War in Iran? No equivocating opposition, please

The Legal Fiction blog raises the great point that those who oppose another unilateral war in Iran will need something to match the simplicity of the pro-war crowd.

Assuming you agree that a strike is a bad idea, the million dollar question is how you stop it from happening. In other words, what’s the appropriate political response to the war drums? It’s not an easy question – and frankly, it has me worried.

The virtue of the pro-war argument is its simplicity. They have nukes. They’re crazy. We’ll die. That’s not a hard message to understand. More critically, it’s not a hard message to communicate in the age of mass media.

Most Americans (sadly) don’t watch Jim Lehrer’s Newshour. Instead, they get their news in quick bites – a newsclip here, a headline there, a radio newsstory in between. As Karl Rove (to his credit) understands, there is a high premium on simplicity and repetition.

Here is a stab at what we need.

First, the two minute speech:

The idea of the U.S. essentially going it alone again and starting another war halfway around the world, in a country with a culture we do not understand, is the stupidest, most irresponsible thing anybody can possibly advocate. [DON’T MINCE WORDS – IT IS THAT – STUPID AND IRRESPONSIBLE -- AND IT SHOULD BE SAID]

With 150,000 troops, we cannot control Iraq – and Iran is four times bigger with three times the population. A smart general told Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld we would need 400,000 troops to maintain control over Iraq after we kicked out Saddam Hussain. They ignored him, and look at the mess they have created. We would need at least a million soldiers to do the job in Iran. Where does Mr/Ms Republican Rubber-Stamper propose we going to get the additional million soldiers to do it? And how long will they have to stay there to make sure a friendly government stays in power?

Even if Iran is lying about its intentions and is, in fact, working on developing a nuclear weapons capability, they are many years away from being able to succeed according to our most reliable intelligence sources. We must assume they are lying, and most of our fellow members of the Security Council in the UN believe they are lying. But let’s do the job in a smart, responsible way.
Even if Iran were to succeed, they will never nuke us because they know we will nuke them off the face of the earth if they do. Republicans are just using scare tactics when they say Iran will attack us. They will never nuke Israel either, for the same reason. Careful use of diplomacy, sanctions, actual force and the threat of force worked in the Cold War against a much more dangerous enemy than Iran. It will work now, too.

The major countries of the world, even if they disagree on tactics right now, are united on the objective of preventing more nuclear-weapons proliferation. We need to do this in a responsible way this time, working with the other major powers -- not play around trying to prove we are the toughest cowboys on the block as Mr/Ms Rubber Stamp Republican would prefer we do.

And here is a 30-second blurb:

The idea of the U.S. starting another war halfway around the world is a really stupid idea. With 150,000 troops, Bush can’t control Iraq – and Iran is four times bigger with three times the population. Where does Mr/Ms Rubber Stamp Republican propose to get the additional million soldiers we would need? We need to act responsibly this time, working with the other major powers -- not trying to prove we are the toughest cowboys on the block.

The one-sentence response that gets the point across:

Where is Mr/Ms Rubber-Stamp Republican going to get another million American soldiers for war with a country four times larger than Iraq, with three times the population?

The bumper-sticker:

No drafting my kid for another Republican war.