Drang Nach Osten: In Search of Lebensraum in Iran

It's the silly season again, when politicians turn lightly to thoughts of conquest. With the elections over, Angry Blondie sat down with the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, to talk about this year's current crop of invadable nations and what battles we can look forward to in the coming year.

AB: Welcome, Paul.

PW: Glad to be here, Blondie.


AB: Paul, you've taken some flak over the protracted fighting in Iraq. Would it be fair to say that after two years, the Coalition's massive military presence is finally making progress in imposing democracy on the various squabbling factions in a nation with a population the size of Delaware's?

PW: Excellent question and I'm glad you asked. Yes, we continue to make progress each month. There have been some bumps in the road, but we are very much on target. And remember that it took even Delaware several years to ratify the Constitution.

AB: Moving on, what's the deal with nukes in Iran? Hype, or red alert? One nuke or a dozen?

PW: Blondie, the situation there is much worse than what's being reported. I am privy to classified reports that suggest that not only does Iran have thermonuclear capability (fusion in addition to fission), but also missile technology that surpasses even our own. Iran not only has perfected MIRV (multiple targeted independent reentry vehicles) ballistic missiles, but also a stealth program that can evade even our tightest strategic defense technology.

AB: No shit?

PW: No shit. And this information is from a single reliable source.

AB: Well, what are our options?

PW: Very few. Diplomacy is obviously failing. Despite days of negotiations, the Iranians have failed to immediately disarm and in fact continue to insist on the right to self-defense in the face of peaceable overtures from the nonbelligerent state of Israel...

AB: ...which is also nuclear-armed?

PW: No, Blondie. The source who started that rumor is not reliable, and in fact has recently been re-jailed for this slander.

AB: So what's the solution? Some sort or region-wide peace initiative, or what?

PW: If peace were an option, we would have tried that already. Peace is obviously a flawed strategy, since it lasts only in the short-term. Our argument is that if we incrementally decrease the periods between wars, we can complete them sooner, with fewer troops, and in turn devote more resources to more creative weapons systems for the twenty-first century police state.

AB: Well, okay, I gotta ask this. How are the hotels in Tehran? Better than Baghdad's?

PW: Much better, Blondie. No liquor, unfortunately, but Tehran's accommodations are more on the level of, say, Macedonia's, and there would be no need for walled Green Zones. Iran's highway systems are in a good state of development, and the population is more homogeneous, which means a far less danger of the type of civil conflict that we experienced in, say, Clinton's invasion of Bosnia.

AB: What about Syria? Any possibilities there?

PW: Maybe, down the road. Right now, Syria is a fairly impoverished country with few resources, such as petroleum, which means that any invasion there would not be immediately cost-effective. But Syria has been tossed around as a possibility in the next season.

AB: Great. Let me know when boots are about to hit the ground. Any hopes that I can be embedded?

PW: Cats are always welcome in our reporter pool.

Well, there you have it--this season's military prospects, straight from the distinguished and congenial Paul Wolfowitz. Check back often as we follow up on what promises to be an exciting military season.