And while our troops are doing what they can to set the record straight about what is going on in Iraq, Michael Ledeen is doing what he can to provoke war with Iran:
The current administration has maintained the pattern. Despite a considerable volume of criticism of the mullahs, and open warnings of undefined consequences if Iran did not become more cooperative, various American officials and the usual private emissaries have explored the possibilities of better relations.
In 2001 and early 2002 we negotiated the future of Afghanistan after the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban, and although some diplomats praised Iranian “cooperation,” military intelligence had hard evidence that the mullahs had sent killers into Afghanistan to attack our troops. Meetings were subsequently held with Iranian representatives in Geneva and Cyprus, and just last September, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asked Mr. Gonzales to try again. He returned to Tehran, and emerged empty-handed.
The current negotiations are thus part of a well-established pattern. If anything, there is far less reason for optimism than in the past, since our knowledge of Tehran’s war against us — notably in Iraq and Afghanistan — is broader and deeper than before. The Europeans’ failure to make any progress at all in their diplomatic efforts to convince Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons program should further convince an honest observer that the mullahs intend to build an atomic arsenal and use it against us and our allies.
As Jonathan Swift put it, you cannot reason a man out of something that he did not reason his way into. The Iranian war against the U.S. rests upon fanatical convictions, and Tehran has no interest in resolving it at a conference table.
I am sure we all love what Ledeen is proposing. What could go wrong if the greatest military in the world invades a foreign country and becomes an occupying force?
Slide
the stench of Michael Ledeen is all over those forged documents purporting to show that Iraq sought uranium from Niger. That apparently worked out so well that I he is now ginning up support for invading Iran. If he is going alphabetically through the Muslim world I would worry if I was Jordan right now.
grumpy realist
With what army, and how will we pay for it?
Unfortunately, the present-day Republicans never worry about things like this. Put it on the Chinese charge card again!
Slide
This from the Ledeen article:
this on the heels of Melanie’s comment, “you’ll look good in a burka” shows that the right’s cowardly fear of the Islamic world colors all of their judgments. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a New Yorker. I lived through 911. I am not sanguine about the very real dangers that Islamic fundamentalist pose to our country. But I do not think my wife will be forced to wear a Burka. Nor my daughter. Nor my granddaughters. Nor do I believe that Iran wants to dominate us or even entertain the thought that they could. They are not nearly as insane as the right wing has become in this country.
Fear is a terrible thing to live with. I almost feel sorry for the piss stained right that fears being dominated by third world countries that can’t even feed their people. Fear makes you do very stupid things (putting Japanese Americans in concentration camps, Joe McCarthy’s attack on the Army, calling US citizens enemy combatants). Invading Iraq was very stupid as the 1994 video of Dick Cheney suggests. Invading Iran would not only be stupid, it would be suicidal.
Walker
QFT.
ff11
This article is an interesting exercise in fiction and revisionist history.
I love where Leeden says Reagan sold arms to Iran because his ” deep personal concerns about the fate of the hostages drove the policy, and inverted the logical strategic order”.
Newsflash: There WERE no hostages once Reagan was in office!!!
Punchy
No Army; Air Force instead. Paid for, of course, with tax cuts. And loans from China.
grumpy realist
At some point, one stops trying to get the mule’s attention. I’m now feeling like my business partner: “All I want to know is when to go long, when to go short, and when to get out of the game.”
An attack on Iran–especially by these clowns, who have shown their scintillating brand of competence with Iraq–would be so mindboggingly stupid that I’m surprised they haven’t done it already. Do we really want to see what happens when the Straits of Hormuz get closed to shipping, oil goes to $200/bbl, and China shuts down the financial spigot? (Plus the Chinese go in and grab Taiwan, if they have any smarts.)
The real question is–does the business branch of the present Republican party have enough clout to haul these bozos back from the edge of the cliff? Everyone’s worried about the subprime meltdown. Ha. That is a gnat’s fart compared to the financial hurricane barrelling down on us if an attack on Iran goes through.
And after the whole system collapses, sure as anything, we’ll get someone bleating “but no one would have EXPECTED the financial system to go down….”
