by hilzoy
Busy busy busy. But NPR was very interesting today. On Fresh Air, Seymour Hersh was discussing his article on Iran. (Note: I do intend to write about this at some point, but reading it reduced me to speechlessness.) Two points seemed interesting to me. First, he said that he has heard that one of the reasons why the White House has been lobbying so hard against Ibrahim Jaafari becoming prime minister of Iraq is that were he to become prime minister, he would ask US troops to leave. That’s interesting. Another interesting thing about this remark: Hersh made it in response to Terri Gross’ asking what role Iraq was playing in the administration’s thinking. She seemed to me to be expecting an answer like: it hasn’t gone very well, admittedly, but here’s why they think Iran might be different. Instead, Hersh said this, and added that he could see why they might imagine that in the summer, trying to explain to the American people why, after all those dead troops and all that money, we were being asked to leave, they might regard Iraq as politically attractive. It was about the last answer to Gross’ question that I expected.
At the end of the interview, she asked him whether he had any concluding thoughts. It seemed like a throwaway question, but Hersh said: yes. At no point in the hundreds of conversations I had about this did anyone suggest that we had made any official estimates of the Iranian civilian casualties that would result from a bombing campaign, and that he thought that was dreadful. I agree.
It was a very interesting interview with one of the best reporters currently working, and well worth listening to.
Earlier in the morning, I heard Gen. Anthony Zinni on the Dianne Rehm show. He described one occasion, in the 90s, when he was opposed to the Iraq Liberation Act and the support of Ahmed Chalabi, and William Cohen, who was then Secretary of Defense, and who disagreed with him, nonetheless brought him personally to meet with various Congressional leaders on the grounds that they ought to hear what Zinni had to say. I thought: yes, that’s exactly what people who were concerned with the good of the country, as opposed to winning at any cost, would do: they would bring people who disagreed with them, but whose views they respected, to meet with decision-makers, in order to be sure that they heard both sides of the story. It’s also what anyone who respected Congress as an equal branch of government would do.
I sometimes worry that we will get used to the levels of mendacity that we’ve seen from this administration: that we will stop remembering that it is not normal for administrations to lie to Congress on a regular basis, to suppress all dissenting points of view, or to try to game the system so that their preferred outcome prevails. Some of this, I imagine, always happens; but I think we should never forget that it has not always been the norm, and we should never, ever get used to it.
Final, utterly unrelated note: does anyone here know anything about radon? Specifically, if the EPA standard is 4, and one’s reading is 4.1, and it was very stormy, and barometric pressure drives up radon readings, should one worry?
Otherwise, open thread.
should one worry?
Only if you’re predisposed to that behavior. Over 20 I would install a radon system. 4.1, just open the basement windows occasionally.
4.1 where? And stormy usually means low barometric.
Tim: in the basement. And I should have said: low barometric pressure drives up radon readings.
Happy Jack: mercifully, I’m not predisposed to worry. My thought was: test it over a longer period; then take steps as needed. Before then, worry about installing central air.
after all those dead troops and all that money, we were being asked to leave, they might regard Iraq as politically attractive.
You intended ‘Iran’ here, yes? Because as is, it’s not only an unexpected but incoherent answer of Hersh’s.
“Like I said, we may not be able to stop our march toward destruction. But we can at least have some fun with it as we swirl down history’s drain.” …Josh Marshall. You think he is kidding?
I have pasting links on Iran for days. Lindsey at Majikthise has a few. Billmon of Whiskey Bar and Arthur Silber of Once Upon a Time have excellent articles. Yglesias at TPM has several posts. Clemons and Rosen and Firedoglake. I am just tired and depressed. Gonna watch my Mav’s.
I have always expected these guys to go nuclear. A certain part of the right has had har**ns for nukes since I was born. They wanted to use them in to prevent the USSR from becoming a power, in Korea, during the Cuban Missle Crisis, in Vietnam. Really big guns for little men.
We had to keep them out of power, or gotten them out after 9/11, at any cost. Any cost.
Storms suck?
I’d say ventilate your basement. Maybe better: paint your basement walls with a good sealant. Radon seeps in; if the basement is sealed, less will seep in. Radon’s also heavier than air, so it’ll tend to collect in the basement unless disturbed.
And that’s probably more than I know about radon.
“First, he said that he has heard that one of the reasons why the White House has been lobbying so hard against Ibrahim Jaafari becoming prime minister of Iraq is that were he to become prime minister, he would ask US troops to leave. That’s interesting.”
Um, since Jaafari has made about a million statements on this, for months, I’m at a bit of a loss as to where the news is there. Although what he’s said is that there should be a timetable, leaving vague what the timetable should be, last I looked; but that this was one of the conditions laid down by Moktada Sadr to get Jaafari his votes has been endlessly written about.
Now, is that a primary reason the Admin is against Jaafari? I couldn’t possibly say today; could be, but the fact that Jaafari is, by everyone’s account, a nice incompent, under whom Iraq is rapidly disappearing down the drain, and that with him there, Jafr remains as Interior Minister, and the Shiite death squads go on — see “drain” again — certainly seems sufficient explanation.
Not that I don’t believe that the Admin wants long-term bases, since I do believe that.
“I sometimes worry that we will get used to the levels of mendacity that we’ve seen from this administration: that we will stop remembering that it is not normal for administrations to lie to Congress on a regular basis, to suppress all dissenting points of view, or to try to game the system so that their preferred outcome prevails.”
I don’t worry about it sometimes; I either worry about it all the time, except when I’ve given up in despair.
My most recent lengthy post about Iran was here a couple of days ago, though with another couple of links snuck in at the bottom of this.
There have been more stories today both on the alarmist side, and on the knock-down, no, it’s just to wave a stick at Iran, side; I haven’t blogged them because in the last couple of days, everyone has been writing about Iran, and it would be redundant until there are more facts, less speculation, to discuss. Mostly everyone is just repeating themselves, or someone else, now. Arkin continues to be someone to read, among many others, this week.
4.1 in the basement. What HJ said. A small vent should do it.
More generals.
And since it’s an open thread, has everyone seen the weirdest USB devices?
And it’s not just George’s poll numbers that are falling.
Spying on teh gay.
And so on and so forth.
“Arkin continues to be someone to read, among many others, this week.”
I have been studying Arkin as if I were going for a oral exam on Friday. Seems intensely cryptic this week. Some blogger had a comment on Arkin, I forget who, along the lines:”OK, they got plans Bill, but what are they going to do?”
“I’ve asked in these pages whether the situation has reached some “tipping point,” some point of no return like in 2002 when war with Iraq was inevitable. The answer, I believe, is absolutely not.” …Arkin, 4/10
But:”A war with Iran started purposefully or by accident, will be a mess. What is happening now though is not just an administration prudently preparing for the unfortunate against an aggressive and crazed state, it is also aggressive and crazed, driven by groupthink and a closed circle of bears.” …Arkin, also 4/10
So what is going on here? The various plans are a little interesting, but…well, if I may just make stuff up. Arkin is telling us in great detail that he has terrific sources inside the Pentagon, that war is not yet inevitable, and the WH and Pentagon civilians want to blow up Iran a lot.
Answer:The Military is trying their best to stop this war, or at least minimize the damage. This obviously must be handled very carefully and quietly. I have no idea how heavy the situation at the Pentagon is, or could get.
Note:Tacitus wrote a post about Newbold this week that emphasized the dangers of officers not unquestioningly obeying their civilian masters. Retired Gen Newbold was not all subtle when he started his piece with “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”, nor as to what war he was really talking about, or who he was talking to. The left blogosphere who complained:”Now he tells us” really didn’t get it.
Yeah, yeah, I should link this stuff. I’ll do it tomorrow. Here’s Arkin
“Instead, Hersh said this, and added that he could see why they might imagine that in the summer, trying to explain to the American people why, after all those dead troops and all that money, we were being asked to leave, they might regard Iraq as politically attractive. It was about the last answer to Gross’ question that I expected”
I think you meant to say “Iran”
Hey, don’t miss the Pseudo-Academic Celebrity Death Match on C-SPAN this weekend!
American Perspectives
Debate Between David Horowitz & Ward Churchill
C-SPAN, Sat. Apr. 15, 8pm ET
Think of it as it as the political equivalent of an electron-positron annihilation. Two high-energy but lightweight entities collide…and the sparks fly.
“Two high-energy but lightweight entities collide…and the sparks fly.”
Or, in human terms, two unbelievably immense assholes, neither of whom is worth listening to, collide.
Or more like: I’d run a thousand miles away at a thousand miles an hour to avoid having to listen to either, ever again.
In particle terms, it would be as if two anti-particles colliding somehow produce nothingness of a thousand times their previous mass.
The sum of their parts is stunningly a thousand times less than their complete worthlessness when apart.
Something like that. IMNHO.
Or, in human terms, two unbelievably immense assholes, neither of whom is worth listening to, collide.
Sounds like that was the consensus.
More on why anyone not supporting SCIRI or the Badr Brigades wants Jaafari gone.
“Sounds like that was the consensus.”
I live in Boulder; I’m in danger of running into Churchill walking down the street; he’s been on local tv news far too much, though fortunately not lately, and i tend to mostly avoid local tv news, anyway. And Horowitz, well, the planet is too small to want to be on the same one he’s on.
Two schmuckier representatives of their whatevers, I can’t imagine, outside of — well, I’d be insulting college freshman if I pointed to them as a class.
On Ye Other Hande, Churchill, for all his immense dislikeability, did completely pwn Sean Hannity on his show the other day. If you’ve not read the transcript, please do so. Between the three them — Hannity, Horowitz and Churchill — it’s like this critical mass of smugness and jerkosity.
I saw Charlie Rose last night: guests Gary Sick and Joseph Circincione were quite coherent. One thing that struck me is their view that a powerful faction in DC thinks the Iranian government is tottering, and only needs a small push. Neither guest thought this remotely plausible, but as we all know, we’re talking about people for whom reality is just another possible interpretation.
My own view is that talking about nukes is designed to keep Bubba on board — no more mollycoddling of ragheads this time, we’re going to get in there and really shock and awe everyone.
hilzoy,
I agree with prior comments on radon. It’s massively overhyped, and the easiest way to cure it is ventilation. At your level, opening the windows one afternoon a month should keep it to acceptable levels.
And I think Gary hit the nail on the head better than Hersh on why us being asked to leave is anathema to the Administration — if we are asked to leave, we don’t get to keep our well-fortified new bases.
Hilzoy, given your experiences in Turkey, you might possibly find these pictures and brief travelogue of Michael Totten’s through Turkish Kurdistan sad but perhaps interesting.
Dantheman: “And I think Gary hit the nail….”
Much as I’d prefer to agree (although I’d hope I used a hammer; my karate isn’t that good, and just using my hand, I’d be all with the owie; let’s not discuss results of my using other body parts), I’m neutral at best on whether that’s why the U.S. wants Jaafari out; you kinda got that backwards, I’m afraid. I said I do believe that the U.S. wants to retain bases, absolutely, but I don’t know that that’s the primary reason for opposing Jaafari; etc.
Gary: oh dear God.
The civil war was ongoing when I was there, but the huge campaign to raze villages had, I think, not gotten to full steam. As a result, most places were basically normal, as long as: (a) the army did not appear; (b) no one said anything inflammatory (and the boundaries of ‘inflammatory’ were expansive); (c) no one in any other way brought the civil war down on them. The army, of course, didn’t need to be ‘brought down’, it just appeared, and did awful things when it did. People were randomly swept up and tortured. — And there were places, notably Hakkari, where the army was always there, and there was a constant undercurrent of suspicion: anyone you met might be an informant, and if they weren’t, they’d be wondering if you were.
And of course no one actually needed a reason to throw anyone in jail.
But for all that, when the army wasn’t around and people didn’t cause trouble, things had some semblance of normalcy.
Those pictures break my heart.
“Those pictures break my heart.”
Yeah, sorry about that. They’re quite awful, but I thought you might want to see/know, anyway. Hope that wasn’t a bad call.
I found the other two installments of Michael’s excursion also of interest, and less sad, by the way.
Michael tends to take a lot of crap because he’s not remotely right enough for the right bloggers, and not remotely left enough for the left bloggers, and sometimes I agree with some criticisms of him, myself; at times he does have a tendency to overly split-the-difference.
But more than not I tend to find that he gets more crap and dismissal than he proportionally deserves. I found myself almost wary when checking his current front page, which I’d not done in at least a couple of weeks, but actually it’s all pretty interesting, with more links to more on his visit to Hezbollah in Beirut than I’d seen before. So you might find his other current posts and links also of interest. The account of running through Troy is a bit odd, but the picture of the sea castle is impressive.
This hersh article is totally non-news. We’ve had contingency planning against Iran since 1979. The only enlightening thing in the Hersh article is that we are currently updating our plans. So what? Planning does not equal intent. The military is required to create these kinds of plans by law. We have current contingency plans against Russia for many different possible scenarios – including nuclear plans. Does that mean we are about to attack Russia? Of course not.
There are many many legitimate reasons we are not supporting Jaafari – I would think that him asking us to leave is near the bottom of the list. He’s a thug who has proven that he’s in the pocket of the radical shiites.
Incidentally, Hilzoy, although you’ve done a number of posts on the Bush Admin vs. 4th Amendment issues, I don’t know if you’ve been, given your busyness, following Hepting vs. AT&T. (I always enjoy it when the NY Times digs up info (on Narus) after I’ve already found it, and then they give less detail than I did, not that it wasn’t available to anyone with web access.)
“Planning does not equal intent.”
Yes and no. I am (present tense) a supporter of staying in Iraq, but I am fully (oh too fully) aware that Bush has completely screwed things up. Having seen his ‘work’ in Iraq I can’t support an invasion of Iran. (Actually I wouldn’t have anyway, Iran being a very different case historically compared to a Saddam-led Iraq). But considering Bush’s history, it isn’t immediately obvious that he isn’t thinking about it–in the way the Russia case is obvious.
