Posted under Interventionism & Iran & NeoCons
Want to see just how bad Neocon tunnel vision is? Here’s how bad it is, as illustrated by one of the War Party’s loudest cheerleaders:
I mentioned that something good might come of the latest WikiLeaks document dump, but I wasn’t expecting it so soon.
The headline at this morning’s Los Angeles Times hardcopy reads: “Hidden Diplomacy Exposed: Among the WikiLeaks disclosures are pleas by Arab nations to the U.S. to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.”
So, Muslims are “pleading” that the US start another aggressive war againt Muslims, huh? Here’s the story in the Los Angeles Times:
Leaders of oil-rich Arabian Peninsula monarchies who are publicly reluctant to criticize Iran have been beseeching the United States in private to attack the Islamic Republic and destroy its nuclear facilities, according to a series of classified diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks website.
The cables show that both Saudi King Abdullah and King Hamed ibn Isa Khalifa of Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. 5th Fleet, are among the Arab leaders who have lobbied the United States to strike Iran.
Wait a minute — “hosts the U.S. 5th fleet”? In other words, these are US puppets propped up US military power, not by the consent of their people.
What do ordinary Arabs think about Iran? Fortunately, Brookings’ Arab Public Opinion Poll, published this August, gives us some insight into this. It seems the vast majority of Arabs see things a little differently. Unlike their US-backed rulers, 77% of Arabs believed that Iran has a right to a nuclear program. (And as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — which Israel and India ARE NOT — Iran does indeed have that right.) When asked which foreign country they saw as a threat to them, 88% said Israel, and 77% said they feared the US more. Only 10% of Arabs polled feared Iran.
So keep this simple rule in mind whenever you read something from a known Neocon: Just believe the opposite of whatever they say.
Nate on 03 Dec 2010 at 6:46 pm #
The term “neocon” is just a leftist smear term for an individual who represents everything that true conservatives believe.
Weaver on 03 Dec 2010 at 7:37 pm #
Nate,
Unlike most of most of mass society, we’re not bickering heads of the same beast.
Neocons are nearly identical to “liberals”.
Weaver on 03 Dec 2010 at 7:50 pm #
If Iran is truly building nuclear weapons, I honestly don’t care. Let them have nukes.
What Americans should be looking at is M-E-X-I-C-O, immigration, cutting America’s foreign affairs spending, and ending free trade to bring America’s jobs back here. If workfare is temporarily needed, America’s infrastructure ought to be improved.
Real conservatives believe this. Neocons don’t care about America.
There are some legitimate conservative criticisms to what I said with the idea of protecting liberty, but that’s a concern for America. Neocons again don’t care about America.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 03 Dec 2010 at 9:06 pm #
Nate,
Right. Burke, Weaver, and Kirk all agreed that the number one article of faith for conservatives was putting Israel’s interests above our own at all times.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 03 Dec 2010 at 9:06 pm #
Weaver,
Ain’t that the truth!
HarrisonBergeron2 on 03 Dec 2010 at 9:07 pm #
Weaver,
For proof, just look at the Bush-Kennedy Amnesty plot.
RonL on 03 Dec 2010 at 9:09 pm #
I hate neocons therefore Iran should have nukes. That they want to destroy the Great Satan is irrelevant eh? I guess if you are lucky, they’ll take out New York, home to me as well as millions of anti-war voters.
Of course the Arab leaders oppose the Iranian nucelar program. They don’t want to be dominated by the Shia.
Weaver on 03 Dec 2010 at 9:43 pm #
Ron,
America is broke and needs to deal with its own problems. We’re in no position to guide Iran. Most foreign policy attempts America makes work against American interests because our government is run by incompetents. In Pakistan, which does concern me a lot more than Iran, we’ve strengthened extremists.
You know as well as I that 9/11 wouldn’t have happened were the US not in the Middle East. They hate “Great Satan” because it has bases all over the Muslim world. Many of the radicals over there are secular nationalists, not religious fanatics. Saddam and the Ba’athists were certainly secular. Now, thanks to America, Shia extremists are powerful in Iraq. What was once a balance between Shia Iran and Sunni Iraq is now undone. If America pulls out, maybe secularists will come to power. Presently, we’re stoking the flames – secularists are seen as American stooges.
They wouldn’t hate us if we didn’t meddle… Pakistan would focus on India.
At some point, we’ve got to put down this burden. Can’t Russia and China work with India to deal with Pakistan? Why America always?
If someone nukes NYC, it’ll be the neocons fault, as well as liberals like Obama who continue the same policies. The policy of occupy, bomb, and enrage Muslims and invite the same people to immigrate into America simply isn’t a good one. Haha, it’s time for “Change”.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 03 Dec 2010 at 10:22 pm #
RonL,
I can’t add much to Weaver’s great response, but will add this: Iran has never threatened us, despite our repeated hostile moves against it.
And Iran does not have the delivery capability, even if they did develop an atomic bomb.
RedPhillips on 03 Dec 2010 at 10:23 pm #
Ron and Weaver, it is in America’s best interest for Iran not to get nukes. To be honest, it would be in our best interest if no other country had nukes except us.
