Iran and the coming of World War III… Huh?

Reprinted from Newsweek Written by Fareed Zakaria

At a meeting with reporters last week, President Bush said that “if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.” These were not the barbs of some neoconservative crank or sidelined politician looking for publicity. This was the president of the United States, invoking the specter of World War III if Iran gained even the knowledge needed to make a nuclear weapon.

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is “like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism.” For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland’s and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

When the relatively moderate Mohammed Khatami was elected president in Iran, American conservatives pointed out that he was just a figurehead. Real power, they said (correctly), especially control of the military and police, was wielded by the unelected “Supreme Leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Now that Ahmadinejad is president, they claim his finger is on the button. (Oh wait, Iran doesn’t have a nuclear button yet and won’t for at least three to eight years, according to the CIA, by which point Ahmadinejad may not be president anymore. But these are just facts.)

In a speech last week, Rudy Giuliani said that while the Soviet Union and China could be deterred during the cold war, Iran can’t be. The Soviet and Chinese regimes had a “residual rationality,” he explained. Hmm. Stalin and Mao—who casually ordered the deaths of millions of their own people, fomented insurgencies and revolutions, and starved whole regions that opposed them—were rational folk. But not Ahmadinejad, who has done what that compares? One of the bizarre twists of the current Iran hysteria is that conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history’s greatest mass murderers.

If I had to choose whom to describe as a madman, North Korea’s Kim Jong Il or Ahmadinejad, I do not think there is really any contest. A decade ago Kim Jong Il allowed a famine to kill 2 million of his own people, forcing the others to survive by eating grass, while he imported gallons of expensive French wine. He has sold nuclear technology to other rogue states and threatened his neighbors with test-firings of rockets and missiles. Yet the United States will be participating in international relief efforts to Pyongyang worth billions of dollar.

We’re on a path to irreversible confrontation with a country we know almost nothing about. The United States government has had no diplomats in Iran for almost 30 years. American officials have barely met with any senior Iranian politicians or officials. We have no contact with the country’s vibrant civil society. Iran is a black hole to us—just as Iraq had become in 2003.

The one time we seriously negotiated with Tehran was in the closing days of the war in Afghanistan, in order to create a new political order in the country. Bush’s representative to the Bonn conference, James Dobbins, says that “the Iranians were very professional, straightforward, reliable and helpful. They were also critical to our success. They persuaded the Northern Alliance to make the final concessions that we asked for.” Dobbins says the Iranians made overtures to have better relations with the United States through him and others in 2001 and later, but got no reply. Even after the Axis of Evil speech, he recalls, they offered to cooperate in Afghanistan. Dobbins took the proposal to a principals meeting in Washington only to have it met with dead silence. The then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he says, “looked down and rustled his papers.” No reply was ever sent back to the Iranians. Why bother? They’re mad.

Last year, the Princeton scholar, Bernard Lewis, a close adviser to Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal predicting that on Aug. 22, 2006, President Ahmadinejad was going to end the world. The date, he explained, “is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the Prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to ‘the farthest mosque,’ usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back. This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world” (my emphasis). This would all be funny if it weren’t so dangerous.

© Newsweek, Inc.

 

Commentary from MJ “revoltingpawn”…

I had to post this article since felt there has been a lack of common sense and reporting of facts from the media in regards to Iran. Fareed Zakaria you are breath of fresh air on the Iranian situation and I am hoping more people will read this article. My questions are… Are the American people gullible enough to believe another set of lies from the Bush administration as we beat the war drum once again? Will the mainstream media again be a willing accomplice for another possible Bush manufactured war? Let’s hope we have different outcome with Iran then what happened in Iraq.

Giuliani Blasts MoveOn.org and Hillary over Iraq Report…

Rudy Giuliani, sharply criticized MoveOn.org for attacking Gen. David Petraeus in the New York Times as they effectively labeled him a liar. Giuliani also said Hillary Clinton was spewing political venom during her recent questioning of the general.

During an appearance on the “Randy and Spiff Radio Show” in Atlanta, Georgia, Giuliani refered to the ad as “one of the more disgusting things that has happened in American politics,” and said “it’s unfortunate” more Democratic candidates haven’t spoken out against the liberal advocacy group’s ad. He also added, “I think the failure of the Democratic candidates to really condemn that, given how much money Moveon.org spends on behalf of Democratic candidates, which is millions if not hundreds of millions, is really, I really think it’s very, very unfortunate.”

Giuliani went on to scold Clinton directly for her comments during Petraeus’ testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday when she said his progress report required “a willing suspension of disbelief.” “I really do think to accuse a general of the ‘willing suspension of disbelief,’ — particularly in the atmosphere that Moveon.org has created with these terrible attacks — I think that’s not the way in a responsible way to go about forging the foreign policy of the United States and the military policy of the United States,” Giuliani said.

Giuliani thinks MoveOn.org is disgusting? He thinks it’s unfortunate that the Democrats didn’t speak out against them? He’s kidding right? I guess someone needs to refresh Giuliani’s memory and dust off some ‘disgusting’ Republican political tactics.

How about we start with Bush vs. McCain in the 2000 presidential campaign. Bush accused McCain, a legitimate war hero, of everything leaving the toilet seat up to anal raping young boys. The depths that Bush’s campaign sunk to was shameful to say the least – yet it all makes sense in hindsight as Bush has shown himself to be the most dishonest and unscrupulous president we have ever endured.

Then there are the Swift Boat ads depicting Kerry as anything but a hero – nevermind his three purple hearts. Was that ad appropriate? Did Giuliani forget that right-wing dominated talk radio slandered Kerry until his war record was torn to pieces? It appears not, but someone should remind him I suppose.

What Giuliani failed to reinforce is that his Commander-in-Chief is an idiot and that no matter how many times he says to the American people that things are getting better in Iraq, it doesn’t make it true. Iraq and the surrounding area has been in a constant state of war since the time of Christ. Does Giuliani really believe that some asshole from Texas and his messenger boy four star general are going to keep the Sunni and Shia from tearing each other to pieces? If he does, I have a bridge to sell him.

Political ads only have as much power as people assign to them. What Giuliani fails to realize is that the MoveOn.org article isn’t that far from the truth. Petraeous’ report smacked of a faithful messenger boy delivering the mail for his corrupt master. The only way MoveOn.org went wrong was to unsuspectingly give hypocrites like Giuliani and other long-term memory challenged Republicans a rallying cry. The integrity of Petraeus the soldier should never come into question. The willingness of Petraeus to lay himself at George Bush’s feet as a propaganda tool of this regime should absolutely be questioned – and MoveOn.org did exactly that.

It’s not about the man, but it is about the man’s decision to set aside his principles in the name of career advancement and politics. Someone needs to remind Giuliani that you don’t grease the wheels of history with American blood – and if someone says they want to, it is perfectly legitimate to question their motives and honesty. I would hope for nothing less.