Coupled with the fact that the international community isn’t going to do anything substantial to stop Iran from getting nuclear bombs I don’t see good things happening in the Middle East in the next decade. When Iran bombs Tel Aviv and Haifa, destroying almost 2/3 of the population of Israel with two bombs, and then Israel responds in a death strike destroying multiple cities in Iran, what happens next? I don’t know, but I absolutely guarantee it won’t be a good thing.
I think even the Bubbas (maybe especially the Bubbas; you just never know) can recognize that shock and awe was demonstrated the last time we engaged another army. Possibly, too, they’re aware that if you shock and awe an entire population, a whole lot more people get dead.
If you’re suggesting that the Bubbas are rooting for more carnage next time, you’re tapped into a vein of Bubba-hood that I haven’t seen. As if that means anything, granted.
If you’re suggesting that the Bubbas are rooting for more carnage next time, you’re tapped into a vein of Bubba-hood that I haven’t seen.
i haven’t noticed a lot of complaints from the Bubbas about the numbers of Iraqis we’ve killed so far. and yes, i know that’s not the same as rooting for more.
I sometimes worry that we will get used to the levels of mendacity that we’ve seen from this administration: that we will stop remembering that it is not normal for administrations to lie to Congress on a regular basis, to suppress all dissenting points of view, or to try to game the system so that their preferred outcome prevails.
The Bush admin must be pretty imcompetant in their quest to “suppress all dissenting points of view” since NPR and the Bill Moyers Network, still exist and are paid in part by taxpayer money. Not to mention ABC, CBS, NBC, Newsweek, Time, AOL, various major newspapers, that are 90% negative towards to any and all Bush policies. Social Security reform discussion was suppressed by the major media, for instance. Seen Mark Steyn’s take on Iran in major media? Not too likely.
Oh, and isn’t “to try to game the system so that their preferred outcome prevails” politicians’ job description?
Have you ever seen anything like Michael Yon or Michael Totten’s reporting from the Kurdish part of Iraq on the evening news or a magazine? If not, and I’ve never seen it, what is the reason? Is is that Bush is suppressing this information or could it possibly be the top honchos in major media? (Think in terms of Ted Turner’s comments on the state of affairs in North Korea here.)
DaveC: Social Security reform discussion was suppressed by the major media, for instance.
And not by the President who refused to have anyone in the room with him to “discuss” social security who wasn’t already a Bush supporter?
Hilzoy: I sometimes worry that we will get used to the levels of mendacity that we’ve seen from this administration: that we will stop remembering that it is not normal for administrations to lie to Congress on a regular basis, to suppress all dissenting points of view, or to try to game the system so that their preferred outcome prevails.
DaveC: Oh, and isn’t “to try to game the system so that their preferred outcome prevails” politicians’ job description?
Too late, Hilzoy. At least as far as the DaveCs of the US are concerned…
I haven’t yet seen a really good liberal approach to the Iran problem. I don’t have one, and I can’t really formulate one that doesn’t start with not screwing the pooch in Iraq, which may be a little too little too late.
Iran is run my messianic loonies who are dedicated to getting nukes, and they are about five years away from that goal. A nuclear armed theocratic oil state with declared intentions to nuke Israel and relentless hostility to the United States seems to me sufficiently bad for the US and the world that preemption is justified if no other good options exist. That said, I don’t know of any good options that don’t involve counterfactuals or outright fantasy.
“The Bush admin must be pretty imcompetant in their quest to ‘suppress all dissenting points of view’ since NPR and the Bill Moyers Network, still exist and are paid in part by taxpayer money.”
DaveC, the assertion is about people still working within the military/governmental establishment.
What’s your explanation for implicitly calling Maj. Gen. John Batiste, Gen. Anthony Zinni, Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson, Maj. Gen. John Riggs, Lieut. General Greg Newbold, and so many other officers liars? Should we believe you over them based on your greater military experience as a general under Sec. Rumsfeld? Or why?
Incidentally, Bill Moyers isn’t actually on PBS any more. But let’s not let facts get in the way of what we’d like to believe, because the truth is scary and unpleasant.
“Have you ever seen anything like Michael Yon or Michael Totten’s reporting from the Kurdish part of Iraq on the evening news or a magazine?”
Sure. How about ABC’s program to find positive news about Iraq to broadcast, based upon viewer suggestions?
Oh, wait, right-wing blogs haven’t written about it? Maybe that’s their commitment to only finding negative news… about the “MSM”?
“Seen Mark Steyn’s take on Iran in major media? Not too likely.”
Has the Internet been broken? Not too likely. The suppressors of Mark Steyn must be pretty incompetant in their quest to suppress him, eh?
“If not, and I’ve never seen it, what is the reason?”
Because you don’t read that much? Would you like a list of cites of Michael Yon appearing in the “MSM”? I don’t have Nexis access, so that would be easier for someone who does, but I’ve read many dozens of pieces by him in the dread MSM. You. Are. Flat. Wrong. And a Nexis search should show hundreds of cites of him.
Ask him yourself. Or say this list doesn’t exist. Let’s see, he’s in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Seattle Times, Good Morning, America, Boston Herald, Detroit News, NY Post, AP, yeah, he’s really suppressed, all right.
And I’ve read countless MSM pieces by Mike Totten. Ask him if he’s had any problem selling pieces because The MSM Doesn’t Want His POV. Go on, ask him. I just frigging linked to a piece by him a couple of comments ago.
Hey, I have an idea! Let’s quote which Michael Yon has to say about being censored from a few days ago, why don’t we?
here:
That’s how Michael Yon backs you up, DaveC. And I just cited and linked to our combat leaders on Iraq and Bush/Rumsfeld’s leadership.
Want to talk Iraqi bloggers again?
I think the liberal approach is to destroy Iran if they try to attack Israel. Worked pretty well with Russia.
By the way, DaveC, if you know anyone who could help me get my views as suppressed by the MainStream Media as badly as Steyn and Yon and Mike Totten are, I’d really appreciate it. I could use the visibility and cash.
I’ll settle for one tenth of any of their’s, though.
“Social Security reform discussion was suppressed by the major media, for instance.”
I missed that line. If you check Nexis, you’ll find thousands of major media articles on Bush’s proposals. Thousands.
Saying otherwise is just insane. It has no connection to reality. The subject was discussed up and down the wazoo last year in every newspaper, news magazine, and tv and radio news show in America. This is just undeniable fact. I don’t know what to say to a denial of reality that claims otherwise. It’s simple checkable fact. It’s not a matter of opinion. Fact. Checkable. Provable.
As for Mark Steyn on (inter alia) Iran, does the Chicago Sun-Times count as “major media”?
“I think the liberal approach is to destroy Iran if they try to attack Israel.”
Ok, so just for the record, you are all ok with counter-genocide? Im not totally sure I’m even that ruthless.
Even presuming the threat is real (which I don’t think is obvious) there is an additional wrinkle which could make things worse. Iran might have some leaders who believe that Allah will protect them. (Think about some of the things Bush says and worrisome you find them and then realize that the mullahs actually are in a theocratic government before you pooh-pooh this idea).
What DaveC is on about is that Steyn’s column was dropped recently by both the British Sunday Telegraph and the Spectator.
Everyone come see the inherent repression of the system!
Of course, columns are dropped by publications all the time. Steyn’s currently being oppressed by appearing in the Atlantic, Chicago Sun-Times, San Diego Times-Union, NY Sun, Irish Times, Richmond Times Dispatch, Washington Times, New Criterion, Jerusalem Post, Irish Times, and so on and so forth.
Come see the repression inherent in the system.
I’ll wait for DaveC to decry the awful censorship of Robert Scheer being dropped by the LA Times, and Michael Kinsley’s being canned by them, or of a jillion similar cases I can name of non-right-wing people getting dropped by some publication.
It’s just awful how these right-wing folks are so oppressed by being published in so many prominent places. As I said, please, please, please, brer Rabbit, oppress me like that.
“San Diego Times-Union”
What is that? I know I don’t read the local paper but I don’t recognize the name. Is that the Union-Tribune?
Steyn:
Though we must scratch the Sunday Telegraph and the Spectator, it’s just horrible how he’s being suppressed!
Incidentally, need I point out that the Spectator is as far-right a publication as it gets in Britain without being an organ of the fascist press, and the Telegraph is known as the “Torygraph”?
DaveC’s complaint is that the most right-wing publications in Britain are… secretly controlled by the left?
Well, it makes as much sense as anything else’s he’s said.
“Is that the Union-Tribune?”
Yes. Sorry, I bobbled.
Sebastian,
“”I think the liberal approach is to destroy Iran if they try to attack Israel.”
Ok, so just for the record, you are all ok with counter-genocide?”
I am pretty sure that there are ways of destroying a government short of committing genocide on its people. For example, we destroyed Germany and Japan in WWII without killing off the German and Japanese peoples.
“Iran might have some leaders who believe that Allah will protect them. (Think about some of the things Bush says and worrisome you find them and then realize that the mullahs actually are in a theocratic government before you pooh-pooh this idea).”
I’ll admit they have a 25 year head start on this country in that regard.
Ok, so just for the record, you are all ok with counter-genocide? Im not totally sure I’m even that ruthless.
It’s only my opinion, but I’m completely comfortable with destruction being visited on any country that uses nukes unprovoked. Whether it would have to be genocide is doubtful; the important part would be to guarantee the utter destruction of anyone in the country resembling a leader. The one thing I am sure about is that the 50 or 60 year olds who end up making the decisions in any large organization, be it a government, religion, corporation, or what have you, are not suicidally messianic. They might be perfectly willing for millions of other people to die, but they will not risk their own privilege for ideology, let alone their lives. You just have to make it clear to them who’s going to get it. If you have some historical case where this actually happened, I would be interested to hear about it.
I’m trying to wrap my head around the “Iran is run [by] messianic loonies” argument. It’s one that I see pop up a lot these days, and it seems truly unhelpful.
From the reading I’ve done, Khomeini revived a submerged version of apocalyptic Shi’ism in order to whip up revolutionary fervor and to legitimize his power. However, he then had to establish a government that would survive him, so he had to temper the acocalyptic promise with the legitimacy and continuity of juridical rule.
Those two visions of Shi’ism are remain in tension today and could maybe (maybe) be personified by Ahmadinejad and Khamenei. But there are other pressure groups within the government, like the corrupt pragmatist Rafsanjani who seems to remain a pivotal decision-maker and influence-broker.
Ahmadinejad’s public statements are, sure, deeply wierd and troubling, but the moment we all accept that the “Iranian regime” is just nuts, that it will act suicidally, that it responds irrationally by any measure, then we’ve basically accepted military strikes. If we don’t accept the above, then we might be willing to think about carrots and sticks that would make sense to factions within the Iranian goverment that could be empowered…
[Long outburst! But I keep seeing this argument in various forms: “Look! Irrational, suicidal Twelver Shi’ism! We must bomb!”]
“They might be perfectly willing for millions of other people to die, but they will not risk their own privilege for ideology, let alone their lives. You just have to make it clear to them who’s going to get it. If you have some historical case where this actually happened, I would be interested to hear about it.”
Oh look Godwin’s Law…..
🙂
“Ahmadinejad’s public statements are, sure, deeply wierd and troubling, but the moment we all accept that the “Iranian regime” is just nuts, that it will act suicidally, that it responds irrationally by any measure, then we’ve basically accepted military strikes. If we don’t accept the above, then we might be willing to think about carrots and sticks that would make sense to factions within the Iranian goverment that could be empowered…”
I don’t like the post-modernist sound of this paragraph. The important part is not whether we accept the above, the important part is whether or not it is true. If it is not true, great. It if is, not so good. But what we accept about it will only dictate whether or not we are realistically dealing with the true things. It doesn’t change what the true things are.
That said, we should investigate the truth of the matter. You write:
“But there are other pressure groups within the government, like the corrupt pragmatist Rafsanjani who seems to remain a pivotal decision-maker and influence-broker.”
Since he is the one who said the following 3 months after 9/11 you may officially put me in the “not relieved to hear he is a pivotal decision maker and influence-broker” group:
Of course he is wrong. It would take 2 nuclear bombs.
“For example, we destroyed Germany and Japan in WWII without killing off the German and Japanese peoples.”
Just to be quibbly, if somehow in some alternative universe Japan and Germany had been peaceful, and we (America, Britain, Soviet Union, and allies) had launched unprovoked attacks on those two countries and their possessions and armies and civilians, and did the same amount of damage and killing that we did in our reality, there’s no doubt that we’d meet most definitions of attempted genocide even by the time we’d stopped.
Similarly it would not be unfair to make similar claims in regard to German behavior towards the untermenschen of the East, the Slavs, and the Japanese towards the Chinese.
All the numbers are quite appalling, after all.
“The one thing I am sure about is that the 50 or 60 year olds who end up making the decisions in any large organization, be it a government, religion, corporation, or what have you, are not suicidally messianic. They might be perfectly willing for millions of other people to die, but they will not risk their own privilege for ideology, let alone their lives. You just have to make it clear to them who’s going to get it. If you have some historical case where this actually happened, I would be interested to hear about it.”
Happy to oblige. Masada. Significant parts of the Japanese High Command and innumerable followers. Hitler and Goebbels and a smattering of their followers. Ahmed Yassin. Abdel Aziz Rantisi. Abdullah Qawasmeh. Samson. Jim Jones. David Koresh. The leaders of the Solar Temple.
The “Ten Commandments of God” sect.
One can go on. And on. HTH. HAND.
there’s no doubt that we’d meet most definitions of attempted genocide even by the time we’d stopped.
But we don’t live in that universe, Gary, and in ours the Germans and Japanese were actively lobbing bullets and shells that required the Allies to lob bullets and shells. And they resisted far past any point that made strategic sense. Hence all those dead.
