Iran, Sex, and the Weenie Conservative

Talking Points Media has a story on Republican Senators Kit Bond of Missouri and Jon Kyle of Arizona calling for "regime change" in Iran.

Of course, they don't actually want anything of the sort.

What the American right wants with Iran is a new round of tense brinksmanship. They want fierce denunciations of Iranian president Ahmadinejad, 24/7 chest-beating about the "Persian threat," and opportunities to snear at Iranian wimpiness. The right also wants an opportunity to talk about smart bombs, drones, and battlefield technology, use "bunker-busting" field nukes on Iranian facilities, and speculate about the inevitable Israeli attack.

For the weenies on the American right, all of this is about sex and the sexual satisfaction they derive from the denunciations, chest-beating, and weapons talk. In other words, talking about Iran has the same value for the guys on the right as porn or pro-wrestling (are they really that different?). Feminist legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon defines pornography as the "eroticizing of domination" and that's precisly what the right does with Iran. It eroticizes the specter of its own domination over the Iranians. If we ever did bomb the Iranians, millions of guys on the right would sigh happily and light up a cigarette in triumph.

But what would the right do after we bombed the Iranians. Kim Jong-Il is sick and I'm not sure Hugo Chavez would provide the same satisfaction.