Digg this
| 
Post to del.icio.us
| 
E-mail to a friend
Former CIA Middle East officer Robert Baer in Time:
"Strengthening the Administration's case for a strike on Iran, there's a belief among neo-cons that the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] is the one obstacle to a democratic and friendly Iran. They believe that if we were to get rid of the IRGC, the clerics would fall, and our thirty-years war with Iran over. It's another neo-con delusion, but still it informs White House thinking. And what do we do if just the opposite happens — a strike on Iran unifies Iranians behind the regime? An Administration official told me it's not even a consideration. 'IRGC IED's are a casus belli for this Administration. There will be an attack on Iran.'"
Somewhere along here the Bush administration has gone from wilfully ignorant to batshit crazy. The lesson going back at least to World War II is that bombing doesn't make the bombed population love the bombers, it unites them behind their leaders, no matter how evil.
Speaking of wilful ignorance, Rick Perlstein corrects some right-wing lies about Vietnam here. More here if you need a refresher course.
Of course, the spectacle of a right-wing president tying his foolish war to a liberal president's foolish war is bound to make one look around for alternatives. I have said, and will say, a lot of harsh things about dogmatic libertarianism, but one question libertarians -- unlike conservatives -- can be counted on to ask is, "Is this war really necessary?" The other day the Cato Institute's Jonathan Logan put it this way:
"President Bush's strategy for Iraq amounts to playing for time and hoping for a miracle. Bizarrely, the president has now invoked the Vietnam analogy in an effort to shore updomestic support for the war by reminding us that bad things happened after we left. This is true. It is also worth remembering that U.S. soldiers stopped dying after we left, and that the 'dominoes' that were to have fallen didn't fall. The United States won the Cold War just a decade and a half later. Our defeat in Vietnam did not prevent victory in the Cold War, and defeat in Iraq will not ensure defeat in the struggle against terrorism."
and otherwise. Recently updated blogs are in bold text.
But let's assume for a moment that Baer is correct, and we are about to bomb Iran. Why? Well, according to our anonymous official friend, because they are killing Americans and Iraqis in Iraq and we want the government to stop. Does this have anything to do with whether the Iranian population will love us or not? Not really, just as it really wasn't important to us that the German and Japanese people love us while we bombed them into oblivion...what was important were our war aims (the unconditional surrender of their governments). It seems to me that the case of Iran at the moment is similar...it would be nice if the Iranian people would rise up and overthrow the mullahs, but my guess is that even the dreaded neo-cons know this isn't happening any time soon and in the short-term we may hurt the opposition to the mullahs, but what is important at the moment is to change the Iranian governments behavior.
As for Rick Perlstein, I read all his posts and based on what he wrote I find him totally unconvincing. He basically doesn't refute a single claim made by Moyer's book (which, whether you agree or disagree with his thesis, is a serious work of history by a serious scholar) and he makes his own claims that seem debatable at best. Check out this post and comments for more detail on this debate, but I think it is unfair in the extreme to characterize "right-wing" interpretations of the Vietnam War as "lies" when the facts on the ground, so to speak, lend themselves to different honest interpretations:
http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/0...
JBP
Who is writing your headlines on the opening page of the Reader, Jan Schakowsky?
"a pathetic and suicidal excuse for a foreign policy" is the come-on for this one. Your point is sophmoric, sort of like listening to an irate 3rd grader, then reporting it as fact but at least it has a semblance of logic and persuasiveness.
You don't really claim pathteticism or suicide in your post, regardless of the claims of The Reader. You are getting more like the Financial Times everyday, with headlines not matching the accompanying story (although you have reduced the number of posts claiming global warming is linked to obesity, Survivor, Hearty Ales, Tyler Hicks etc)
JBP
As I understand it, the Cold War victory had more to do with the inherent unsoundness of the Soviet Union in dimensions economic and political, not just military. It's not all about who can beat up whom, although conservative power-worshipers don't seem to have outgrown that bit of juvenilia.
Jeff -- Given the pathetic and suicidal course followed by the Bush administration in Iraq, I don't think they deserve the benefit of the doubt in the matter of Iran. For heaven's sake, what evidence of "complex planning" do you detect in the Bushies' suppression of the State Department's planning for what to do when the war ended and the occupation began?