Masada – not old, and not privileged elite
Hitler – never AFAIK thought he was personally threatened until the end
The Japanese high command – ditto
Samson and Koresh – not old and not privileged elite
Jones – maybe
The others I have to think about (or don’t know about)
“Hitler – never AFAIK thought he was personally threatened until the end
The Japanese high command – ditto”
And thus we return to the “do they really believe God is protecting them” issue which you wanted to avoid.
Sebastian,
I’m trying to figure out that truth by reading up on Shi’ite traditions, etc., but most people I see making that argument link to Wikipedia at best, and to various fearmongering definitions of Twelver Shi’ite beliefs at worst. Bald statements about tenets of a faith tradition made from outside a culture are not good predictors of how people will actually behave.
(My fairly liberal Mormon mother keeps about six months of emergency rations in the garage. Not the full year dictated by a former President of the Mormon church. She has very little use for the millenialist traditions that the Mormon church could legitimately be describing as having, but does live in an earthquake zone. These are data-points that someone describing her behavior from outside could make into an apocalyptic trend, but, knowing my mother as I do, I know that trend would be a false projection.)
As for the postmodernism of my above remark, I think that the category of “irrationality” actually does matter for military planning. Fallows’s description of the 2003 Iran war game had “irrational leadership” as a contingency option (the gamers didn’t like it because it threw the computer models off). And it seems to be becoming a presumed truth–as, wierdly, it became in the pre-war arguments about Saddam Hussein. I agree that knowing the real truth about decision-making within the Iranian government would be preferable, but, since there seems to be real internal tension there and because we have few intelligence assets on the ground, ascerning that truth is rather difficult.
One method for ascerning the rationality and influence of various factions within the government that I hope we’d avoid, however, is taking single quotes out of all context and holding them up as damning proofs of suicidal irrationality. Over Rafsanjani’s long career as a government insider, he seems to have held most possible positions on war, economics, religion, and government. That single quote, presenting a subjunctive expression of nationalist belligerence, doesn’t really prove all that much about what diplomatic or military policies Rafsanjani is advocating behind closed doors.
May a Center/Right hawk comment?
This is the reason that all of the whining about using only diplomacy is just that. The WaPo article tells us why Islamist fanatics require the stick and not the carrot:
“The hijackers, as shown on a computer simulation played on monitors throughout the courtroom, jerked the plane violently to the left and right during the struggle. They tried to cut off the oxygen as passengers banged on the cockpit door. In the end, as the passengers were either in the cockpit or moments from entering it, the hijackers turned the plane upside down — and crashed it. “Allah is the greatest!” one screamed nine times as the plane went down.”
Which is exactly what some Iranian fanatics will scream when they push the button to destroy Israel (or Washington, D. C.). One Neville Chamberlain in history is enough. Talk of diplomacy with these fanatics without the threat of attack is just so much wishful thinking. Diplomacy will solve this problem only if we make it clear that we will use the big stick. Liberal whining is making that more and more difficult.
And thus we return to the “do they really believe God is protecting them” issue which you wanted to avoid.
Nah, not really. We come back to the “make sure they know exactly who’s going to get it.” I’m sure that after the Iran-Iraq war they do not think they’re invulnerable behind God’s force shield.
Diplomacy will solve this problem only if we make it clear that we will use the big stick. Liberal whining is making that more and more difficult.
The latter statement, in no way, supports the former.
Think about some of the things Bush says and worrisome you find them and then realize that the mullahs actually are in a theocratic government before you pooh-pooh this idea
You have to stick to political angles, Khamenei fatwa’d nukes.
I’m completely comfortable with destruction being visited on any country that uses nukes unprovoked. Whether it would have to be genocide is doubtful; the important part would be to guarantee the utter destruction of anyone in the country resembling a leader.
You DO realize that so far only one country used nukes, and that same country still develops new nukes to use on the battlefield?
dutchmarbel: Yep. I think first use of nukes is that bad of an idea.
dutchmarbel,
I would strongly argue that using nukes on Japan at the end of WWII was not unprovoked, especially in light of how the US entered the war. On the other hand, I will await Tim’s response as to his view on whether the US using nukes on Iran without a declared war in order to deter them from acquiring nukes would be considered provoked.
Tim,
I think that counts as a cross-post.
I’m sorta glad to see SH coming down hard on the nuclear retaliation idea, even if we probably would disagree in other respects. Perhaps there was no good alternative to MAD during the Cold War (unless we all wanted to be heroic pacifists willing to be martyred, which we didn’t), but there ought to be ways to take out a country’s leaders without descending into a full-scale nuclear holocaust. Which is not to say that it can be done without killing a lot of innocent people.
Anyway, we should say that any nuclear attack on Israel will result in the killing or capturing of the people responsible and we’ll do whatever is necessary to accomplish that. But the notion that the proper response to nuclear genocide is more nuclear genocide is the sort of barbaric Cold War notion we ought to put behind us. I’m not suggesting what else we ought to be doing with respect to Iran if they are determined to acquire nukes, because I don’t know.
“The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the Fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that Iran shall never acquire these weapons, it added.”
You do realize that this coupled with Ahmadinejad’s recent full push toward getting nuclear weapons intersects with the “who is in charge” question in a way that makes your argument look bad, right?
And Rafsanjani has said otherwise as well, and he is a mullah too. And haven’t Shaykh Muhammad Shaykh Muhammad Afifi al-Akiti and Ayatollah al-Udhma Yousof al-Sanei (Iran)issued fatwas against suicide bombing? That doesn’t seem to have stopped them very well.
If you believe the fatwa definitively closes the issue, just say so (so I can see the location of our disagreement)–but for the record I’m skeptical.
“The WaPo article tells us why Islamist fanatics require the stick and not the carrot….”
However, it tells us nothing whatever about the mindset of the present rulers of Iran, and even less about what that mindset and who those people will be in five years (it being quite unlikely that they’ll have nuclear bomb capability before then) and even less about said people in ten years, or fifteen years, or twenty years, which it might be perfectly possible to live through via containment, just as we survived the Mad Communists of Stalin and Mao.
We don’t know that that would/will work, either. Right now, all we can do is make estimates and guesses, and plan accordingly.
But generalizations about “Islamist fanatics” that treat anyone one can pin that label on (no matter how accurately) as if they were a homogenous and fungible set of people are self-evidently erroneous, since they’re not homogenous or fungible.
“Liberal whining is making that more and more difficult.”
See, this is an unhelpful remark of the sort that is discouraged around here. We prefer to try to deal with citable facts, not adjectives and ad hominems.
“…and that same country still develops new nukes to use on the battlefield?”
In point of fact, no new nukes have been developed or tested in many years. There are thirteen weapons systems in nine classes. Here they are. There’s research for the Reliable Replacement Warhead, but no development. There were funds requested to research the
Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, but the Congress denied them.
I’m afraid you’re misinformed.
“Anyway, we should say that any nuclear attack on Israel will result in the killing or capturing of the people responsible and we’ll do whatever is necessary to accomplish that.”
Maybe we can get them dead or alive, like Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
That threat ought to scare them.
“it tells us nothing whatever about the mindset of the present rulers of Iran, and even less about what that mindset and who those people will be in five years (it being quite unlikely that they’ll have nuclear bomb capability before then)”
I have to take issue with this. I don’t understand why so many people are so confident that a country with access to both uranium and modern industrial technology has to be 5 years out from a nuclear weapon. While Iran isn’t as advanced as say Japan, it should be noted that Japan could almost certainly have nuclear weapons within months if it wanted to. The techniques are well understood if you have access to good equipment. Iran does. If we let them get plutonium–which considering the international community’s noted lack of will on reactors doesn’t seem ridiculous, there isn’t much reason why they couldn’t have thermonuclear weapons almost immediately afterwards.
I’m not encouraged by a wait and hope approach except insofar as there doesn’t seem to be a better option–given the international community’s unwillingness to bother with a diplomacy that extends beyond chit-chat. If the European 3 initiative had been part of a plan to set up vicious sanctions if they didn’t work that would have been one thing. But they weren’t. They were designed to illustrate the independent and advanced diplomatic prowess of non-Americans. They were designed to illustrate that pure chit-chat diplomacy could do the job. Conceptually they made the exact same mistake that Rumsfeld made with his idea to illustrate the superiority of the US military by taking over Iraq with a minimum force. Nice if it works, but really bad if it doesn’t.
Well, Gary, being on the run and living in a cave might not appeal to most people. What I’m basically arguing for is, in the worst case scenario, something more like what we did to Nazi Germany or current day Iraq–conquest and overthrow of the government, with leaders captured or dead. Extremely messy and lots of casualties, but preferable to the deaths of tens of millions. To me, anyway. Are you arguing for the “nuke them till they glow” mode of deterrence, or just being snarky?
“Are you arguing for the “nuke them till they glow” mode of deterrence, or just being snarky?”
Heaven knows Gary can write for himself, but I suspect he is just trying to point out that there are serious problems with thinking that simple deterrence will work–problems that should at the very least be seriously looked at.
That is why my take on deterrence is that we ought to avoid the problem by keeping Iran from getting nuclear weapons any time in the immediate future.
By the way, are you so sure bin Laden is in a cave? For all we know he could be in a perfectly nice house.
One of the problems with the European-Iranian negotiations, though, was that the Americans were not involved and in fact still maintaining a hostile position vis-a-vis Iran.
Iran has desired American recognition and some security guarantees for years now; they’re terrified of us, and because they’re proud and actually have gotten pushed around in the past, they’ve responded with machistic defiance.
Because internal politics have caused them and us to make counter-productive motions at various points that derailed diplomatic back-channels and tentative overtures, we’ve gotten to this ridiculously dangerous face-off.
Would it be so beneath our dignity to undertake bilateral negotiations with real carrots on the table? Carrots like, for example, abandoning our hostile committment to regime change? Some committment to respecting Iran’s borders and sovreignty in exchange for Iran’s acceptance of the Russian proposal? Maybe, if that part goes well, we could move on to proposing dropping some of our current sanctions in exchange for a recognition of Israel?
We.Haven’t.Even.Tried. Why? Because they’re apocalyptic lunatics, of course.
(Okay, that last is too snide. There’s a real history of Iran’s exporting violence in the wake of their revolution. It is, however, arguable that their terrorist networks have been comparatively quiescent in recent years. Their threatening posture towards Israel is a problem. Israel’s threatening posture towards Iran is also a problem, although understandable. The goal should be finding a way to de-escalate these threat levels–particularly if we hope that Iran will liberalize internally.)
I agree that deterrence might not be enough. I don’t know enough about the Iranian leaders to say what policy might be successful.
My only point was a tangential one–to the extent that we do use deterrence, stop threatening to wipe out tens of millions of people and use threats of actions that we could take that wouldn’t involve crimes against humanity. Part of our anti-proliferation campaign should involve an examination of our own willingness to brandish these things. Don’t even threaten to use nuclear weapons unless (as in the case of the old USSR or possibly China in the future), there’s no other plausible deterrent available.
I don’t understand why so many people are so confident that a country with access to both uranium and modern industrial technology has to be 5 years out from a nuclear weapon.
Well, you need 25 kg of uranium for a bomb; how fast they can get it depends on how many centrifuges they have running. As far as plutonium, building a reactor from scratch takes 3-4 years even if you take a lot of shortcuts. Then you’d have to run it for 1-2 years to get enough plutonium to process. Refining the rods after that took North Korea another year or so. So unless Iran has an operational reactor already, 5-6 years is the quickest they could get plutonium.
“One of the problems with the European-Iranian negotiations, though, was that the Americans were not involved and in fact still maintaining a hostile position vis-a-vis Iran.”
You might think so in retrospect, but the EU-3 specifically asked us to keep out of the negotiations.
“Well, you need 25 kg of uranium for a bomb; how fast they can get it depends on how many centrifuges they have running.”
Which we don’t know, nor do we know if they already have uranium.
“I don’t understand why so many people are so confident that a country with access to both uranium and modern industrial technology has to be 5 years out from a nuclear weapon.”
It’s simply a matter of building a large enough chain of centrifuges, Sebastian.
Alternately, one can assume that they’ve sufficient fissionable material obtained elsewhere, but such claims seem to be rather a stretch, insofar as I’ve seen them so far (cue Trent Trelenko).
As has been endlessly pointed out, building enough centrifuges and getting them to run together for long enough to get to a bomb will take years. Do you contest this? (I’ll stipulate that they can construct a working bomb from designs, although that’s not exactly an easy task, or something to just assume they’ll do successfully, and I’ll stipulate that they’ll have enough of a delivery system, whether via ballistic missile or otherwise, to be a threat.)
I’m not saying we should be complacent. I’m just saying we don’t have grounds to assume they’re going to have a bomb sooner or that when they do, they’ll use it, either. There are a lot of known unknowns here.
“While Iran isn’t as advanced as say Japan, it should be noted that Japan could almost certainly have nuclear weapons within months if it wanted to.”
Does Japan have adequate enrichment capability at present? I wasn’t aware of that, but I’ve not looked into it, either. Do you have a cite on that?
DJ: “Are you arguing for the “nuke them till they glow” mode of deterrence, or just being snarky?”
I wasn’t arguing for anything, certainly, so perhaps I was just being snarky, but my point was that such a threat is not apt to be the most frightening and effective threat imaginable. That’s all.
Sebastian: “Which we don’t know, nor do we know if they already have uranium.”
Well, we also don’t know that aliens have equipped them with Nova Bombs, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that this may be the case. And they certainly have uranium. Did you mean U235?
We also don’t know if they have anti-matter, but I’m unaware of a reasonable reason to think they may.
o the extent that we do use deterrence, stop threatening to wipe out tens of millions of people and use threats of actions that we could take that wouldn’t involve crimes against humanity
any such threat would only come from a madman. and there’s no negotiating with madmen, as the more hawkish among us like to tell us every time the subject comes up. why should Iran trust anyone who would make a credible threat to nuke them ?
