A modest offer

Uwe Reinhardt, the James Madison Professor of Political Economy at Princeton makes a bold suggestion in the Daily Princetonian:

Bomb Iceland!

In lieu of bombing Iran.

It is true that it'd be easier (easier still if the US had not broken its bilateral treaty with Iceland and abandoned its air base there), and it makes almost as much sense.
It'd probably be cheaper; at least in the short run.

But here is where he goes too far!

"If we unleashed Shock and Awe in Reykjavik, we would generously compensate Iceland to the tune of, say, 275 percent of that country's $14 billion 2006 GDP -- a mere trifle in our giant federal budget. Furthermore, we would build, at our expense, an exact pre-bombing replica of their pulverized city, albeit with 21stcentury American plumbing and electronics. Could any reasonable people resist such generosity? And even if Icelanders irrationally did, we would, as noted, have the troops to make the Icelandic people accept what's good for them. What could Syria do about it?"

Ok, 275% sounds attractive, could lead to a bit of income equalization after the recent boom in capital growthl
But:
"...rebuild.. with 21stcentury American plumbing and electronics"

WHAT?!
All right buddy, academic collegiality be dammed.
You are not saddling my family with American plumbing and electronics!!
What sort of backward savages do you think we are?
You break it, you replace it to our standard! It gets cold in Iceland, we need proper plumbing.
And Iceland's economy would be permanently crippled if restored with American grade cell coverage or broadband.
PLEASE.

Look, this is personal, I have, literally, thousands of cousins in Iceland (what can I say, my great-grandmothers were sturdy ladies), I will not have them condemned to American standards of living.
I made my choice, and I can live with it, but they should not have to suffer.

Oh, and no sneaking in with Halliburton or Bechtel and some imported US contractors.
You hire Icelandic primary contractors using Icelandic labour. You know, people who would actually get the reconstruction done, for a very modest markup, to Icelandic building codes.

PS: Matt - did you order "yellow cake" when you were in Iceland last week? (There can't have been that many foreigners with dark hair in Iceland last week, it was off season).
Can you straighten this out, please. Maybe someone at the Hoover Institution has contacts at the State Department.
The waitress: I think she was just doing some retro Björk inspired hairdo thing. Caused quite a scandal.

So, no deal.
Go pick on someone your own size!
Greenland has lots of bits to bomb, or if you want a challenge you could try the Faeroe Islands, they are almost as convenient, and, for a modest fee, we might let you lease back some landing rights at the air base.

UPDATE: the main paper in Iceland Mogginn, reported on this and triggered a blogswarm on blog.is (click on "Fleiri" under Bloggad box in top right corner)
and RUV - the Icelandic Broadcasting Corporation also took note.

Reaction is roughly equally divided between: "too funny", "funny, but, makes you think", and "would be funny, but I'm offended, went too far".
Interestingly the "not funny" crowd seem to be overwhelmingly conservatives. Not entirely, some people are earnest enough to find any humour about bombing to be in bad taste.

I particularly like the environmentalist who wants the Princeton Chancellor to formally apologise!

As I predicted, my cousin is not amused.
You do not want to piss off my cousins...