We hear a lot about "madmen" taking power in far-off lands -- most often lands with large oil reserves. A few pertinent questions: Has the White House lost its collective mind? Do the president and his minions believe that Americans can be stampeded into another needless war to save his party from the consequences of the catastrophe in Iraq? Is the Bush administration seriously thinking of bombing -- possibly nuking -- Iran for political purposes? Is it actually possible, as has been reported, that Bush believes himself to be on a divine, messianic mission?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then our democracy may be sleepwalking into its worst crisis since the Civil War. A "pre-emptive" strike on Iran, because it might hypothetically develop nuclear weapons five or 10 years hence, would be a naked act of aggression. Not to mention an offense against the U.S. Constitution. On what authority would Bush make war on a nation that played no role in Sept. 11, bears enmity toward Al Qaeda and has never seriously threatened to attack the United States? His own? God's?

So far, Iran hasn't even violated the nonproliferation treaty giving signatories the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful use. It boasts of purifying a small amount of uranium ore to the standard needed to generate electricity. Experts say Iran would need roughly 100 times its present refining capacity over several years to accumulate enough weapons-grade uranium to make a bomb. Despite the absurd and offensive posturing of its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- a demagogic politician playing to his own "base" -- no immediate danger exists.

Yet, many of the same keyboard commandos who orchestrated the propaganda campaign that drove the U.S. into Iraq are beating war drums. Scary "intelligence" claims again proliferate. The same geniuses that claimed to know the precise location of Iraq's nonexistent WMDs now warn us of Iran's double-secret arms programs. Full-page ads have appeared in newspapers in the United States and Europe conjuring the prospect of Iranian nuclear attacks against Israel and the West -- an entirely imaginary scenario.

The other day, President Bush, sounding like a Valley Girl, told a California audience he'd tried to avoid war with Iraq "diplomatically to the max" -- a falsehood so brazen it's almost tempting to fear he believes it. Given that British government documents portray Bush discussing with Prime Minister Tony Blair how to trick up a phony incident justifying an attack against Saddam Hussein in early 2003, it's reasonable to wonder what schemes he's conjuring now. He also credited "the Almighty" as the inspiration for his foreign policy.

At times like these, it's worthwhile recalling George Orwell's distinction between patriotism and nationalism. Orwell wrote the essay "Notes on Nationalism" in 1945, just as the most cataclysmic war in human history was ending in Europe. "By patriotism," he wrote, "I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world, but has no wish to force upon other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally."

Nationalism, as Orwell defined it, "is inseparable from the desire for power ... a nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige ... his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations." To him, it was "power hunger tempered by self-deception," a kind of moral insanity.

Presaging his masterpiece "1984," Orwell was most alarmed by the fervid nationalist's indifference to reality: "Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage -- torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians -- which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by 'our' side."

An interesting list under present circumstances, don't you think?

More recently, the eminent Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld has cautioned that hysterical warnings about this or that country -- Russia, China, Pakistan, India -- developing nuclear weapons have occurred regularly since Hiroshima. Yet the taboo against their actual use has held, partly because rational actors know that even "tactical" weapons Bush administration toughs fantasize about are upwards of 10 times more powerful than the A-bombs dropped on Japan. Also because, van Creveld makes clear, deterrence works. Israel, he writes "can quickly turn Tehran into a radioactive desert -- a fact of which Iranians are fully aware."

To violate that taboo would justifiably turn the United States into a pariah state. It would all but guarantee eventual retaliation in kind. Even a "conventional" bombing campaign against Iran would, at minimum, send world oil prices skyrocketing, with disastrous economic consequences.

Real patriots must prevent this madness from happening. The generals are speaking out. Where are the Democrats and the sane Republicans?

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons is a national magazine award winner and co-author of "The Hunting of the President" (St. Martin's Press, 2000). You can e-mail Lyons at genelyons2@sbcglobal.net.