JM: “Israel’s threatening posture towards Iran is also a problem, although understandable.”
Has Israel been making threats towards Iran other than of a “we will retaliate if attacked” nature? What sort of threats?
I’d be at least as interested in knowing whether they have Plutonium, Sebastian. Gary’s point, though, is still a good one: certainly they’ve got uranium; Iraq had more than enough uranium to make a few bombs, collected pretty much in one place. What they lacked, though, is U-235 of sufficient purity to make a fission device, which is in a completely different bracket of difficult than getting one’s hands on a heap of yellowcake.
Sebastian,
In some ways, who invited whom isn’t really relevant; the EU-3 and the US couldn’t negotiate a common platform from which to address Iran. In 2003-4, our transatlantic relations weren’t quite as cordially good faith as they might have been. And, after the “axis of evil” speech, it’s quite possible that the Iranians told the Europeans that they were unwilling to talk to America until it had some security guarantees that America was unwilling at that point to offer. (Bush’s policy, at least according to Hersh’s sources, has been regime change in Iran: a diplomatic hurdle, to put it mildly.)
“Bush’s policy, at least according to Hersh’s sources, has been regime change in Iran….”
You don’t have to rely on Hersh for that; look at the recent announcements from the Administration, and the requests for funding from Congress as regards Iran, and what the money is supposed to go to.
UnObSnark: “In 2003-4, our transatlantic relations weren’t quite as cordially good faith as they might have been.”
Wait, was there a diplomatic problem between the U.S. and Old Europe then? I hadn’t heard. (Okay, I had; I follow the sayings and wit and wisdom of Chai–, er, Secretary Rumsfeld.)
/UnObSnark (Directed at the Administration, not at Jackmormon.)
Iran isn’t Japan, and isn’t 5 years away from a nuke because they simply can’t afford that many centrifuges without breaking the economy. Which means the politics. If the centrifuges were available. At last ten years away.
And of course, if it got really heavy, one or two nukes is not a deterrent. Iran would need a half-dozen, distributed, with delivery mechanisms. So 10-15 years. Now it is true that once Iran gets one nuke it will be expensive to attack them, but not impossible.
Here is a key graph from Newberry today:
“This crisis is not one that can be solved by bombing, and its roots are economic as much as political. The developed core has reached a point where it cannot afford itself – it cannot both maintain a military deterent, and maintain strategic advantages in access to energy and other resources, and provide enough social insurance to persuade its citizenry to accept the risks of participation in the mechanized-electrified version of industrial capitalism. The recent riots and demonstrations in France, the failed election in Italy, the US invasion of Iraq, and the paralysis on Iran are all reflections of this underlying reality – to afford one of the components of Western advantage, requires breaking the others. Either it can be militarily ahead, which will cost its economic and social advantages, or it can provide social protection, which degrades the economic and military options, or it can push the economic engine, which hobbles its military and social options. One can look at France, the United States and Japan as the three points on this triangle.” Link
I think the larger point is can we stop Iran and other rim world countries (Venezuela?) from getting nukes and military parity? Can we (USA, the West?) maintain some kind, any kind, of hegemony, economic, military, social, cultural? Bush/Cheney are trying their best to nip it on the bud, but they are likely to fail.
So are we going to get Friedman’s “Flat World”? Yes we are. And liberals and neo-liberals may believe that world will be one of Big Macs and Baywatch, but if Iran and friends have an equal voice with the US I wouldn’t guarantee it. It isn’t as if even the US is comfortably mono-cultural.
I would strongly argue that using nukes on Japan at the end of WWII was not unprovoked, especially in light of how the US entered the war.
That may be why I did not say “unprovoked”. Though there is lots of debate about wether the use of nukes was permissable in the circumstances. I have not studied the subject extensively and from what I have read I lean towards thinking the first one was but the second one probabely was not. I do know that I don’t want those weapons used – I grew up in the cold war, in the region where a nucleair war would most likely be fought in (at? on?).
If you believe the fatwa definitively closes the issue, just say so (so I can see the location of our disagreement)–but for the record I’m skeptical.
No, but that’s not what I said. I said you should discuss this from the political angle, not the theological one you seemed to go for.
I’m skeptical about lots of things, including the roles of the various players in Iran’s leadership. If Israel seems to be not that worried, I think we should not assume imminent threats to that country.
Also, in spite of my strong dislike for religious fundamentalists, Iran does not strike me as the nuttiest country in the region.
I keep forgetting where I read something; the Hersh article was fresh in my memory.
As for Israel’s position, I should have qualified that one more carefully since Israeli politicians and diplomats have tended to be very careful in public–and they have repeatedly promised they wouldn’t use nuclear weapons in a first strike. There is, however, this story about rumblings within Israel about Osiriak part-II.
And Connie Bruck’s New Yorker article on “The Exiles” suggested that Israeli intelligence has cultivated connections with Iranian exiles, dissidents, separatists, and even terrorists–the MEK angle there was, but shouldn’t really have been, a surprise to me.
I’m touching (if not beyond) the limits of my ignorance here, so take the above simply as an explanation of my earlier statement.
Of course Israel would stop being even perceptible as a threat to Iran and its interests if Iranian officials stopped issuing alarming statements about Israel. We’re not there, though, alas.
I wouldn’t say that they don’t have a delivery mechanism; Iran has missiles that can reach Israel now. What it may not have are accurate guidance systems with any testing pedigree, a final trajectory-insertion motor with associated algorithms, boost-guidance algorithms, separation hardware, etc, and last (but certainly not least) a weaponized nuclear warhead with a reliable fuzing (and arming) methodology.
All of this can be done in parallel, certainly. Testing at subsystem level can also be done in parallel. System-level testing, though, is where you’ve got to have a lot of these components grafted together, and there’s absolutely no way Iran can hide a systems-level test.
Which is not to say that I regard them as a near-term threat, but I do think it’s important that steps are taken to keep them in the not-a-near-term-threat basket. Certainly they’re not going to be in a position to threaten the US with nuclear weapons (delivered via missile) anytime soon, but I can’t imagine anyone even attempting to justify regarding Iran as being a threat in that way.
Hey, since you’re reading this thread, Jackmormon, what’s up with HoCB? I can connect, but all I get is a blank page.
“And of course, if it got really heavy, one or two nukes is not a deterrent. Iran would need a half-dozen, distributed, with delivery mechanisms. So 10-15 years.”
Ah, but it is you who think they want them as a deterrent. I’m not at all so sure. Two or three nukes is plenty if you just want to destroy Israel.
It wasn’t working earlier, but I think it’s back up now. Blogger sucks and is ruining the site, though. We’re looking into alternatives–still.
/me seconds Josh’s question…
between josh’s question and my post…. hocb seemed to be restored. As JM posted.
I sometimes feel that blogger has wormholes in which it keeps certain comments. I had really just refresed…
“In some ways, who invited whom isn’t really relevant; the EU-3 and the US couldn’t negotiate a common platform from which to address Iran.”
The EU-3 didn’t want the US because the real purpose of the negotiations was to illustrate the power of chit-chat diplomacy. Which it has.
The non-inclusion of the US was intentional and important to that goal. Including the US in the discussions was impossible because it would have defeated the important diplomatic point which was to be made. Blaming the US for that is not going to fly.
Wow.
Well I guess if you’re convinced that the official doctrine of the Iranian government is to Nuke Israel At Any Cost Whatsoever then there’s not much to argue about. At least not any more than there’s anything to argue about with Iranians who are convinced that the official doctrine of the US is to Wipe Out Islam At Any Cost Whatsoever.
I also guess that it should be a relief to see both Sebastian and Slarti acknowledging that Iran currently poses no particular threat to the US, and that if we do start bombing it’ll be on behalf of Israel, but if you don’t mind I think I’ll just go to bed and pull the covers over my head anyway…
It looks as though we’re going to have to disagree about that, Sebastian.
My position is that everyone is to blame. It would have been useful if the US and the EU-3 had been able to hammer out something like Ken Pollack’s three-track diplomatic push, with both carrots and sticks on the table. Europe was very nervous about the US’s reliance on sticks (after the “axis of evil” speech and the Iraq negotiations embroglio), and the US had contempt for, as you put it, “chitchat”–and particularly with a “regime” it regards as illegitimate. And Iran was determined to be affronted, intransigent, and confusing to outsiders.
So, basically, everyone kicked the can down the road, allowing the rhetoric to escalate as nobody compromised on the fundamental disagreements. That’s how I see it, and it’s become pretty clear that you see it otherwise.
The EU-3 didn’t want the US because the real purpose of the negotiations was to illustrate the power of chit-chat diplomacy. Which it has.
NEWSFLASH: the goal actually is to reach an acceptable outcome with the lowest cost and as few victims as can be. Many people care about the end more than the means.
“NEWSFLASH: the goal actually is to reach an acceptable outcome with the lowest cost and as few victims as can be. Many people care about the end more than the means.”
Many people? Sure.
The people in question at the time? I’m not so sure. See my analogy with Rumsfeld at 2:35. I think that the goal was to reach an acceptable outcome by a very specific path which was intended to be demonstrative. It was demonstrative, but not in the way that was intended.
“There is, however, this story about rumblings within Israel about Osiriak part-II.”
This is an interesting cite. It starts off with an inflamnatory statement which, so far as I can see, is utterly unsupported by anything in the article.
“Israel is threatening to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities” is the start. Where’s the support for that assertion in the article?
Then it goes to outright falsehood: “What role could have been played by a spy allegedly brought into the Pentagon (the FBI suspects he was placed there by the Israelis)?”
Perhaps this is not a falsehood; perhaps it is a fact of which I am unaware. Cite? Until I see one, since I’ve followed the Larry Franklin case a fair amount, though not obsessively, I’ll regard this as a falsehood. Which further discredits the piece, in my eyes.
The article claims “In recent months, Tel Aviv’s accusations against Tehran have become increasingly pointed and warlike.”
You say “…Israel seems to be not that worried….”
I’m getting rather confused about what storyline is being presented here.
The article is further full of claims that are more than dubious, such as:
Always good to play “let’s find the Jew” and imply — no, state outright — that the Jews Actually Are Secretly In Control.
This seems a highly problematic cite; do you have specific statements in the article that you wish to quote in support of your statement that “Israel’s threatening posture towards Iran is also a problem”? And in the context of the other claims and assertions in the article, one should regard it as a credible and unbiased source, why?
“I’m touching (if not beyond) the limits of my ignorance here, so take the above simply as an explanation of my earlier statement.”
Fair enough; if you wish to actually withdraw your assertion, I trust you’ll say so. Meanwhile, I continue to question it, I’m afraid. Politely, I hope.
“Blogger sucks and is ruining the site, though. We’re looking into alternatives–still.”
If you find a posting system that doesn’t go down and have problems at times, the entire blogging world would like to know, I think.
“Well I guess if you’re convinced that the official doctrine of the Iranian government is to Nuke Israel At Any Cost Whatsoever then there’s not much to argue about. At least not any more than there’s anything to argue about with Iranians who are convinced that the official doctrine of the US is to Wipe Out Islam At Any Cost Whatsoever.”
Please see the Rafsanjani quote above. Have you been paying attention to Ahmadinejad? You can argue that of course they must be joking, but you cannot in good faith argue that the evidence available from leaders in the respective regimes is equal when comparing Iran with respect to Israel to the US with respect to Islam.
“Ah, but it is you who think they want them as a deterrent.”
Actually, I have been arguing with the liberals at Ezra’s in that I have no confidence in MAD when it comes to Iran.
But if Iran is smart and wicked, and becomes impervious to military attack, exporting and supporting terrorism is probably a cheaper safer way to destroy Israel. Or other “soft” and assymetrical weapons. I don’t think they need to nuke Tel Aviv if they are patient.
One lesson of 9/11 and the Bush response was that you can sponsor terrorism without reprisals, if you have a deterrent. Pakistan and SA are more responsible for 9/11 than the Taliban.
Gary,
It was Dutch, here, who said that Israel seemed to be not all that worried.
I’m sorry that the Spiegel article was full of red flags. I was using it as the most reliable source on a very quick google search for that closed-door presentation that Meir Dagan reputedly made to the Israeli parliament a few months ago. I vaguely remembered that my first non-blog hit, The Guardian, had a dubious reputation on Israel issues.
If you like, though, I’ll hereby formally withdraw my assertion that there are stories about rumblings within Israel about Osirak part-II.
I think that the goal was to reach and acceptable outcome by a very specific path which was intended to be demonstrative. It was demonstrative, but not in the way that was intended.
I don’t think this was intended as a showcase. That would be very hard with a definite lack of carrots and a grumbling bully in the background.
Iran say you invade Iraq, say you tiptoe around North-Korea and recently say you endorse India’s nucleair development. I can understand why it feels it needs better safeguards, and I still think they are not the nuttiest country in the region. No matter what rhetoric there (not overly powerfull) president feels he should spout to forward his own political image.
“No matter what rhetoric there (not overly powerfull) president feels he should spout to forward his own political image.”
Not just the current president. The quote I provided was from Rafsanjani.
I was in the first instance thinking of this post when I made the comment about Israel not being too worried.
Rasanjani’s quote was from 2001, and dealt more with the change in powerstatus than with actual usage of nukes imho. But even if you disagree: his rhetoric did not lead to anything concrete, did it?
past midnight here…. so further answers might be delayed for a few hours…
Arkin today seems extremely relevant to this discussion. (Naturally, read back the previous entries this week.)
“If you like, though, I’ll hereby formally withdraw my assertion that there are stories about rumblings within Israel about Osirak part-II.”
Hokay. The idea of Israeli strikes is simply incredibly unlikely, because as everyone agrees, the U.S. couldn’t really do an effective job, let alone Israel. Israel simply doesn’t have a capability, myths aside, to take out the Iranian nuclear program, absent pre-emptive nuclear strikes, which ain’t gonna happen.
