After watching the whole Ahmadinejad frenzy chug along, it suddenly occurred to me that there’s an interesting little dimension to this debate that doesn’t get mentioned too often.

Stop and think about the treatment Ahmadinejad got while he was here. From the NY Daily News’ frantic declaration that he was Hitler to the “liberal media” making sure every pundit and anchor called him a crazy megalomaniac who should never have been allowed to speak at Columbia University nor visit Ground Zero, to CU president Bollinger standing there and attacking him face to face, the American anti-Iran machine took the visit as an opportunity to let its rhetoric boil over.

Much as they had on every other topic, 2008 GOP hopefuls played a game of one-upsmanship that culminated with Mitt Frickin’ Romney making an ad crowing about the fact that he sent a letter to the United Nations Secretary General calling for Ahmadinejad to be indicted under the Genocide Conventions over his claim to “wipe Israel off the map” that didn’t actually happen. No, I’m not kidding. He actually sent the damn letter.

Also amongst Mitt Frickin’ Romney’s reasons to throw Ahmadinejad in the gulag concerns his nuclear proliferation, which he says makes his threats against Israel “even more ominous”.

He’s got a point on that one. A country with a megalomaniacal leader who is seeking weapons of mass destruction and has expressed desires to instigate a war against another country? That’s insanity. If we knew such a country existed, it would be crazy not to do something about it!

…hm.

While Bush has been publicly soft on Iran lately, we know that wasn’t always the case. He did, after all, declare Iran to be a part of that “axis of evil” so many years ago. And he’s refused to meet with the leaders of Iran and Syria on multiple occasions. There is clearly hostility there.

Bush isn’t alone, though. It was recently revealed that Dick Cheney had this great idea to get a war between Israel and Iran going so there would be a pretext for attacking Iran. If that sounds slightly familiar, don’t worry, you’re not crazy. The echoes between that and Bush’s brilliant strategy to fly planes over Iraq painted in UN colors for the sheer purpose of getting Saddam to shoot them down is pretty clear.

Now you’d think that the media would recall how the whole issue went with Iraq, how Bush and the boys either distorted information or just plain lied to get support behind their plan. And yet, somehow, amazingly, unbelievably, they haven’t. I know it’s a cheap shot to go after FOX, but Robert Greenwald’s quick overview of FNC’s completely unhidden agenda to start a war with Iran is worth looking at anyway given the station’s popularity.

Even MSNBC joined in on the stupidity. Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan ruminated about how popular an initial strike against Iran would be with the American people (despite polls showing otherwise). It’s worth noting that Buchanan doesn’t say it’s a great idea, just that the groundwork for it appears to be in place and people might like it. He’s also right that recent polls suggest Americans think Iran is the most dangerous country in today’s world.

Then there’s those candidates. Mitt Frickin’ Romney had his “indict the guy!” letter, John McRage let out the infamous “bomb Iran” song, and Rudy Giuliani would almost certainly attack Iran because it fits in with his whole “9/11 is every day” charade.

For some reason we in America think that every other country pays extraordinarily close attention to our politics and our media. Remember back in 2001 when the government stopped American media stations from playing bin Laden’s tapes for fear that there were “coded messages” in them? Obviously the media is their ONLY method of communication, and it’s American TV.

The point is that we for some reason believe that other countries watch us very closely. If we do believe that, then it’s not a stretch to say that Iran would have to see the propaganda being launched against them. Remember Ahmadinejad was asked about the US march to war against Iran directly, and responded with a fairly limp “I don’t see it that way”. So he is, at the very least, aware of it.

The United States has the largest nuclear cache in the world. In the past year, a test entitled “Divine Strake” has been planned that could be a step toward nuclear “bunker busters”. No attempts are made to hide our military capabilities. We have more nukes than the rest of the world put together and don’t care who knows it. So we’re certainly capable of raining death upon whoever we feel like.

Our current leaders have made damning statements against Iran and taken secret steps toward initiating war with Iran. Meanwhile, candidates for future leadership attempt to one-up each other when it comes to being tough with Iran, and our media beats the drums of war almost constantly. America has the weapons to carry out the attack that pundits and politicians are practically frothing at the mouth for.

Iran is currently faced with a United States that is launching a campaign of war against them, and certainly has the ability to do so. The United States set a precedent that attacking another country against the world’s wishes based solely on a perceived threat is a justified action. Given that, wouldn’t Iran be just as justified in attacking us?

We accuse Iran of developing nuclear weapons. We have nuclear weapons.

We accuse Iran of wanting to attack America. We have attacked a sovereign nation and express desires to do so again.

We accuse Iran of arming our enemies. We are arming Israel.

If Iran had our weapons, had very recently started a war of aggression, was arming a neighbor that hated us, was secretly attempting to instigate us into a smaller war in order to justify a larger one, and their media was continually demonizing our leaders and propagandizing why they “need” to attack us… what would America do?