Comments for More Neocon Buffoonery

More Neocon Buffoonery

2009-06-17T16:04:14Z

You would think that the Neocons would be a tad temperate after having gotten so many things wrong for so long. But look at the way the amiable Weekly Standard writer and Dick Cheney biographer, Steven Hayes, takes a shot at President Obama for insufficiently supporting the protesters in Iran.

I won't claim to understand Iranian politics well enough to know just what the right thing to do here is, and it may be that the administration should be more outspoken in favor of the protesters. I don't know.

It's not enough, though, for Neocons to disagree with the Obama policy--they have to impugn his motives too. Thus Hayes writes of Obama, "Does he actually prefer Ahmadinejad?" and "His policy is regime preservation. And it's a disgrace." There's nothing in the administration record to suggest that they want to uphold the Ahmadinejad regime.
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Again, what's at issue here is not the substance of the argument. Maybe Hayes is right. I wouldn't claim to know how best to influence the situation in Iran. The issue is how one argues. The Left, which continues to argue in scorched earth style is guilty of this, too. But the Neocons, who ought to be more humbled than anyone by the events of the last six years, seem to be more pugnacious than ever. Steve Hayes always seems genial enough on TV, but not here.

Comment from AlchemyToday on 2009-06-17

2009-06-17T16:28:19Z

One could argue that by constantly threatening Iran, the Cheneyites have strengthened the regime in Tehran and must secretly want to preserve it. That would be unfair...

Not at all. The essentially arbitrary decision to announce Iran was engaged in some axis of evil running from Tehran to Baghdad and then jumping 5000 miles away damaged truly promising dialog between the United States and Iran in the wake of 9/11. The most significant thawing of that relationship since the revolution. It set back diplomacy with Iran a decade and, combined with continued spineless bluster, strengthened the position of hardliners in Iran's government.

We're learning now that Iran's elected and clerical politicians are less monotonic than Bush's caricature would lead you to believe. Recognizing this and crafting US/Iranian diplomacy with this in mind would've made a world of difference in relations with Iran, which basically means a stronger hand in nuclear negotiations.

Comment from davemartin7777 on 2009-06-17

2009-06-17T17:55:07Z

President Obama is doing exactly the right thing... nothing.

We have direct experience of what happens when we meddle in Iranian affairs.

Why does the right and neoconservatives specifically have such selective memory?

My goodness doesn't anyone remember the Shaw of Iran?

He was that result of American and British covert operations ending in the 1953 coup d'etat... which of course was all about oil.

Google "Operation Ajax" the history is there and it's been well documented.

The Iranians certainly remember.

The "blow-back of all that is we got the Ayatollah Khomeini

America does not need to be involved with Iranian internal affairs... AMERICA HAS MADE THAT MISTAKE BEFORE.

Remember?

Comment from JMG on 2009-06-17

2009-06-17T18:44:39Z

The neocons are betraying their Stalinist roots. They in fact were rooting for Ahmadinejad during the election campaign, their rationale being that the president of Iran is a mere figurehead and therefore the more unpalatable the figurehead the more likely the neocons could win public support for the war they seek.

Now that Ahmadinejad has been reappointed, the neocons have, as planned, turned on a dime to point at the ugly face of the Iranian regime. They, and the Republican Party they control, have begin to beat the war drums.

True, the neocons also want to attack Obama, no matter what. After all, they are far right-wing Republicans too. But their real agenda is to have the U.S. join Israel in an attack on Iran. In the end, the neocons are an Israeli fifth column, and promotion of Israeli interests from a Likud perspective is what they are all about.

Comment from John Thacker on 2009-06-17

2009-06-17T19:57:24Z

It set back diplomacy with Iran a decade and, combined with continued spineless bluster, strengthened the position of hardliners in Iran's government. We're learning now that Iran's elected and clerical politicians are less monotonic than Bush's caricature would lead you to believe. Recognizing this and crafting US/Iranian diplomacy with this in mind would've made a world of difference in relations with Iran, which basically means a stronger hand in nuclear negotiations.

Baffling. I would have thought that we're learning now that the hardliners really in control of Iran's government would have and will frustrate any attempt at reform. Isn't there at least a strong argument that the efforts to steal the election prove that diplomacy with the Iranian government would never work, because the hardliners would never let it work? To me, it looks as though the pessimism of the neocons is being proven right, not wrong. Do you really think that the hardliners would have let Mousavi win if not for Bush's eight years? That argument would be a stretch even so, but I think it's particularly a stretch after Obama's election and overtures.

Even if we suppose that the Iranian people appreciate Obama and voted for Mousavi instead of Ahmadinejad just because of Obama's offers, it seems like, unfortunately, that makes no difference. Unless there is a revolution on some scale, that is.

Neocons like Michael Leeden always knew about dissident clerics like Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. Of course, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri was removed from his position as heir apparent to Khomeini back in 1989 because of his refusal to go along with the hardliners. Neocons have known about the dissenters for years; they've just argued that the dissenters don't have any real power in the regime and that reform within the regime is impossible.

Bush always realized the some of Iran's clerics, and certainly many or most of its people, were hardly in favor of the regime hardliners. That's why he refused to talk to the hardliners and insisted on speaking beyond them. His position was never the caricature you'd have us believe.

There are many possible positions to take on Iran. One position is the position that negotiations could never work because the hardliners would never let a real reformer be elected and have power. Anyone who was elected would either be a dupe with no power or a sham at best. Yes, among the most committed with this view, there is somewhat a sense of relief that Ahmadinejad won, because of their firm conviction that Mousavi would not have been able to make no difference even if he wanted to. They have a sense of relief that people with the next position are now agreeing with them about the nature of the regime and the impossibility of reform within as things stand. Perhaps ironically, they feel better about Mousavi with the election stolen from him than they would if he had been allowed to win. They're also a bit confused-- from their position, it would have been more canny from the regime's perspective to let Mousavi win but as a puppet with no ability to affect real policy.

The second position is that negotiations were reasonable with reformers like Khatami, but not with Ahmadinejad. A variation on this is the idea that Ahmadinejad's victory was fair, so that negotiations even with him were worth it, because it could convince the Iranian people that we mean peace and so lead to someone else we could negotiate with even better later. These positions are weakened right now.

Another, realist, position, is that we don't care who's president of Iran or anything about their policies, we should just negotiate.

If the regime had allowed Mir Hossein Mousavi to be fairly elected, it would have, understandably, strengthened President Obama's position. It would have increased hope for negotiations. This blatant theft, if anything, has convinced previous fence-sitters and supporters of negotiation like Fred Kaplan and Roger Cohen that now is not the time for diplomacy. It is the realists (who supported Obama in anger at the neocons and Bush) like Walt and Flynt Leverett) who are insisting that Mousavi actually lost but in any case that it doesn't matter and we should negotiate anyway.

Comment from Steve J. on 2009-06-17

2009-06-18T02:28:38Z

I won't claim to understand Iranian politics well enough to know just what the right thing to do here is, and it may be that the administration should be more outspoken in favor of the protesters. I don't know.

You don't and neither goes Hayes or Michael Ledeen or any of the other neo-con war pundits.