Israel could make some strikes on individual Iranian sites with their F-16s with long-range tanks, if they’re willing to fly over Iraq (needing U.S. permission), and can possibly give them some hits with conventional cruise missiles.
What the point of that would be is beyond me. Pissing off the Iranians and starting a war? Doesn’t seem very likely.
What bothered me about your initital statement is that it posited what seems to me to be a false equivalence. If one person says “I will wipe you out!” and the other says “Oh, yeah, well, if you try, you’ll regret it!,” then I don’t regard them as being equally “threatening” at each other, myself, all other things being the same.
If Israel were saying, in some capacity “we must wipe out Iran!,” with no provocation, that would be entirely different, and your statement would be accurate. But it isn’t, so it wasn’t, in my view.
The Spiegel piece bothered me for the obvious reasons that I mentioned; and it’s not as if it’s necessary to the job of criticizing Israel, or the Israeli-U.S. relationship, to engage in the sort of logic the article went for, in the passage I cited. That sort of thing was as gratuitious (and illogical) as it always is.
DM on Iran: “…and I still think they are not the nuttiest country in the region….”
Saudi Arabia? Another? Who do you think?
“Not just the current president. The quote I provided was from Rafsanjani.”
Indeed, and such rhetoric has been standard at Iranian rallies since the Revolution. But how much the rhetoric bears on actual plans, intent, and policy, is quite unclear. I keep repeating that point because it’s kinda important.
We don’t know how dangerous Iran is. We don’t know how non-dangerous Iran is. We don’t know who will be in power in five years, or ten, or twenty. We don’t know for sure if we have time, or not. We don’t know many crucial things.
We do have good reason to think that time is on our side, in terms of looking at where they may be in ten years, absent war in the meantime, and the demographic and political trends.
But we don’t know for sure if we have that time, and we don’t know what events in the meantime may change present dynamics.
We. Don’t. Know.
Djerejian today:
Ditto.
Sorry, this was a bit up thread but
By the way, are you so sure bin Laden is in a cave? For all we know he could be in a perfectly nice house.
Has to be one of the most depressing things I’ve heard in a while.
Cripes, now the freshly resigned commander of the 82nd Airborne.
Comment, DaveC?
“Has to be one of the most depressing things I’ve heard in a while.”
I hear Waziristan can be very nice this time of year.
Djerejian on Mark Steyn. Comment, DaveC?
you cannot in good faith argue that the evidence available from leaders in the respective regimes is equal when comparing Iran with respect to Israel to the US with respect to Islam.
No, no, of course not. Any such argument would necessarily, by definition, have to be duplicitous and based solely on an anti-American ideological stance. Comparing domestic political culture and internal power structures in the respective countries would be totally beyond the pale. Pointing out that both countries (unlike, say, Finland) have a history of profound divergence between rhetoric and behavior would violate posting rules.
At most I might muse aloud whether Iranians who think of the US as planning for the destruction of Islam are any better informed than Americans who thought [or still think] Saddam had WMD or something to do with 9/11. Yes, anything more than that would be bad faith.
You don’t want to discuss the evidence that the Iranian government is collectively suicidal? No problem. I don’t either, because it doesn’t matter, because Iran doesn’t have the bomb. I’m much more interested in whether the people who already have the bomb are crazy.
People do go crazy; crazy people do fly planes and countries into the ground despite the best efforts of the passengers and citizens; a nuclear Iran would definitely pose an existential threat to Israel and we definitely pose an existential threat to Iran… In the brave new world of the Bush doctrine that’s reason enough for Iran to bomb us, or Israel to bomb Iran, or anybody to bomb anyone they damn well please…
But of course it all depends on who’s crazy and who isn’t and whether the passengers can regain control of the plane in the event that the pilot is in fact crazy. Nous sommes tous vol 93.
“I and the public know/What all schoolchildren learn,/Those to whom evil is done/ Do evil in return.
The idea that we can accomplish anything positive by using tactical nukes on Iran is…..not so much an idea as a belief rooted in the worst, most primitive enotions to which a human can degenerate.
WE overthrew THEIR government. We helped a dictator kill their citizens. WE annouced that we had the right to attack them anytime we wished. And now we are supposed to attack them first to prevent them from attacking us. Also we are supposed tobelieve that our attack willeither cause them to suddenly see the light ad decide to throw off the shackles of their own culture and become an American satillite state, or set off one of those democracy tsumanis.
Honestly it is impossible for me to talk about this without becoming sarcastic.
The Iranians are human. If attacked, they will respond as humans to by hating the attacker. The poeple of other countries will see our behavior as uncivlized bullying and they will hate us too. maybe Bin ladin is in the White House directing foreign policy, since this idea would legitimize terrorism so effectively and destroy so completely any vestige of respect that might linger in the Middle East towards the US.
Aside from the utter mmorality of attacking a nation that has not atacked us this is a very very stupid, countraproductive idea.
Can’t respond to all requests for comments, but with regard to Djerejian, it looks to me that in the comments, he allows that he agreed with many, perhaps most of Mark’s points.
As far as suppressing dissent, here’s a blast from the past:
In the end, Republicans and conservatives gave a lot more support to Clinton than Bush gets from his political opposition. But Bush’s Secretary of State never said there should be no debate. There was debate in Congress over Iraq before any bombs were dropped, not after, which was how things went with Kosovo.
I personally supported Clinton and dismissed thought the “Wag the Dog” speculations were wrong and damaging like some of the junk that happens nowadays.
Wow, look at the crazy link at the bottom of the CNN page:
President Ahmadinejad certainly has a way with words:
In the end, Republicans and conservatives gave a lot more support to Clinton than Bush gets from his political opposition.
I misspoke again, Bush had a lot of support in Congress in 2002. Awaiting an onslaught from Gary.
DaveC, you must have heard about the tornadoes in TN. (My dad went outside in the storm and his wife got angry.) Might be the seed of a HOCB post…
You know, Gary, you link to Arkin:
“Arkin today seems extremely relevant to this discussion.” Arkin’s header:”Despite Denials, US Plans For Iran War.”
“As I’ve said before in these pages, I don’t believe that the United States is planning to imminently attack Iran, and I specifically don’t think so because Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons and it hasn’t lashed out militarily against anyone.” [ed Not real convincing reasons for me]
But the United States military is really, really getting ready, building war plans and options, studying maps, shifting its thinking.” …Arkin
“Two so-called “experts” are quoted in The Washington Post today saying that there are no options, that there is no Plan B, that the United States will just live with Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. They are fundamentally wrong about the options, and misunderstand the Bush administration as well.” …Arkin
“…so that they can understand where we are and decide whether they think the threat from Iran justifies the risks of another war.” …Arkin
And then you link to Djerejian, who seems in his post to seriously downplay the possibility of an attack, using mostly quoted material from the NY Times, Cordesman, and Ignatius.
As far as I can tell, the two are in some degree of disagreement. Now GD has links and sources, whereas Arkin mostly is speaking in his own words, using unnamed sources. Now I tend toward Arkin more than GD, but that might be based partly on my own prejudices.
But given those two sources and others, I feel something of a responsibility to provide a judgement, a guess, speculation. Arkin thinks it is important that the American people realize that the Bush administration is preparing for war. I feel a need to help, by weighting the sources.
Yeah, I did hear about the tornadoes, though I’m really behind the times on most of the news (busy, busy, busy) and with what’s what in the blogs. I grew up with the misimpression that Illinois and Indiana had more of the twisters than Tennessee, but that’s not so.
“Awaiting an onslaught from Gary.”
No, Dave; if you can’t respond to the other points — and I recognize that perhaps you’re busy, but I didn’t see you saying you’d be getting back on those points later — there’s no point in further calling things to your attention that you won’t respond to. (I also base this on a long series of similar exchanges over months, not just these today, in which you say non-fact-based things, I challenge you on them, and you never respond.)
Sorry. I wouldn’t bother trying if I didn’t think you were worth bothering about. But I’m only going to bother so far.
If you’d like to catch up on the other points I’ve made in this thread to you, and respond to what I’ve said, not just pointed to something else (responding as if Djerejian agreed with Steyn is, again, simply incomprehensible to me — it’s completely disconnected from what Djerejian said in his post, which you utterly ignored), that would be great. But if you’re simply going to ignore points, which is what you’ve been consistently doing, well, whatever works for you. I wish you well.
Left out the link to the tornado frequency map.
Duh
Concept Cars The Iran Nuke Debacle
…from “fubar” over at Swopa’s place
“Conclusion: So what’s going on? Is the US crazy enough to drop nukes on them? Does George Bush have messianic ambitions? Is Ahmadinejad paving the way for the return of the Mahdi? All entirely possible, but if you peel back the rhetoric on both sides, you’ll find out a concept car with fake plastic interiors and non-working headlights. Standing in front of the car is a group of political opportunists trying to rewrite history and divert attention from their collosal failure to build a working state in Iraq prototype. Standing between them happily taking down steno, is a pliant media that loves (when not obsessing over missing blond runaways) to boil things down to simple black/white and good/evil terms any crusade-lover could understand.” …fubar
So fubar says no.
I didn’t call any generals liars, but I believe General Myers’ description of the decision making process. To believe a Joint Chief of staff is a very different thing than calling other people liars, and it was on PBS, so you must get behind that ;^)
“Can’t respond to all requests for comments, but with regard to Djerejian, it looks to me that in the comments, he allows that he agreed with many, perhaps most of Mark’s points.”
Quote those words, please.
“I didn’t call any generals liars, but I believe General Myers’ description of the decision making process.”
Another apparent complete non-sequitur. I’d ask you to explain what you meant, and quote what you have in minds, but I’d rather you responded to my prior queries first.
(responding as if Djerejian agreed with Steyn is, again, simply incomprehensible to me — it’s completely disconnected from what Djerejian said in his post, which you utterly ignored)
I was referring to these comments:
Link
So I thought Greg sort of went along with Dan including the bolded section, for what it’s worth.
Clarifying my non-sequiter with Gen Myers exact remarks:
I should have included that in my earlier remark.
“So I thought Greg sort of went along with Dan including the bolded section, for what it’s worth.”
Thank you for responding. But your reading is obviously completely wrong. All he says is that he was very strong in his ripping Steyn. You can’t choose all the other stuff that he obviously doesn’t agree with, and claim he agrees with it. It’s obviously not true.
I assume I don’t have to quote what Djerejian actually said about Steyn, which, remarkably, would seem to represent what he thinks of Steyn, even if he feels he was vehement (which he was — which is the point).
I don’t know what to make of this sort of selective ignoring of what people say, and looking to find some sliver of comfort through some tortured wilful misinterpretation. Generals left and right denounce Rumsfeld and the running of the war, but you acknowledge none of it, and point to the fact that a year ago, a guy didn’t denounce his boss while he was in his job, thusly proving that he wanted to keep his job, and nothing more. That all these other generals are saying what they think: you acknowledge it not, and respond as if it wasn’t pointed out to you.
That all the Iraqi bloggers are now in semi-despair at best, and full of unkind words for the American effort: you suddenly stop quoting them, and refuse to acknowledge what they say.
You ignore (in past comments) all the endless quotes of what Democrats, both politicians, and people here, say they think, and ask if they aren’t instead, you know, traitors who want al Qaeda to win, and want to not fight terrorism.
You make up bizar re factless claims that “Social Security reform discussion was suppressed by the major media, for instance,” and when it’s pointed out to you that that’s crazy, that there were thousands of news articles and news program discussions of it, you don’t respond.
You ask if “Have you ever seen anything like Michael Yon or Michael Totten’s reporting from the Kurdish part of Iraq on the evening news or a magazine?” and when a ton of cites of just that is pointed out to you, you don’t respond.
You claim of Mark Steyn: “Seen Mark Steyn’s take on Iran in major media? Not too likely,” and a list is given to you of major media he appears in, and you don’t respond.
But maybe you have more time now. I can but live in hope.
“I should have included that in my earlier remark.”
It would have been helpful, and saved me a bit of time, but I figured it out. How you see a guy not interested in saying something (a year ago) that will get him fired as relevant, I don’t know. Why you don’t respond to what Maj. Gen.Charles Swannack, Maj. Gen. John Batiste, Gen. Anthony Zinni, Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson, Maj. Gen. John Riggs, and Lieut. General Greg Newbold (and that’s just through today; let’s see who else speaks up, eh?) have to say: I don’t know.
Jon Henke at QandO points out what is wrong with the Leftosphere. The primary motive of leftists is to vilify the Bush Administration. That is why they are so wrong on the weapons labs discussion. He says:
“Finally, Seixon has questioned whether “hydrogen production” was really a plausible answer, either, and points out that the Post was scooped by “almost three years” by Judy Miller.” Sexion blows up the entire story. He says: “I’m not concluding that they were in fact biological weapons labs. However, the hydrogen for balloons story is even more ridiculous and taking all other information into account, seems completely laughable in comparison. Was there perhaps another illegal use for these trailers?”
Jon concludes: “So, why is it again news that “analysts [were] divided sharply over the function of the trailers”? The Leftosphere hasn’t really addressed that. “
This article
makes it clear that the original WaPo story was a hit piece.
“The point I am getting to is that this story could have been written many different ways, yet the Post chooses to write it as a “gotcha” moment to indict Bush as a liar, when, if you read the whole story, it is anything but.”
So, taking this story as an example, OW consists of bloviating leftists who care more about being right in accordance with the liberal agenda than they care about the truth. Those pointing out their flaws with regard to that truth are not welcome and are subjected to harrassment. That is why the blog is a leftist vanity site and knowledgeable libertarians and right wingers move on. My final review: “Lovely site, lots of good writing, too little respect for the truth.”
Ok, I think I’ve given you just about all the slack you’re going to get. Punitive ban until it occurs to me to take it off.
