Donald Pennington describes himself as a pacifist, and goes on to write this:

If only the people of Iran could see beyond the religious indoctrination of world domination for Allah, if only they could rise up and tell their cleric leaders “no.” Someday, let’s hope the world learns that war is unnecessary, before it’s too late.

Let’s hope that Pennington isn’t the one teaching this lesson, because he’s doing a terrible job. I am not a pacifist, but I fail to see how it helps the cause of preventing unnecessary war to endorse the most cartoonish stereotype of Iranians imaginable while repeating the most irresponsible alarmist nonsense about the likelihood of an Iranian attack on Israel. If I didn’t know better, I would think that this came from a Santorum campaign speech:

The idea of a militant theocracy attacking the Nation of Israel is but one or two steps removed from an attack on other Western nations, like the U.K., Germany or the United States of America.

The idea that Iran would launch an attack on Israel directly is the product of baseless over-hyping of the threat that Iran poses. It’s a ridiculous idea, and a self-proclaimed pacifist ought to be the first one to recognize that. Bizarrely, Pennington doesn’t attempt to argue that the American public should try to change its government’s policies. He hopes for a “diplomatic solution,” but has nothing whatever to say about how U.S. policies might be making that solution impossible. He sees that our government seems to be on a collision course with Iran, and his best advice is to resign ourselves to the inevitable.