| Wednesday, May 5, 2004 |
17:07 - I fooled you! I fooled you! I got pig iron!
http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/200455.asp
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(My dad ought to appreciate this one.)
I've just gotta say: If, as Jim Dunnigan suggests here, the Iranian mullocracy is on the brink of obtaining nuclear weapons, it would be an awful event that totally changes the landscape of the War on Terror if they were to succeed. Duh. That would suck.
But if Iran were to suddenly announce that it's got nuclear weapons... well, what would that mean for the credibility of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammed ElBaradei, and by extension the United Nations?
Would it imply that all the inspections, all the statements that Iran is "cooperating" with international bodies, all the assurances that Iran's nuclear program is purely peaceable, were just toilet-paper scrawls all along—and that the UN gullibly swallowed it all up? Would it mean that the UN is this absurdly easy to hoodwink and play like a cheap violin, on matters of the utmost global import—that they pathologically take liars at their word and believe the best of dictators? Would it mean the UN ought to be declared thenceforth unfit to serve in any international capacity for the purpose of preventing genocide or the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, on grounds of demonstrated gross incompetence?
And given what else we know of the UN's credibility on these matters, would that be altogether a bad thing?
Why, it puts me in mind of a song:
Now this here's the story about the Rock Island Line
The Rock Island Line she runs down into New Orleans
And just outside of New Orleans is a big toll gate
And all the trains that go through the toll gate
They gotta pay the man some money
But of course, if you got certain things on board
You're okay and you don't have to pay the man nothin
And just now we see a train comin down the line
When you come up to the toll gate
The driver, he shout down to the man
I got pigs, I got horses, I got cows
I got sheep, I got all livestock, I got all livestock
I got aaall liiivestock
The man say, you alright boy just
Get on through, you don't have to pay me nothin
And then the train go through
And when he go through the tollgate
The train gotta have a little bit of steam
And a little bit of speed
And when the driver think he safely on the other side
He shouts back down the line to the man
I fooled you, I fooled you
I got pig iron, I got pig iron
I got aaaall pig iron,
Now I'll tell you where I'm goin boy
You know where.
UPDATE: Perhaps even more damning, though, would be if Iran developed nuclear weapons even with the UN breathing sternly down its neck. What would that say about just how effective the UN is at dealing with a threat that even it recognizes?
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Brian Tiemann