Not just for incivility; also for inattention to fact. If you care, examine who it is that’s banning you, just as a pointer.
And, as always, feel free to email us (link up by the kitten) to appeal your case and explain how we as a collective of “bloviating leftists” are horribly amiss in construing that as, for instance, name-calling.
See you another time, perhaps.
Funny, you left out the part where Jon notes:
Meanwhile, Slartibartfast at Obsidian Wings points out the incredible disparity between what a mobile biological lab would require and what the trailers actually had, and wonders how any minimally competent “expert” could have concluded that they were actually biological weapons labs. In a variety of fundamentally important areas, they were simply not even close. The Rightosphere doesn’t seem to have addressed that point and asked what kind of “experts” could have concluded they were mobile biolabs.
To read a fie on both your houses piece as an indictment of the ‘Leftosphere’ suggests a slight skewing of perspective, I would suggest. The Sexion link is also humorous, in that it is comparing a 1970’s system sold surreptiously to Saddam (the British taxpayers evidently picked up a large chunk of that bill) in 1987 to the second generation system that was first introduced in 1999. What was that about respect for the truth?
“And, as always, feel free to email us (link up by the kitten) to appeal your case and explain how we as a collective of “bloviating leftists” are horribly amiss in construing that as, for instance, name-calling.”
I assume that he’ll point out that it’s an objective FACT that leftists are bloviators, as this article over here PROVES, and that only a liberal whiner could disagree, thus proving how much you hate Bush and that goal controls your every action.
Notice, by the way, that he identifies himself as a “Center/Right hawk”?
Everyone’s always in the center; no wonder it’s so crowded here.
Just because no one’s going to comment on it on my blog, I expect, and I desire to share, I’d like to repeat an addendum I made to this post last night:
Mind, I don’t quote this to make any sort of point about right-wingers in general; plenty are sensible, and not fools like above; and certainly there are plenty of mirror equivalents on the left. I just wanted to express my amusement at how predictable some people are; their worldview is so rigid that no matter what the facts are, you know how they’ll be explained away.
Humans is funny.
Scary, too. But I’m trying to look on the bright side.
Oh, and looking at that “Seixon” post that’s so popular at the moment on the Bush-positive side, I see this wonderful quote: “Turns out I was correct, and Fitzgerald had to correct the legal brief – because of yours truly.”
Gee, I’m sure that’s exactly why Fitzgerald made the correction.
Because he reads Sexion’s blog.
It’s the only possible explanation, after all.
“Everyone’s always in the center; no wonder it’s so crowded here.”
I want to do a Yogi Berra imitation at this point.
Anyway, there seems to be an unspoken assumption among some self-identified centrists that truth and objectivity can only be found in the midpoint between two extremes. That turns out not to be the case.
Was there perhaps another illegal use for these trailers?
i can just see him typing that with cheeto-stained fingers all a’crossed.
(is a’crossed a valid contraction? who cares.)
hey, libJapon… what’s the deal with Salt Tea? gack.
Gary,
I was simply the one who pointed out that the media was passing off a fake quote from Fitzgerald’s legal documents – which made him aware that he needed to change it. Due to the issue spreading across the blogosphere, such as the Media Blog at NRO featuring it rather prominently, there was no need for Mr. Fitzgerald to even be aware of my blog specifically.
😉
“Anyway, there seems to be an unspoken assumption among some self-identified centrists that truth and objectivity can only be found in the midpoint between two extremes. That turns out not to be the case.”
Truth lies where it is.
I think that the question of why Iraq was using hydrogen as a means to float balloons instead of helium is a decent one, but it’s also one whose answer probably will (I suspect) not lead us to the the conclusion that they were, after all, mobile bioweapons labs cleverly disguised as things which could not possibly serve as mobile bioweapons labs.
“I was simply the one who pointed out that the media was passing off a fake quote from Fitzgerald’s legal documents – which made him aware that he needed to change it.”
Although I’m interested in both the Plame case and the Libby prosecution, I don’t follow every little obsessively, and haven’t followed this detail, and thus amn’t in a position to evaluate your claim; certainly, if it’s true, hearty congratulations are in order for your perspecuity, I imagine.
Was there perhaps another illegal use for these trailers?
If you built a charcoal fire under the tank it would make a passable still.
Really, the hydrogen train has left the station. The presence of aluminum hydroxide in the tank (Duelfer report) is pretty much it. As to why the Iraqis wanted to use hydrogen, it could be as simple as they didn’t want to blow the money on helium. A couple of hundred cubic feet of helium costs over a thousand dollars.
Seixon’s claim to have forced a correction is at least plausible, if he initiated a story that others picked up on. Actually proving it would be helped by people crediting their sources. I don’t know that his claim is accurate, but if it is I certainly hope he can take credit for it.
Perhaps that sort of positive reinforcement will help him avoid posts like this. Dropping the ball entirely:
Yeah. Follows what exactly? Not the items Seixon addressed in the previous paragraphs. Marshall’s comment follows his quoting of Cheney on Juan Williams from Jan 24, 2004, that Seixon completely ducked (because it didn’t fit the spin he was trying out). Here’s the first half of that quote:
The second half is Cheney saying that what’s not clear is whether Saddam used them to make weapons[!?!], or if he was just getting ready for the next war. Cheney. January 24, 2004. When rebutting an argument, try to hit the main point with something, mmkay?
So if he deserves credit for the Fitzgerald correction, I’ll favor giving it. Better to get credit for accuracy than dishonest cr@p like that last post.
I just love the idea of Charles as a bloviating leftist. It has made my day. It’s even better than the day when I was inadequately educated.
“I just love the idea of Charles as a bloviating leftist.”
This is exactly what happens when people lump everyone they disagree with, or think they disagree with, into a single category, and then speak and act as if Those People are an homogenous mass.
It’s why it’s such a lunatic category error: it leads to completely wrong conclusions. Thus, Charles is a raving leftist, because he posts here.
Of course, it wasn’t many days ago when you, Hilzoy, were a raving right-winger because you hadn’t denounced the Washington Post and Ben Dommenech soon enough.
Same exact damn thing.
The horrible thing is how many people think this way. They’re all over the damn net. Right and left, both. Bugs, Mr. Rico! Zillions of them!
There’s no discourse possible when people think this way, when there’s simply The Other Side, and They’re All The Same, and They’re All Evil.
That belief destroys politics. It destroys civil society. It destroys communication.
It could destroy our country. It’s happened to plenty of others.
It scares the hell out of me.
And the hatred frightens me no end. The bile. The conviction that The Other Must Be Destroyed! No Compromise Is Possible! Death To Evil Ones!
That’s pure fascism, or, if you prefer, Leninism/Stalinism/Maoism. Civil disagreement is a decadent bourgeois luxury, and must be swept away, to destroy the evil! Utterly! The rot must be expunged!
And people are always dehumanized in this terminology. They’re no longer discussed as fellow members of society, but as “animals,” or “rot,” or “filth,” or “scum,” or something else that must be rooted out and destroyed.
It’s imagery/terminology straight out of Der Ewige Jude. I’m highly familiar with this sort of language, and where it leads.
And it scares the hell out of me.
Gary, please don’t restrain yourself so much. Tell us what you really feel.
Actually, I very much agree with you, although I find myself, at times, slipping into the same pattern of thinking, but usually only when I find a real extreme example, either on the right or left.
The type of thinking you describe allows for no compromise, no bridging between conflicting viewpoints. And it also represents a very risky form of arrogance and therefore tunnel vision.
And yes, it scares me too.
Well, for my part I think that certain percentage of people are going to be saying things of that sort no matter how dangerous or not-dangerous saying them is. And, for my part, I can do things to ensure that they a) don’t use these sorts of irrelevancies to interrupt serious discussion, and b) that they don’t get to use OW as a platform for shoveling feces onto people they don’t know.
So, I’m guessing his ban will be permanent. First clue is he didn’t get the posting rules the first half-dozen or so times they were pointed out.
Slart, I know what your are saying, and obviously you and others here can prevent it from escalating too far on this site.
But what I think Gary and I are both afraid of (of course, I am only speaking for myself for sure) is that the numbers of those peopel who talk and think this way are growing, and it is not a monopoly held by one side or the other.
I was very much a witness to what was happening in this country during Vietnam, and for all the “Love it or Leave it” or condemnations of those who supported the war, the level of virukence in the public discourse today was not approached in those times.
It is always dangerous to use words like greatest, most or least. But I really believe that in my lifetime, I have not seen this country as divided by what I can to some degree justify as hatred of the other side as has existed in the last 15 years. And it only appears to be growing.
Yeah, I agree it’s a problem. I don’t know if it’s a bigger problem than it was back in the ’60s and early ’70s (I don’t think it is: remember when it was the long-haired hippy freaks versus The Man and his proxies?), but there’s no arguing that it’s there to a nontrivial extent.
I actually think that the fertile ground this sort of problem grows in is the mindset that one’s opinion is either worthy or utter crap, mostly depending on the relative political orientation of the evaluator. Not saying I’m entirely free from this sort of thing, but I do try to watch out for it.
It is, however, amusing to be called a “bloviating liberal” by one person and someone who’s effectively being spoon-fed conservative talking points by someone else, all inside of a couple of days. “Ignorant” I’ll sign up to just about anytime, certainly, but that’s something that can stick to people of all political bents.
Radon:
We have a higher Rn reading (optomistically, 16), so I looked into it a while ago. Here
http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/rdcrn.html
is a site that claims to let you calculate your risk from Rn. (Your units would be “PCi/l”.) Basically, if you live long enough, you will die.
“But what I think Gary and I are both afraid of (of course, I am only speaking for myself for sure) is that the numbers of those peopel who talk and think this way are growing, and it is not a monopoly held by one side or the other.”
I don’t know if it’s growing; it’s certainly been growing by leaps and bounds in the blogosphere, but that may just be a product of the growth of the blogosphere, and the online world.
On the other hand, I’m quite sure that a wide variety of individuals whom I’ve read, at least on and off, in blogs for about five years now, on a non-ideological basis, again, have grown far, far, far more extreme in their views and language and intolerance and demonization of Those Other Guys.
Almost everyone seems to dive down echo chambers of positive feedback, and grow more extreme.
On the other hand, I’m entirely conscious that I’m far more extreme than I was about the Bush Administration four years ago. My own view is that this is a reaction to more and more years of exposure to their behavior, giving me more and more view of how awful they are.
But I would think that, wouldn’t I?
Obviously, someone who is convinced that the President is doing a great job, and that Those Lefists Are Out To Destroy Him because they Hate America and are Full Of Hatred For No Other REason, is going to feel more and more convinced of this as they’ve seen more and more of it over recent years, too.
So that’s discouraging in its own way.
“I was very much a witness to what was happening in this country during Vietnam, and for all the “Love it or Leave it” or condemnations of those who supported the war, the level of virukence in the public discourse today was not approached in those times.”
I don’t know about that. There are innumerable ways I could list that things are far less polarized now than then. We don’t have tanks in the streets of Washington, and roundups of ten thousands of people locked in RFK Stadium because there’s no where else large enough to put that many threats, and we don’t have bombings of government offices, and we don’t have zillions of kids convinced that there’s soon going to be a Revolution (really!), and we don’t have the government acting as if there will, in fact, soon be a Revolution (quite), and we don’t have Black Panthers being mowed down in raids, and we don’t have National Guard shooting protestors, and, well, I hope you take my point.
Before I forget, hilzoy, Slarti in a previous thread was bemoaning the shortage of alpha particles. You could lend him your basement.
Because really, how can any of us go on when every alpha particle hides a neon nucleus?
i highly recommend taking a couple of weeks off from blogs, poltics and even the news. when you come back, this climate of constant attack will seem like the flailings of people who are desparate to find something to be upset about.
that’s not to say that kind of attitude isn’t a potential problem – just that it might improve your own outlook for a while.
Gary, point taken.
And, yes, in terms of the types of activities you list, I agree that we have not reached that level. I think, but would not swear to it, that there are a few commenters here that would like to see the days of rage return.
However, that was really a one way street, with the anti-war crowd, and some elements of the civil rights crowd doing most of the pushing, and the government pushing back.
Today, I am talking more about the mind set and verbalizations that take place. And it exists beyond the blosphere. In everyday life, I hear nastier comments directed in either direction than I did then. Derogatory language is much more prevalent now.
And my fear is that this rage is only being expressed verbally but may soon start going in another direction and become more physical action.
blogosphere not blosphere.
I think Hilzoy’s basement should be investigated for possible involvement in constructing nuclear weapons.
After all, she’s admitted it’s radioactive!
What could be more suspicious? She’s practically confessed.
Someone call Homeland Security, ASAP. We can’t take any chances with these bloviating liberal America-hating terrorsymps.
blogosphere not blosphere.
how about Bloviosphere ?
“how about Bloviosphere ?”
Shut up, you terrorist!
Isn’t it comforting, by the way, that we now can refer to “Homeland Security,” and that “homeland” has entered American discourse as a normal piece of language, and as a normal concept.
I, for one, take great comfort in it.
I do have some German ancestry, after all.
I stop reading for a little while and a storm erupts. Gary did you say something about your timing being bad? (On second thought, maybe my luck is good, not bad.)
On the subject of hatred of the “other,” I happened to listen to part of an interview with Amartya Sen (1998 Bank of Sweden Prize winner in economics). His most recent book Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny addresses this subject.
He told a story of his experience as an 8-year-old child during the partition of India — a poor Muslim laborer who had been stabbed (and later died) stumbled into his courtyard. The man had disregarded the danger of going to a Hindu neighborhood because his family had no food and he was desparate for work.
So, things could be worse (is this “looking on the bright side?”). Sorry I can’t give you a review of the book yet but I’m going out to buy it.
I’ve written before that I came to ObWi looking for a more congenial place to discuss things (including politics). I’m grateful for it and its existence gives me hope that we may yet avoid the very real potential depths of hatred. There are plenty of bad signs, ObWi is one good one.
