and conquered America will be the horse.

Sure lends the suddenly not-inconceivable possibility of a president named "Obama" an....intriguing context, doesn't it?