“Yo, Blair,” President Bush began, as he buttered — bloobph bloobph — his crispy roll. “The irony is,” he continued as he — croonch cranch — bit right into it, “that if Syria would tell Hezbolla to stop this s***,” here the chewing — groonlp groonlp — kicks into high gear, “it would be over.” This remark proved to be a big ***. Immediately the eavesdropping reporters dashed off to report that the Prez was again getting in touch with his spiritual side, as when he famously said that Adam Clymer has “a soul.”
The giggle-fest surrounding the vulgarity missed the literary point that this was not a case of irony at all. If Syria has the power to stop Hezbollah, and “stopping them” includes the return of the missing soldiers, then we should certainly have Syria do that. If we cannot bend Syria to our will, then it really does not matter if Syria or Hezbollah itself pulls the strings. The usage did not *** its mark: there was no irony anywhere in the vicinity of the President’s idea.
Yet there is irony aplenty in the tale itself. Namely, it is ironic that all the commentary *** only the point of the lexical laxity while missing the fact that his actual idea is patently wrong at best and horribly dangerous at worst. The irony is that it is not in our interest for this to be over. When eliminating the excremental effect, one must consider also the incremental effect. Having this be over would leave us with a very large problem.
When we w***tle the issue of the current Israel-Hezbollah crisis down to its bark, we realize that its bite will be far worse in future. Once these goons have been vouchsafed the use of rockets that can strike the urban centers of a sovereign neighbor, whether by Syria or whomever, they have become a demon that must be exorcised from the region.
As long as they could strike only within the range of a bullet or a bomb or a Fourth of July bottle rocket, this could be largely contained by aggressive policing and the occasional assassination. Now they can attack a major city from the air, a situation that should never be abided as a given of daily life. The mind must reject the notion that such a status quo may exist. It simply cannot stand. Allowing such a capacity to survive, whether or not tempered by a Syrian veto, is raising a w***e flag that will cripple any effort to fashion a sane post-terrorism world.
Say Blair calls Assad tomorrow. Bashar, the optician, sees reason. He calls Nasrallah on the bunker hotline. Hassan has an epiphany, decides to be a fair sheik. He issues the order to restore order. Emissaries and janissaries rush ***her and t***her to notify the men in the field. Time to put away the toys. Polish those rockets, tuck them back in their improvised silos. Under the crib or the sand in the sandbox, whatever works.
W***her from there? Will things have improved one w***? We will be disarmed by the new rapprochement but Hezbollah will not disarm. On the contrary, they will rearm. The Iran corridor, the Syria pipeline, will teem again with deadly traffic. Even if a brief reprieve prevails, without rocketry whizzing overhead and innocent pedestrians ***, the silence will be laden with portent. “Restock” is an anagram for “rockets”; give them a breathing spell and how long before the next barrage?
So rather than it being “over,” we would have a new ordure. Things would be infinitely worse. The bad guys would be emboldened. They took their *** and remained standing. Their insane arrogation of the role of a national army would have withstood the scrutiny of the world, their atrocity w***ewashed. They will remain a quasi-legitimate fighting unit, chastened by the occasional Syrian phone call, moderated by the periodic cease-fire, but a respectable force on the international scene, permitted to steward a stable of long-range rockets.
Rich irony, rich indeed. The vulgarity of the language captures the attention but the superficiality of the thought escapes notice. The fact is that this ain’t over when it’s over. This has to be finished now. Olmert has assured the Israeli Knesset he intends to solve this problem once and for all, and the only rational policy is to give him our full backing. Not irony, but steel. They may have an earthy way of talking on Texas ranches, but they know the difference between the sound of metal on metal — kabrring kabrring — and the sound when the shovels *** — squoosh squoosh — the other substance.
