This...is...SPARTA!!!

Unfortunately this is not Sparta, because now the Persians are flexing balls with 2,000-km range missiles instead of giant gay guys with gold piercings.

Iran fired off some test-missiles, which the United States playfully refers to as "war games" (an oxymoron if I've ever heard one). Iran is pissed because Israel and the United States are threatening them. What's new, right?

This kinda shit fucking scares me. When the US fires off missiles and plays "war games" Top Gun-style, it's often simply because the US military budget looks like Scrooge McDuck's Money Bin, and our troops like to blow things up in their free time. But when other countries fire test missiles, it's because they wanna test to make sure they can effectively kill people. Either that or they want to show the world that they can effectively kill people.

And you know how the US responds when other countries demonstrate that they can effectively kill people? The same way a fat ex-high school football player reacts when someone in the bar gets tough with him: he attempts to smash them. So in this case, the most likely response of the US will be to aim missiles at various Iranian locations, ready to fire at the drop of a dime.

All it takes to ignite this situation is for a spy-plane to accidentally crash near an Iranian nuclear-weapons facility. We blame Iran for the crash and fire some missiles at them, and then they return the favor as aggressively as possible to prove their military might. All of a sudden we're looking at three simultaneous wars in the Middle East. Fan-fucking-tastic.

We do have one temporary saving grace, and for once (I can't believe I'm going to say this) it is George W. Bush. Normally, ol' Bush-bag would be so excited that a country in "the brown part of the world" was acting tough, he would get the party started early by intentionally crashing a US plane in Iran. But right now, Bushy's incredibly powerful laziness is preventing him from taking any action or making any public statements whatsoever. McCain responded immediately (kill 'em!), as did Obama (talk to them), and this seems to be plenty satisfactory for W-Douche. With his approval rating floating somewhere between "fuck you" and "go to hell", Bush-face is plenty comfortable kicking back and playing live Duck Hunt, and letting the presidential candidates respond to the situation. Considering that senators have zero executive power to go to war, McCain and Obama's responses are simply campaign rhetoric - what ifs.

Fortunately, George is so fully checked-out of his role as President, he likely isn't even aware of Iran's missile launches. Instead he's over in Japan "talking" with China's Hu Jintao about "Human Rights." Translation: Bush making sure he gets a front-row seat at the Olympics. http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-07-09-voa7.cfm

This means that, hopefully, the only US response will be to listen to McCain and Obama talk about how they would react to the current situation, until attention is diverted elsewhere - ultimately allowing tensions to dissipate. Quite similar to letting that ex-football player in the bar talk about how he would smash you, until some bachelorette party rolls in and everyone forgets about the whole thing.