This sounds kinda familiar ...

Only now, it's apparently nuclear. Sy Hersh has a must-read article in the most recent New Yorker on Dear Leader's plans to bomb the crap out of yet another middle-eastern country starting with "I" (emphases mine):

There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ ”

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”[...]

The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at [the nuclear] option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. [...] “The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks,” the adviser said. “And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen.”

The adviser added, however, that the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons in such situations has gained support from the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel whose members are selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “They’re telling the Pentagon that we can build the B61 with more blast and less radiation,” he said.

Right. So how, exactly, does bombing and irradiating a country constitute "saving" it? Anyone who wants their "legacy" to be a country full of starving, homeless people with a massive cancer rate is, well, pretty seriously fucked up. But then we knew that already. Read the whole thing, or check out Mahablog's top-10 summary. And then go crawl under the bed where you'll feel safer.