I’ve been reading a fair amount of Amartya Sen lately, as it happens. My original observation: he’s a smart guy.
That brings up an interesting concept — you’ve got your partisans on both sides, right? And you’ve got the partisans that think THOSE partisans are appeasing idiots for not being left or right enough. Then you’ve got what I like to call the faux-middle — the ones sitting around sneering at both sides for being blindly partisan and smug in their satisifaction that they’re “above the masses” — when they themselves are taking it as an article of faith that no partisan can be correct.
In short, they’re just as bad.
I think the problem here is that people have taken the notion of “partisan” to mean “incorrect”. That doesn’t necessarily follow. Even claiming a partisan is ideologically blinded and should be dismissed is a mistake.
Take Bob: Bob thinks George Bush is looking for an excuse to drop a tactical nuke on Iran. He thinks George Bush (and his advisors) feel this would accomplish two critical goals: Set Iran’s nuclear program back several years AND prove to the rest of the world that the US keeps all options on the table.
Does it matter of Bob’s a Republican, a Democrat, a libertarian, a communist, a Muslim or a poli-sci student?
I’d say not really — opinions are opinions, and should be weighed on the logic, facts, and arguments behind them. Too often I see people — with good points — sneeringly dismissed as blind partisans. (Admittedly, not so much here). It seems to be the logical fallacy of choice for the Internet Age — politicians have always loved it, of course.
Take Bob: Bob thinks George Bush is looking for an excuse to drop a tactical nuke on Iran. He thinks George Bush (and his advisors) feel this would accomplish two critical goals: Set Iran’s nuclear program back several years AND prove to the rest of the world that the US keeps all options on the table.
Does it matter of Bob’s a Republican, a Democrat, a libertarian, a communist, a Muslim or a poli-sci student?
I’d say not really — opinions are opinions, and should be weighed on the logic, facts, and arguments behind them. Too often I see people — with good points — sneeringly dismissed as blind partisans. (Admittedly, not so much here). It seems to be the logical fallacy of choice for the Internet Age — politicians have always loved it, of course.
I see this all the time in the science debates. It’s most evident in the creation/evolution debates, where scientists are claimed to be partisans (invariably liberal, and thus, not to be trusted).
[Off topic or maybe it’s on]
By accident, I noticed there’s a “save the Fresh Air archives” fundariser in progress.
Gary,
Shortest version: We should never consider fellow humans to be worthless as human beings. Their online political speech may in some cases be treated as nearly worthless. Safely. I’d rather we not conflate the two issues, since I agree with your main point. But saying, “blog x isn’t worth reading” is in no way equivalent to saying, “person x is not worth treating as a fellow human being”, and so is neither a symptom of the latter nor a slippery slope leading that direction.
I watched The Weather Underground a few weeks ago and I couldn’t help but think that, no, the political climate in America is nowhere near as divisive as it was in the sixties and seventies.
Heh. Yes, during the declassification scuffle a few days ago I relayed some of the information Gary pointed me to; someone on Metafilter referred to me as a ‘Whining ***** of a scum-sucking Bush sychophant’ if I remember correctly. Something like that.
It’s startling how quickly people stop even listening to those they’re talking to if they even THINK there’s a risk of having their presuppositions challenged.
“I watched The Weather Underground a few weeks ago and I couldn’t help but think that, no, the political climate in America is nowhere near as divisive as it was in the sixties and seventies.”
I’d say we’re closer to the level circa 1964, or 1976, but not the years in between (and relatively absent the virulent overt support for violent racism present in 1964 and the entire previous century and before).
Of course, the overwhelming difference between now and the late sixties is the lack of a draft. If we still had a draft, things would be, I am damn sure, very different.
Of course, some will see that as a “too bad,” because it would Bring Our Boys (and Girls) Home Sooner. I understand the perspective, but I don’t think I, in the end, agree.
I do wish I’d been more anti-war in 2002-3, and less ambivalent, though. And that we’d Gone Another Route. This one doesn’t seems to have worked out so great. So I feel badly that I was so wishy-washy at the time, and that I never dreamed that the Administration would so eff up the job I thought the professionals were capable of doing, and that I instead made wishy-washy arguments about why people could legitimately disagree and that there were valid points on both sides.
I mean, I still think that: that people could legitimately disagree with good reasons, and that there were good arguments both for and against the war, but I was wrong to not understand how badly Bush and Co would screw up, and I should have known better. But I was being Too Fair, and not paranoid enough. Mea culpa.
That’ll bother me the rest of my life, because I’m not someone who lost an eye or a limb or a piece of their skull, or their sister, or dad, or cousin, or life, over it. (And, yeah, some people would have suffered if Saddam had been left in power another couple or more years, too; as I’ve always said, it was always a matter of bad choices; there were no morally free, everyone gets to live happily ever after options on the table; but still.)
It’s startling how quickly people stop even listening to those they’re talking to if they even THINK there’s a risk of having their presuppositions challenged.
heh. i was over at Digby’s last week, telling Tristero that i thought he’d gone too far in suggesting that Bush et al would fake a terrorist attack in order to gin up support for the Iran war. my comments immediately brought out the people who were convinced that not only would Bush fake an attack here, but that it was obvious he would because he was already involved in 9/11.
when i asked for evidence, i was called “fncking troll”, ignorant, an idiot, etc., and then told that i’d be “beaten and hung from a lampost” (or something to that effect).
woo hoo.
I love humanity.
It’s people I can’t stand.
briefly logging on again: I don’t think one can be too fair, though I know what Gary means. And one of my whole points at ObWi is to try — how successfully I cannot gauge — to separate, in practice, passion from a lack of fairness, to show that the two are wholly different, and to make the best case I can for the idea that you can have the first without the second.
Hmmph.
Wanna know why I’m so busy, other than a full-time job and student papers and catching up all the stuff I put on hold while preparing for Idaho and buying a house? Glenn Greenwald’s manuscript, that’s why.
Dear President Ahmadinejad continues to coo sweet nothings:
He sure knows how to sweet-talk.
The Dutch blogger in Teheran I read, states that the country currently is more in uproar about the fact that Ahmadinejad suddenly decided to abolish the summertime – the day before it was supposed to start.
All schools now have to start at 7.00 and civil servants at 7.30… Airline tickets and prayer schedules were allready printed and have to be corrected now… Much more impact on practical day-to-day life.
An article in one of our newspapers compared the nucleair track in Iran with ours. They are now where we were in 1969, when we managed to have 70 centrifuges working in a network – before they more or less blew up.
Ahmadinejad is playing his own domestic political game with lots of chestbeating rhetoric. Do people really believe that he would start firing nucleair weapons (magically appearing a decade before they could make them themselves) at Israel? Is that much more likely than him doing all the toughtalking in order to play a more significant role on the international stage?
Abolished summertime? Them’s fightin’ words! ((45 days to summer vacation…)
“Ahmadinejad is playing his own domestic political game with lots of chestbeating rhetoric. Do people really believe that he would start firing nucleair weapons (magically appearing a decade before they could make them themselves) at Israel? Is that much more likely than him doing all the toughtalking in order to play a more significant role on the international stage?”
First of all, since I posted what you are responding to (or appear to be responding to), let me point out that I’ve said not one darn word about nuclear weapons, and I’ve already addressed all these questions multiple times.
Come to think of it, I really don’t need to say more.
“Ahmadinejad is playing his own domestic political game with lots of chestbeating rhetoric. Do people really believe that he would start firing nucleair weapons (magically appearing a decade before they could make them themselves) at Israel? Is that much more likely than him doing all the toughtalking in order to play a more significant role on the international stage?”
But I will. First of all, I don’t notice you explaining that it’s fine for George W. Bush, or Republican politicians, or American generals, to say all sorts of threatening and alarming things, because, after all, they’re just playing to domestic politics.
So there goes that out the window.
Second, when you address an international conference on Zionism, with reporters from around the world in attendence, you’re not just speaking to a domestic audience, you’re speaking to the world. And everyone knows this (although you seem to be in denial about it). It’s not as if he muttered this at 2 a.m. to his housecleaner, and it was reported in a gossip column. He knows perfectly well what he’s saying.
So out the window, again.
Third, that it doesn’t cause a lot of upset in Iran: not helping your case with that line of reasoning.
Fourth: “Do people really believe that he would start firing nucleair weapons (magically appearing a decade before they could make them themselves) at Israel?”
I think we’ve already addressed that at considerable length, in multiple threads. I know that I’m not all that interested in repeating for the eighth or ninth time that: a) we have some years before we really have to worry about that; and b) we don’t know, there are good reasons to think either answer might be possible; and c) we don’t know who will be in power and what the situation will be by the time they should actually have nuclear weapons; so d) we certainly shouldn’t be planning any military action soon — though letting the Iranians know that they should worry has both aspects in favor and aspects not; and e) even eventually, at worst, military action still might very well be far more counter-productive, to put it mildly, than not.
Hope this answers your questions. For the ninth or so time, speaking just for myself.
On the other hand, I find your surety that there’s nothing to worry about no more credible than the surety that we Must Nuke Tomorrow, or All Is Lost.
I also heard that the Jews have nothing to worry about with Herr Hitler. Pay no attention to what he says; he’s just saying that for domestic reasons of political gain. Rest easy.
Me: for the billionth time: don’t know how much cause there is to worry about. Don’t believe anyone else, outside the ruling circles of Iran, knows either. Call “b*llshucks” on everyone who claims they do know, and tries to sell me on their mindreading/seer powers.
No offense intended.
Whether our present rhetorical climate is better or worse than the sixties, and I think our present time is worse, due to the lack of actual violence in the streets…the fact is…ok, maybe we didn’t survive the sixties, so I can’t exactly call it a fact. There are factions on all sides that say irevocable damage was done.
But my present country looks in its present configuration not that different,ya know kids-houses-jobs-stupid tv shows, than what I saw in 1960.
The active hate 1960-75, well distributed, had positive results and outcomes for all involved. The hate and violence was not a symptom of “identity politics” and the rise of the modern conservatism movement, two opposite possibly good results, but were the things themselves, at least in part.
Creative destruction, etc. In order to make really big omelettes gotta crack a lot of eggs. I guess while you could point to each individual act of violence and call it a bad thing, the result of the overall cumulative violence was at least a wash.
I am not yet advocating violence. But a lot more screaming and yelling and dirty words and unfairness might do us all some good.
About Iranian fatwas on nuclear weapons? Is this important? Relevant? Controlling? Not? Accurate story? Not? I don’t know.
But it seems worth mentioning if we’re talking Iranian fatwas on nuclear weapons.
hey, libJapon… what’s the deal with Salt Tea? gack.
I don’t know about it first hand, but I had a student do a paper on tea and she said that it was something from Kashmir, I believe. She only mentioned it in passing, but I’m guessing it’s related to Tibetan butter tea. Japanese don’t have any problem getting salt because its in practically everything (soy sauce, miso, pickles)
This thread, having ejected a troll, was descending into choruses of “We’d like to teach the world to sing, and live in harmony.” And heck, I just last night watched an hour on Freedom Summer, Mississippi, 1964. And the need for “passion & fairness” “civil discourse”, and “not demonizing your enemies” needed an honest response. Bull.
Politics is a marketplace of interests and ideas. In times of abundance, markets can look pretty nice, for there are profits for everyone and competition can be amicable. Blow one Silicon startup, you got another chance. But markets devolve into maldistibution. monopolies, monopsonies, and times of scarcity. If those periods are not really really ugly, you know it is because government tools are being used to repress competition. The ugliness is a feature, not a bug.
lily: summertime was maybe to quick-a-translation. What’s the proper English for when a country puts the clock an hour forward? (my kids won’t have summervacation till july 23d…)
Gary: I was not specifically answering you, but giving my general opinion. And frankly, the general opinion that Bush spoke more for his domestic public than for the international audience he was addressing has been made on several occasions. He is not really known for his interests in foreign politics.
And yes: you can address an international audience and still aim for your own public more that for the rest of the world. It actually happends quite often – maybe there is a relationship with that whole democracy thing, where the people back home vote you into power. In the Dutch politics I have even seen quite a few occassions of the oppossite; where the international audience was played instead of the home public. Usually by politicians with international ambitions (we are abysmal at lobbying, so I guess they need all the help they can get).
Bringing Hitler into a discussion about Ahmadinejad is at the same level as the flight-intendant who confiscated my toddler-butterknife last year. I’m sure there is some theoretical logic, but I cannot take it seriously. Comparing with Iran in the 80’s makes more sense. I don’t say they are honest pacificts, I just don’t think they are that much of a threat at the moment.
All the fearmongering only increases the change they might get dangerous. Like when Bush told the world that Iran was part of the axis of evil (after years of slow progress and quite some cooperation against mutual enemies). You make sure the population feels threatened and before you know it they vote for a conservative chestbeater who believes he is the mouthpiece of his own personal deity. Add support from extreme religious leaders and the appointment of political croonies – and all you need is for the population to feel more threatened to affirm your position.
“And frankly, the general opinion that Bush spoke more for his domestic public than for the international audience he was addressing has been made on several occasions. He is not really known for his interests in foreign politics.”
Yes, and yet he acts upon the world, does he not?
And you do not say “Oh, well, pay no attention to George Bush, he is just speaking for the effect on domestic politics; what he has to say is harmless, and if we criticize him, or say we are alarmed, we may provoke him into being dangerous!,” do you?
So why the double-standard?
And if you’d like to meet me in Tehran to discuss whether Jews should believe people who say they want to kill Jews, and whether therefore bringing Hitler is inapt, we could have an interesting discussion.
Oh, wait, they wouldn’t let me into the country, would they? Why is that?
Tell me, dutchmarbel, exactly why I should believe Iran is uninterested in killing Jews, given the history of Iran with Hezbollah?
