The Samson Option is terminology used to explain Israel‘s intention to use its nuclear arsenal as an ultimate defense strategy if its leaders feel threatened enough to think they have no alternative.  It comes from the biblical Samson said to have used his great strength to bring down the pillars of a Philistine temple, downing its roof and killing himself and thousands of Philistine tormentors.  It’s a strategy saying if you try killing me, we’ll all die together, or put another way, we’ll all go together when we go.  Richard Wagner had his apocalyptic version in the last of his four operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen – Gotterdammerung, or Twilight of the Gods based on Norse mythology referring to a prophesied war of the Gods resulting in the end of the world.

 

The Bush Doctrine isn’t that extreme, and it’s not the intent of this essay to suggest its unintended consequences may turn out that way even though the threat it may is real if they start firing off enough nukes like they’re king-sized hand grenades.  The Doctrine refers to the administration’s foreign policy first aired by George Bush in his commencement speech to the West Point graduating class in June, 2002.  It was later formalized in The National Security Strategy of September, 2002 and updated in more extreme form in early 2006 that makes for scary reading not recommended at bedtime.  It mentions Iran in it 16 times stating: “We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran” while failing to acknowledge what Pogo said about us on an Earth Day poster in 1970 and in a 1972 book titled – “We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us.”

 

The updated NSS details an “imperial grand strategy” with new language more belligerent than the original version that was intended to be a declaration of preemptive or preventive war against any country or force the administration claims threatens our national security.  It followed from our Nuclear Policy Review of December, 2001 claiming a unilateral right to declare and wage future wars using first strike nuclear weapons that in enough numbers potentially can destroy all planetary life, save maybe some resilient roaches and bacteria. In still other national security documents, the administration intends being ready by maintaining total control over all land, surface and sub-surface sea, air, space, electromagnetic spectrum and information systems with enough overwhelming power to defeat any potential challengers using all weapons in the arsenal, including those nukes masquerading as king-sized grenades.

 

The doctrine got its baptism in Afghanistan right after the 9/11 attacks and before the 2002 NSS was released.  It then played out in real time “shock and awe” force (without nukes) in Iraq that seemed to work like a charm until it didn’t.  That brings us to today and an administration feeling cornered by failure and needing to change the subject and get a victory in the face of major defeat or at least buy enough time to run out the clock on its tenure so a new administration can take over and deal with the mess left over.  It’ll be king-sized if the audible war drums now beating are for real.

 

Enter Iran to play dual roles for the Bush administration plus the same one always center stage when strategic resources are at stake.  It’s the designated target to pull George Bush’s Middle East fat out of the fire and fulfill our 28 year commitment to regime change in the country since its 1979 revolution ousted Shah Reza Pahlavi whom we installed to replace democratically elected prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 in the CIA’s first-ever go at regime change.  Those events began and ended the same way – violently, but if George Bush proceeds as he’s now threatening, they’ll  seem like tempest-in-teapot prologues to the main event ahead looking like full scale war large enough to engulf the whole region and entire Muslim world with it.

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