1952 comic predicts Bush/Cheny Iran policy

Tman3 04-1

(Click on image for enlargement)

Cartoonist and all-around seeker of unusual truths, Jay Kinney, says:

Attached is a page from T-Man comics #3 from 1952. I just happened upon it by chance and – Holy Smokes! – all was revealed. We can now grasp the origins of the Bush administration's foreign policy! It was all there in T-Man #3, 55 years ago! Perhaps Cheney read this comic in his youth and just bided his time until he was in a position to actualize it in real life.

Reader comment:

The Watchful Babbler says:

Incidentally, the plot of the comic, according to Wright's Comic Book Nation, is that the incident "was the work of a Soviet agent disguised as Trask, who is trying to poison relations between Iran and the West" — and, judging from the comic, between America and "old Europe" as well. Perhaps the real Dick Cheney will appear before the 2008 elections and defeat the al-Qa'ida mole who has been impersonating him for the past several years.

(N.B.: Wright inaccurately says that the 1951 comic was "obviously inspired by the recent overthrow of the anti-Western Mossadegh government in Iran," which is patently impossible: Musaddiq was appointed PM in mid-1951 to assuage public anti-colonial sentiment; TPAJAX didn't take place until two years after this comic was published. Instead, this story may reflect post-nationalization hopes that Western policies would, by their innate goodness, eventually win over nonaligned states under Soviet threat. Actually, doesn't that sound like modern neoconservative theory, too?)

Here's a scan of the entire comic.