Why, exactly, did Iran kill so many Jews in the AMIA bombing?
You’re aware of that, right?
You’re aware of the history of Hezbollah, and Iranian funding of killing Jews?
Or maybe you don’t. You have that luxury.
At risk of being blunt, I’m not apt to take comfort from your assurances that I have nothing to worry about when Iranian leaders speak of their fervent desires to kill me, given that they take so many actions to actually kill Jews, and have succeeded so many times.
It’s hardly just rhetoric for cheering up the populace. And we have thousands of years of history of leaders looking to distract their populations by focusing on Jew-killing. Telling me to rest easy, because that’s all that’s going on: well, frankly, my head rather explodes at the chutzphah.
Being assured I should pay it no mind, well, sorry: no. You have no standing to give me such assurances. None.
Oddly, this is a topic I tend to be rather emphatic about.
(Note: this doesn’t mean I think you’re a bad person, or I want to stop speaking to you, or desire to insult you, or not be friends, or anything like that; it means that I feel very strongly about this, and I disagree, and that’s all; I would otherwise like to be friends, ok?)
What’s the proper English for when a country puts the clock an hour forward?
In Britain and the non-US Anglosphere it’s called “summer time” (2 words) I believe. Here in the US we call it daylight savings time. “Summertime” (1 word) is more or less a synonym for “summer”, which might be the time between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox, or the time between Memorial Day and Labor Day (essentially June, July and August with an extra weekend before and after), or if you have kids, the time when they are out of school.
Saber-Rattling Ezra Klein thinks he is discussing the effectiveness of Saber-rattling with James Fallows. Will Iran blink? Sheesh. Bush wants regime change, not a marginally nicer Iran with nukes. Digby (links in comments) and I (in comments) explain that you don’t get a dozen generals asking for their boss’s resignation without very good reason. We are at war with Iran. Deal.
Keep Powder Dry Brave Democrats…sarcasm alert
Arthur Silber of Once Upon a Time. I am liking him a lot recently. He reads books and stuff.
“When you are asked to accede to that which you know to be deeply immoral and wrong, and to be ultimately destructive of what once made the United States the great nation it was — and if you care about honor, decency, your own life and the lives of your fellow Americans — then you must say no, even if you are almost certain that you will lose.
A very powerful “No” could provide us with more time, time that is desperately needed to right our nation’s course. It might save us — and at the very least, those who say “No” will save their own souls and consciences. If the Democrats in Washington are unwilling or unable to act in this manner, they will have damned themselves. They will no longer be any concern of mine — nor, I would submit, should they be a concern for anyone who understands the nature of this battle and who gives a damn”
But hilzoy wants “passion and fairness” and I think Gary is cautiously positioning himself for the Iran war period. You dudes are right. It is going to get filthy ugly around this country. 1968 is coming our way.
Good.
Gary, respectfully, I would suggest dialing it back a notch. I realize that this is a topic that is close to home, but 9 questions in a row is a bit much. I don’t want to get in a parsing flame fest because I’m sure you know a lot more than me about this, but I would suggest that you explain why you feel strongly about this and present your reasoning rather than demanding that she explicate why she feels the way she does. I respectfully think that this would further the conversation. I understand that you want Dutch to understand your deeply felt position and that’s fine, but (realizing that this does not reflect on your intention in any way) it comes across that you are trying to shout her down.
I’m still mulling over the points here, but I think that Josh Marshall’s observation is of some relevance here:
What doesn’t add up to me is that through much of the past decade we were told that the reformism of Ahmadinejad’s immediate predecessor Mohammad Khatami was not that significant because the real power in Iran, the font of all fundamental decision making is in the Guardian Council and even more the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.
Given how things developed under Khatami’s presidency, that claim appears to have been borne out.
Now, Khamenei is no great shakes, on a lot of counts. But one mild consolation is that I think this logic applies as much to Ahmadinejad as much as it applied to Khatami. He may be a zealout where Khatami was a reformer. But aren’t we still fundamentally in the same situation: that the key decisions in Iran are made by Khamenei?
If that’s true, then Ahmadinejad really is a secondary player. And building him up as the bogeyman doesn’t really add up.
I realize that Marshall is talking about nukes in Iran, but the observation seems to be suggestive of something, though I’m not sure just what it is.
“…but I think that Josh Marshall’s observation is of some relevance here….”
Funny, because I’ve made that same observation here about 8 times, and generally been told that I was wrong. I seem to recall you being the main person suggesting I was wrong. I may have misunderstood.
Otherwise, I guess I’ll repeat for the nth time that I 100% oppose any military action against Iran in the near future, and that we have several years before such thoughts would make even the remotest sense to consider, and even then, they might be a horrible idea.
I really don’t know how to be any clearer than that. Suggest that I’ll go set myself in fire in front of the Pentagon if we attack Iran? (Okay, not going to do that; but I don’t know how to be more emphatic, without shouting, about my opposition to war with Iran under present circumstances.)
Gary, I’m not sure if I suggested you were wrong about that, but if you could show me where I did, I would happily retract it. If you are concerned that I didn’t weigh in when you were told you were wrong by someone else, I’m sure it was that I felt that you could adequately put forward your own views. I’m also not sure how you derived from my comment asking you to adopt a less aggressive stance in this comment section toward Dutchmarbel that I had some notion that you supported military action against Iran as I have never thought that you did. If you could quote precisely what gave you that impression, I would happily retract it, but at the moment, I can only say that I wasn’t making that implication and I would like to know where you feel I made such an implication, if only to avoid doing so in the future.
I’ve never gotten a flat tire – yesterday for the second my wife got one with me in the car. We were on the way to the maternity ward – to visit an almost in-law who just had a baby. This weekend: crib assembling, though apparently we’re using a co-sleeper first. And looking for a new-born sized hat or toboggan or something that isn’t too cutesy or colorblindly multicolored.
“I’m also not sure how you derived from my comment asking you to adopt a less aggressive stance in this comment section toward Dutchmarbel that I had some notion that you supported military action against Iran as I have never thought that you did.”
I didn’t mean to imply any such thing. My apologies for my sloppiness. I did the digression thing, but didn’t clearly label it.
On the other, we had a number of exchanges in which I pointed to the primacy of Khamenei over Ahmadinejad, and you had a number of objections.
Munich
Billmon is actually useful. The title contains a very complex analogy explained in the post, which is mostly about Iran internals and Ahmadinejad.
“Suggest that I’ll go set myself in fire in front of the Pentagon if we attack Iran?”
Well, it’s a plan. I got a 13 yr old car and a 5 gal can, but can’t afford to fill it til the 22nd. I wouldn’t ask you to do anything I wouldn’t, so we’ll flip for who holds the match and camera.
Sorry. Am I panicking? Letting my imagination run away with me? Perish the thought. MY told us boomers to Chill Out
and Digby told the kid to respect his elder’s experience while admitting our generation’s general excitability.
As as I am concerned we haven’t had hard times for 25 years, and I am not sure how the kids are gonna handle them. You think Iraq is a war? Well, it is for the Iraqis, but we don’t have a big enough army or have devoted enough resources for me to call that intervention a war. You know you are in a war when you don’t talk about it, when the need to escape the daily horror becomes an existential imperative. It becomes the air you breathe, you take it for granted, you ignore the news.
Bush avoiding the funerals was part of the plan. Three guys on my block died in the sixties, and I barely noticed. It was like bad weather. I’m scared.
So, open question. Who have you read in the last year or so who posts reasonably current updates on Iran’s internal political power struggles?
I want several things. I want to know whether the traditional weakness of the Iraqi presidency combines with resentment of the mullahs in a way that makes the population more willing to countenance power gains by even a President whose policies they dislike, in order to strengthen the office relative to the mullahs.
I want to know how much foreign policy information reaches the public. I want a rough breakdown of information sources that various groups use. Are members of Ahmadinejad’s base getting foreign policy information from anywhere besides him and his government? What about the section of the public that isn’t actively in the opposition? He apparently just repeated the holocaust-denial statement that required spokesperson “clarification” in response to international outcry. Did that whole brouhaha penetrate beyond the government and active opposition the first time?
I want to know what Ahmadinejad’s current “base” support is. I want to know what effects the bus drivers’ strike is having on that. I want some estimates of where he gains when we’re bellicose, and where he gains/loses when he is.
I’d like a guess at whether Iran is likely to partially cover Hamas’ funding shortfalls. I’d like an opinion on what (if anything) he’ll have to do to maintain public support in the event of a sizable transfer of funds.
Basically, current non-military information. What are you reading?
On the other, we had a number of exchanges in which I pointed to the primacy of Khamenei over Ahmadinejad, and you had a number of objections.
??!? It’s certainly possible (I spent 45 minutes this morning looking for a set of index cards that I had and found them where I now remember putting them so I could easily find them), but if so, then my thinking has undergone a sea change, cause now, I feel like I’ve never thought of Ahmadinejad as being that big a fish. If you could point me to where we had this discussion (or even narrow it down a bit so that I could try and locate it), I’d appreciate it because I would like to know if I’m that unaware of my previous stances.
“I feel like I’ve never thought of Ahmadinejad as being that big a fish.”
The Billmon link 12:09 discusses the dude at length, using ordinary sources like Hersh and Juan Cole.
“Ahmadinejad, however, has been moving to consolidate power, using his fiery appeals to Shi’a fundamentalism and Iranian national pride to whip up mass support, and launching a series of purges designed first to turn the Revolutionary Guard into his own personal instrument, and then to use the RG to bring key state institutions under direct presidential control – in fact as well as in name.” …Billmon
It isn’t hard to see some ominous parallels here. A Marxist would probably say Ahmadinejad is playing the classic Bonapartist role: taking advantage of a political stalemate between social classes to forge a personal dictatorship. Or maybe he’s just the inevitable product of an authoritarian system in terminal decline, like Milosevic in Yugoslavia. Or maybe he’s really only explicable in Iranian terms…
“I don’t know. But Ahmadinejad’s combination of demogogic appeal, ideological zealotry and end-times eschatology does make him a much more plausible stand-in for Hitler than an apparachik like Milosevic or a thug like Saddam. Even Juan Cole – hardly a neocon sympathizer – has called Ahmadinejad “essentially fascist.” …Billmon
I haven’t been following you & Gary’s conversation about who is in control in Iran
because I didn’t think it mattered. I see no possible Iranian government that could come to terms with the Bush administration. I’ll scroll up, go to Gary’s, see what is going on.
“Glenn Greenwald’s manuscript, that’s why.”
…hilzoy, 4:48 pm
Tis much credit to Greenwald for a good choice;tis much credit to hilzoy for being chosen.
Bob,
I don’t know if I should admit to this, but if I ever talked about Iran in terms that made it sound like I knew what I was talking about, ignore me. My knowledge is based on simply what I’ve read fitfully on the web. I have read a lot about Japan-Iranian relations, but that is thru the lens of what Japan should be doing in the next century. If I was debating Gary about Iran, I must have been staying up way too late.
I would note that I see no possible North Korean government that could come to terms with a Bush administration as well, but I would avoid demonizing them and trying to be aware of what precise strengths and weaknesses they possess. I think the same is even more true for Iran.
Bob: no merit to either of us; I volunteered. (25 pages to go. Then student papers. Argh. At least the house front is quiescent, while I wait for the seller to respond to my response to the property inspection report…)
What did you decide to do about the 4.1 pikachus of radium in your basement?
Tim: suck it up. Hopefully not literally. Of course, my nice attitude might change if the seller decides not to accept my response to the property inspector. I was nice on the grounds that there was a fair amount of work for her to do. If she declines to do it, hitherto neglected bits of the report, including that one, could make a reappearance.
hil: assuming the wrinkles can all be ironed out, when are you scheduled to close? (email your new address… i’ve a house-warming gift for you.)
Gary: I understand your engagement in the subject and do not take it personal. Currently it is hard to do an extensive post (tomorrow the whole family comes over for easter brunch and we still have to bake/cook half the dishes since we are weightwatching (I’ve lost about 70 pregnancy-related pounds now, yay)).
I’ll come back later, but Billmon’s munich seems to follow my train of thought. And I do want to note that I do not think Bush and Ahemedinejad have the same amount of power, so I tend to react differently to them.
Glad you would not support militairy actions against Iran. I think that would be useless.
this is todays political cartoon in my newspaper…
Since Billmon’s name was mentioned so many times in this thread, this article from today’s paper may be of interest.
“Glenn Greenwald’s manuscript, that’s why.”
It is perhaps unknown that I have a history of work as a professional proofreader and copyeditor and line editor, and that I’d like work. Dunno. Not sure what to say to any of that.
“this is todays political cartoon in my newspaper…”
Fair point, but, man, that person draws awfully. I mean, really badly. Surely there are better cartoonists in Holland?
I could draw that awfully, and I can’t draw. Any 4-year-old could draw that badly.
I quess drawing is not in our country’s cultural heritage :^)
It’s his style – quite a few cartoonists here go for simple drawings. They can convey messages very well though 🙂
About Iran: Yes I think he is nuts, and should be faced with the consequences. Making the US ‘the enemy’ will only help him though – an outside enemy is quite usefull for rightwing presedents who feel they have a divine mission. Before you know it they draw more and more power to themselves and nobody dares to stop him. Ahmedinejad has a strong opposition and is trying to get rid of them in various ways. Creating an outside enemy will only help him in that regard I think.
He also lives surrounded by countries that are more likely to feel threatened by him than that they are allies who are waiting to follow his lead.
The holocaust happened here, in the civilized West, and we all let it happen. What I learned from it is that you have to be very carefull when people start to ‘demonize’ a (religious) group of people. Generalisations about their attitudes, global feeling of threat, political goals that are randomly ascribed to them (“they” want to take over), etc.
Israel is not synonimous with the holocaust. Zionism started earlier, the Isreali leadership has mainly be formed by people who allready lived there before WW2.