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson033107....
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my comments...you always have something smart to say and "The Reader" is lucky to have you.
"Americans still don’t quite know whether Woodrow Wilson was too soft or too hard on a beaten Germany after World War I — or whether the Versailles Treaty ensured the start of a second."
whether they know it or not, the answers to these aren't really in question. Wilson wanted to be easier on the Germans than the Allies ended up being; the Allies were too hard on the beaten Germans (reparations etc); the treaty undeniably ensured WWII. this is pretty much history 101 material.
Speaking of History 101, did you know that throughout the history of representative and democratic governments, the body politic (not the entire body, as I'm sure you know, there is such a thing as a "majority vote") has in fact, turned on a dime? Whether we look at Athens in the Pelopennisian War or Union opinion during the U.S. Civil War, opinion about the war quickly changed as the war results changed (here is another "faux reasonable pro-Bush" article for you discussing U.S. opinion during the Civil War: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzFjZjBjYjc1Y...). Perhaps the tide won't turn in Iraq and history will confirm Harold's analysis of the war as "pathetic and suicidal". I remain optimistic mainly because I believe in the cause...even if we end up losing I think it was right to end Saddam's tyranny. Others, certainly the majority of Americans at this moment, would disagree with my assessment, but some of these folks who disagree now might change their tune if we were to leave a stable and consensual government in Iraq that remains a U.S. ally against Islamic terror.
As for the Versailles Treaty, while it is undeniable that the suffering it caused the German people was exploited by Hitler and gang, it is also undeniable that the Allies could have taken steps to stop Hitler before war was inevitable (i.e. before the invasion of Poland). Knowing what we know now, who wouldn't support a "pre-emptive" strike against Germany once they announced they had an air force, that they were re-introducing military conscription, that they were re-occuping the demilitarized Rhineland, etc. And how does the Treaty lead to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor? I'm sure you are familiar with the Japanese attack since it is what actually started American involvement in WWII...History 101 material.
Hanson is a serious scholar who knows A LOT about warfare and history...he may get his analysis wrong from time to time but he usually knows what he is talking about. If you want to learn about some great Western battles and his theory of why the West has been so superior to other cultures waging war, I suggest you pick up his wonderful book "Carnage and Culture". I learned a lot from it and continue to learn a lot from his many books and articles on ancient Greek history and Western military history.
as far as the "turning on a dime" goes, i'm aware of these sea changes, but i think he makes them out as more unanimous than they generally are/were.
as far as Hitler goes, Versailles and the run-up to WWII are separate issues in my book--by the time the Nazis are really making moves, the treaty's damage is a fait accompli. on the other hand, i'm sure you know there's a whole school of thought that says "peace in our time" etc is Chamberlain taking the fall; the thinking goes that neither France nor the UK were capable of a preemptive strike, let alone a sustained campaign, at the time. i agree, with the benefit of hindsight, that their remilitarization should've begun earlier, but the notion is that it certainly began in earnest as soon as Chamberlain got back from his less-than-sincere "peace deal." (i'm not necessarily convinced of this, but it makes some sense.)
as to Pearl Harbor, all sorts of arguments could be made for its ultimate connection or non-connection to Versailles; but the fact is WWII is already well on by 1941. even excluding the Pacific theater it's def. a world war-level conflict by that point--and the Japanese of course were well into their own expansionist jaunt by then anyways. American engagement was just the cherry on the cake of what was already a global conflict.
i'll look into Hanson. obv. i disagree with him on this one but the breadth of his military-history knowledge seems considerable. and, as an amateur history geek, fun. thanks for the tip and the considered response.
Her attempted censorship of the National Academy of Science was a classic Soviet practice to halt any discussion that does not conform with the party platform.
JBP
The stem cell issue is pure quackery. Since embryonic stem cell research does not meet typical criteria for NSF/NIH funding, earmarks are doled out to accomplish the dual purpose of buying votes and tormenting the consistent part of the pro-life movement. Embryonic Stem Cell "research" is about as scientific as Senator Byrds highway research in West Virginia.
JBP