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Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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November 10, 2007
Frank Rich vs Reality
Some Americans - me included - are inclined to be pretty hawkish, inclined to favor using our military to smash the Iranian regime before they manage to acquire nuclear weapons. That would obviously be very bad, but then what are we unleashing if we actually attack the mullahs? As a hawk with at least the intention of being responsible, I recognize that we need smart peaceniks to talk some sense into US, and remind US of the risks.
The problem with that now is that most of the wussies we depend on to check our arrogance just aren't honest, nor are they - to use a term they favor - "reality based." This obviously applies to the hysterical hatemongers at MoveOn.org, but far worse even to many respected big name professional writers with the sanction of big time respected corporate media.
Take for example this new column "Noun + Verb + 9/11 + Iran= Democrats' Defeat?" from New York Times columnist Frank Rich on the situation with Iran. For starters, he just states his wishful thinking as reality that Iran's nuclear ambitions are not anything really that serious. We're considering the possibility that "we attack Iran to stop it from obtaining a few kilograms of highly enriched uranium."
That's just dishonest. It's not merely a few kilos of a mineral in question, but the likely attainment of nuclear weapons by apocalypse craving mullahs. He's pretty much abdicating any claim to be taken as a legitimate adult voice in this debate right there.
Another point of Frank Rich carefully believing something obviously dumb comes when he says, "Mr. Bush has gone so far as to accuse Iran of shipping arms to its Sunni antagonists in the Taliban, a stretch Newsweek finally slapped down last week." Frank Rich and Newsweek can believe what they want, but in the truly reality based community Iran is clearly THE leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world.
Also, if he were paying attention to that damned Hamilton-Baker Iraq commission report that all the lefties were so hot for, they'd note that a majority of the 9/11 hijackers had spent time in Iran in the year before the attack. A pure co-incidence that the Iranian government had no knowledge of?
I find it difficult to believe that as knowledgeable an observer as Mr Rich could at this point honestly think it terribly unlikely that Iranian Shias might co-operate with Sunni terrorists if it meant an opportunity to kill Americans or Jews. They certainly seem to be doing a good bit of that right now in Iraq. These identifiably Iranian made roadside bombs that are a big source of our ongoing US casualties have not generally been being set by Shias.
Part of Mr Rich's problem seems to be that he can't see actual real world problems past his intense political desires. He works here from a provincial American perspective, as if the only real thing is domestic US political conflicts. He writes here with the premise that Republicans don't really think that there are seriously dangerous people that need knocked down. No, that's just a story that Karl Rove came up with to scare voters into pulling the Republican lever.
Yet there is nonetheless a method to all the mad threats of war coming out of the White House. While the saber- rattling is reckless as foreign policy, it's a proven winner as election-year Republican campaign strategy. The real point may be less to intimidate Iranians than to frighten Americans. Fear, the only remaining card this administration still knows how to play, may once more give a seemingly spent G.O.P. a crack at the White House in 2008.
Whatever happens in or to Iran, the American public will be carpet-bombed by apocalyptic propaganda for the 12 months to come. Mr. Bush has nothing to lose by once again using the specter of war to pillory the Democrats as soft on national security.
That's not an honest attempt by Mr Rich to argue against the merits of military action in Iran, but merely an ad hominem attack on Republicans, and an especially vicious one at that. See, Bush knows Iran isn't any real serious threat, but he's perfectly willing to wage major acts of war to get votes for his party as he's on his way out the door.
Besides being a hateful and unwarranted attack on the top man trying to keep US safe, these comments dismiss without justification the perhaps faint possibility that George Bush and other hawks sincerely believe that Iranian mullahs with nuclear weapons and a stated desire for apocalypse might be a serious threat warranting even risky military action.
I note at least a couple of places in this column where Mr Rich tries to have his cake and eat it too. One is his use of public opinion disapproval as the proof that the Iraq invasion was a mistake, before dismissing majority public support for action against Iran now as proof that the public has been hoodwinked by propaganda. Of course, you might consider the possibility that the public is being hornswaggled on both sides, with left wing media types selling their debacle theme very hard to propagandize against our efforts in Iraq.
Mr Rich contradicts himself also in that he can't decide how much of a threat Iran is. On one hand, he presents them as weaklings with a military budget only 1% of ours. That hardly sounds like a threat at all, does it? No need to swat that fly. But his best argument against attacking Iran is the threat of what kind of ugly terrorism they might release in retaliation. So which is it? Is the Iranian government just a bunch of Nazi Keystone Cops who aren't vaguely competent to be a serious threat - or do they have a vast international terrorist network which we dare not cross?
Now, if you can get past the mindless name-calling, ie "neocon dead-enders," he briefly touches in his sixth paragraph on rational concerns about what kind of response this might get US from other people in the region, crazy fools in Pakistan for starters. The question there is whether a smackdown of Iran would more enrage the Muslim world to go crazy attacking US or whether it might scare some of them straight.
Also though, if mad Muslims are going to go crazy on US, seems like we'd be a lot better off confronting that fight sooner and without Iranian nukes than later and with. A stitch in times saves nine. But that is perhaps cavalier of me to describe so easily. Perhaps an honest, reasonable dove with goodwill could answer.
But that's not Frank Rich.
posted by Al at 11/10/2007 09:11:00 AM
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