A timely subject given the heat InstaGlenn’s been taking from the nutroots generally and Rick “Mad Dog” Ellensburg in particular for advocating assassinations of the Iranian leadership and their nuclear brigades. Moran’s got a long post about it and is worried about tit-for-tat reprisals against America’s own leaders, but that’s not something that should deter us with the stakes as high as they are. If killing person X would stop terrorists from building a nuclear weapon but lead them to threaten Bush, then you kill person X and take the consequences.

…Unless, that is, you believe there are worse options than terrorists having a nuclear weapon. Are there? Moran:

[A]nything we do to Iran will enormously complicate if not totally doom our efforts in Iraq. Fighting a Shia insurgency against our occupation along with war against the Sunnis and al-Qaeda would be a disaster. If Professor Reynolds believes that assassinations of the kind he is suggesting won’t set off the Shias in Iraq, he should read some recent speeches from al-Sadr where he warns against any American actions against Iran. And of course, the political situation – already tenuous – would go to hell in a handbasket. Forget about the Shias sharing power with the Sunnis or Kurds at all. In fact, that turn of events would make staying in Iraq a complete exercise in futility.

Never mind Iraq; what would killing Ahmadinejad do to Iran? What it’d probably do is cause an anti-western backlash that would entrench the leadership, which in turn would make it more likely that Khamenei’s successor is a radical, which would actually make the risk of regional and/or nuclear war more likely. The only way that’s worth chancing is if we knew, with confidence approaching certainty, that taking him or Khamenei or whoever out would destroy their nuke program. Otherwise it’s too much risk with too little reward. After all, why strike at the king if you don’t expect to kill him?

Nothing wrong with a little healthy fantasizing, though:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should “be made to disappear from the arena,” Meir Amit, a former director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, advocated in an exclusive interview with WND.

Amit, one of the most esteemed figures in the Israeli intelligence establishment, said while he was director of the Mossad from 1963 to 1968 he regularly argued against the assassination of world leaders. But he said the case of Ahmadinejad is different.

“Ahmadinejad is the pusher of all the Muslim world toward fanaticism and extremism. In his case, he should be made to disappear from the arena. He has said he wants to become a shahid, a martyr, so I think he should get his wish and be sent to heaven,” Amit said.

Exit question: “Heaven”?