Bloody idiots.
jnfr
I’m quite sure Bush will take a whack at Iran before he goes. He believes it’s his destiny, and there is no future President he can trust to do what’s necessary.
calipygian
Ledeen got the subject and predicate of the last sentence wrong. It should have read:
Mr. Ledeen regrets any confusion.
Jinchi
He left out the part where Rumsfeld and Cheney started publicly planning to take their “regime change” band on a tour of the region.
Jinchi
Is Ledeen the ghost writer for Rudy Giuliani’s Foreign Affairs article?
looks an awful lot like
Pb
What do you expect from the guy whose blog is entitled “Faster, Please!”, and whose daughter, straight out of college, went to work for the CPA in Iraq, because she sent her resume to a conservative think-tank…
…so I’m sure that if we invade Iran, there will be even more amazing opportunities for Republicans to profit from further personal, social, political, and financial destruction at home and abroad…
Geoduck
As Punchy said above, we aren’t going to land-invade Iran. We’re going to bomb it to smithereens from the air, and we’ll probably use at least tactical nukes in the process.
dslak
I seriously hope this doesn’t happen, for the following reason
As I understand it, executive approval is needed for strategic bombing in which more than thirty casualties as collatoral damage are expected. I would hate to pin my hopes on George Bush’s mercy, for I fear that he has very little.
jake
Cue C. Rice: “No one could have possibly foreseen that the radiation from our tactical war heads would make Pakistan glow like NYC.” Plus, they’ll just say to our allies that get lit up that it’s Iran’s fault for being so naughty.
The fact Bush would have to sign off on this is what I would call NOT reassuring.
The Other Andrew
I’m fine with attacking Iran for their alleged involvement in the insurgency, so long as we also attack Saudi Arabia for their alleged involvement in the insurgency.
Tsulagi
Soon, in kind of a semi-slick, but not really, sort of way, Bush could argue he has another avenue of authority under which he could attack Iran without additional approval from Congress. Also, Iran could argue that we have declared war on them.
How would that work? Last week we announced we intend to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization. This WaPo article gives the story and notes that it’s unusual to designate an official state entity as a terrorist organization. They note the designation will be under an executive order that will enable economic sanctions.
But I thought the AUMF granted by Congress days after 9/11 gave the president broad authority to also go after designated terrorist organizations militarily. Checked DOJ and found this official opinion which contains…
Yeah, I know, a little bit of conspiracy type thinking on a Sunday afternoon. Not me, I have full faith the honor and integrity of my president would prevent him from looking for or taking advantage of unintended loopholes. Besides, what’s better than a single big-ass cup of hot, steaming Messopotamia? Two.
Ali
Ledeen belongs to a species of micobe known as neocon, which is to say that the lives of “Goyim”, whether Iranian or American, mean nothing to him.
TenguPhule
The only bright side about a US attack on Iran is that Bush administations officials lives won’t be worth shit once the Iranians turn their full attentions to them.
After all, it was the Bush administation that made political assassinations fair game between countries at war.
In his grave, Saddam is laughing.
Dave
…and the Dems will roll over and send us into this morass…
dslak
The Democrats have already gutted themselves. They were unable to pass a resolution that Bush obtain authorization from Congress before attacking Iran. In addition, if the Republican Guard is declared a terrorist organization, the Bush administration has a defensible legal argument that the Afghanistan and Iraq AUMFs are all the authorization needed.
Rather than roll over to allow it, the Democrats would have to actively push to prevent a war with Iran. Of course, by the time anyone who isn’t a political junkie or insider comes to care about the matter, the US will already be at war with Iran. At least if things don’t go so well, we can count on Democrats to tell us what a bad idea it was.
Jake
TenguPhule it won’t be the Iranians, it will be the Saudis, who are sure to be pissed when the neighborhood gets that much noisier and panicked Iraqis start stampeding across the border. I know, they don’t care for the Iranians but they know warfare is bad for business. And there won’t be any need to send in the hit squad. Just jack the price of oil up to $500 a barrel or shut off the flow completely and say its because they don’t want to ship oil through a war zone.
Assasination by economics.