It is reasonable to try to persuade Iran not to build nukes through normal diplomatic processes as long as they are within the bounds of the Constitution. (This does not include sanctions which are arguably an act of war.)
Where I have a problem is with the idea that ultimately the US can tell Iran, a sovereign nation, that they can’t build nukes. We can no more tell another country they can’t have nukes than they can tell us we can’t. This whole notion is infused with American exceptionalism and the rules don’t apply to us conceit.
So war with Iran to keep them from developing nukes is off the table from a first princples standpoint. We don’t have the right. The only way you could justify going to war to prevent another country from aquiring a weapon is if you knew that country to be such an implacable enemy that their possession of a highly destructive weapon like a WMD would present an intolerable security risk. I know Ron believes this, but I do not find the case convincing at all. A preventative attack requires a very high threshold of proof.
Ron, I know you think it is all about neocon hate. If the neocons are for it we are going to be against it even if it requires us to cut off our own noses, but it really isn’t that simple.
RedPhillips on 03 Dec 2010 at 10:33 pm #
The problem isn’t that our foreign policy is run by incompetents, although there is much incompetence. The problem is that there is no real challenge to the concensus foreign policy of both left and “right,” which takes interventionism of one form or another for granted. Non-intervention doesn’t even occur to them, and when they hear of it they dismiss it out of hand, the same way a physician would dismiss shamanism. Andrew Bacevich has made this observation.
Kirt Higdon on 04 Dec 2010 at 1:38 am #
Red,
So it would be in the US best interest that no other country have nukes but us. Why? So US nukes could be used to slaughter innocent civilians as they were at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? So the US could use the threat of nuclear annihilation to coerce all other countries to adopt “our values”? Iran claims not to be seeking nuclear weapons and so far no one has shown differently. They are behaving more ethically than the US, for all the good it is likely to do them. For all your criticism of the neo-cons you are still of the mentality that the US must be number one – at any cost including any moral cost.
Weaver on 04 Dec 2010 at 3:31 am #
Kirt,
what’s your view on nukes then? Who should have them? Should Bill Gates be allowed to purchase one?
Posturing is easy. Admittedly, I’m posturing somewhat too, but I have something of an answer if you want to press me for my ideal of nuclear control (you won’t like my answer).
RedPhillips on 04 Dec 2010 at 4:35 am #
“So it would be in the US best interest that no other country have nukes but us. Why? So US nukes could be used to slaughter innocent civilians as they were at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? So the US could use the threat of nuclear annihilation to coerce all other countries to adopt “our values”?”
Kirt, you are so blinded by your hatred of the Regime that you have lost your ability to think rationally. Of course not so we can bomb innocents or coerce others. Obviously so no one else would have the ability to nuke us.
It would be in our best interest for the same reason it would be in your best interests to be a 6’5″ 250 lb BJJ Black Belt on a playground full of skinny weaklings. Not so you could beat them all up and take their lunch money, (what kind of cynic would jump to that conclusion), but so they couldn’t beat you up and take yours.
Good grief!
Kirt Higdon on 04 Dec 2010 at 3:00 pm #
Weaver,
My view on nukes is that no one should have them. They are what is referred to in Catholic moral theology as a “proximate occasion of sin”.
Red,
You are the one who is not thinking very rationally. I take into account fallen human nature and the historical record. Has command of nuclear weapons improved the behavior of our rulers? Would a monopoly on them improve it further? The powerful giant of your schoolyard fantasy would in real life abuse his power and behave like bullies always behave – until one of his skinny weakling victims resorted to “terrorism” and knifed him in the back or poisoned him or some such thing.
RedPhillips on 04 Dec 2010 at 3:18 pm #
Kirt, when I write, “To be honest, it would be in our best interest if no other country had nukes except us.” I am obviously speaking theoretically because that isn’t going to happen. It was in response to Weaver’s statement, “If Iran is truly building nuclear weapons, I honestly don’t care. Let them have nukes.” That was not a helpful statement and is the kind of thing that can easily be seized upon by critics of non-intervention. Clearly it is in our best interest for Iran, an unfriendly nation to us, not to get nukes. We just can’t go to war to stop them.
I agree that ideally no country would have nukes, but that isn’t going to happen either. See, again another theoretical assertion.
Weaver on 04 Dec 2010 at 5:54 pm #
If I admit to being concerned, I get pulled into, “how can you be 100% certain?”
Iran doesn’t seem to be developing nukes, and it doesn’t show that it’d use them if it had them. The US wouldn’t know how to react in either case; it’d likely make matters worse.
Were the US better run, I’d be slightly more interventionist on matters like nukes. Mr. Bean just isn’t James Bond though: America isn’t exceptional. Exceptionalism aside, might makes right (with power comes responsibility) also applies, assuming the state isn’t staffed by Mr. Bean’s kin which ours is; simply because it’s stronger, the US could justify some degree of involvement. However, such doesn’t apply here at all.
Mr. Bean isn’t James Bond is a good phrase, haha.