You remember the build-up to the Iraq war. Would that we could somehow erase it and the actual war from our history. But we can't. And, of course, one particularly memorable moment of rhetoric in that build-up came from Condoleezza Rice, then-President Bush's national security advisor. While the debate raged on about the ability to produce a "smoking gun" in the search for Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction (i.e., the ones we gave him to use against Iran, which were thusly used), it was Rice who raised the fear level to DefCom 1 by saying that "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
No, we don't, although we ought also to be careful about using loaded phrases like "mushroom cloud" as a quick and easy way of silencing debate. On the other hand, I read this during the past week, and it gave me a great deal of cause for pause, especially in the wake of Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress and Tom Cotton's letter to the Iranian government.
Much has been said in the media about both the speech and the letter, including the debate over the question about whether either or both constitute treason. An uneasy consensus exists that both go up to the line without quite crossing it, at least in terms of legal definitions. The author of the linked article from Blue Nation Review states that gets even closer to the line without crossing it.
And me?
I don't think we can say whether or not it crosses the line. And, for me, that might be the most disturbing part of all.
Netanyahu's speech and Cotton's letter, whatever else may be said about them, are complete acts in and of themselves, openly carried out. Whatever we think about them, we are in a position to fully evaluate both the acts and their consequences, actual and potential. The story involving Israeli espionage and Congress, on the other hand, is totally different.
What was the nature of the information that was shared? With whom was it shared? How was it used? Did it have consequences for any legislation or executive action apart from Iran? Was it used in any way for openly partisan purposes? And, finally, did the use of this information have any adverse consequences for the lives of American citizens, including their safety? These are only a few of the questions raised by the incomplete information that we have. But the potential for negative answers is bad enough.
And if the current leaders of Congress are now open to the use of receiving information from foreign governments for their political ends, we are sadly now free to ask about that as well. What other countries have been sharing information with them? What is the nature of that information? How was it obtained? What rights or interests have been compromised in the process. As the late Howard Baker would have asked, what did Congress know, and when did they know it? And, most importantly of all, how did they use it?
If you accept the likely Republican answer to all of these questions (which probably is something along the lines of "None of your business,") you may not have to worry about the death of American democracy, because you may have already killed it. If you do so in the wake of the long and documented GOP history of sabotaging American interests for short-term election gains, you may not face a mushroom cloud, but you will certainly face the judgment of history, as well as that of your children and grandchildren--and, perhaps, a higher Judgment still.
Have the Republicans gone over the line? I don't know. But none of us should take comfort in that lack of knowledge. And, certainly, none of us should be content to wait until going over the line means a mushroom cloud.
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