MoveOn.org sent out an email with the subject line Don’t Nuke Iran to three million people on April 12. “There is one place where all of us can agree: Americans don’t support a pre-emptive nuclear attack on Iran, and Congress must act to prevent the president from launching one before it’s too late,” the message said. And: “Please take a moment to add your name to our petition to stop a nuclear attack on Iran.”
The petition’s two sentences only convey opposition to a “nuclear” attack on Iran: “Congress and President Bush must rule out attacking Iran with nuclear weapons. Even the threat of a nuclear attack eliminates some of the best options we have for diplomacy, and the consequences could be catastrophic.”
In MoveOn’s mass email letter, the only reference to a non-nuclear attack on Iran came in a solitary sentence without any followup: “Even a conventional attack would likely be a disaster.”
“Likely” be a disaster? Is there any U.S. military attack on Iran that plausibly would not be a disaster?
There’s no way around the conclusion that the signers of the letter (“Eli, Joan, Nita, Marika and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team”) chose to avoid committing themselves — and avoid devoting MoveOn resources — to categorical opposition to bombing Iran…
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