The Real Enemy: Bush or Iran?
September 30, 2007 by Jason Steck
Convinced that the real enemy is the Bush administration, many in the media brigades continue to press the theory that the administration is cooking up excuses to attack Iran. It is not difficult to concoct the appropriate conspiracy theory. Since they believe that “neocons” like Norman Podhertz control foreign policy and since those people advocate an aggressive policy towards Iran and since the United States has been updating its contingency plans regarding Iran, obviously a military attack is in the offing. If that’s not enough to convince, then the assumption of pure evil on the part of everyone in the Bush administration is sufficient to fill in the gaps.
What they overlook in this political equivalent of telling horror stories around a campfire is the real effects of irresponsible speculation.
By focusing on Bush as the real enemy, many of the administration’s harsher critics minimize and cover-up the very real concerns about Iran’s behavior. In essence, they act as Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s public relations firm, instantly converting any report of actual Iranian threats, abuses, or attacks into a conspiracy theory starring the malevolent “neocons”. Seeing so many in the American political culture willing to run interference for him, how can Ahmadinejad help but be emboldened to press on?
There is much truth to the administration’s accusations against Iran. They cannot be merely dismissed as administration propaganda designed to start another war. Iran actually does provide weapons, training and personnel to anti-U.S. groups in Iraq, Iran actually does repress and abuse its own people, and Iran actually does send signals that are at best mixed regarding its international intentions regarding Israel and nuclear weapons. These are not mere figments of a “neocon” fantasy.
In truth, it is unlikely that the United States will attack Iran in spite of all of this. The forces are simply not available, the chances of success are too small, and the resistance within the U.S. military is too strong. Reports of U.S. planning can better be seen as saber-rattling designed to support a program on concerted diplomatic pressure, keeping Ahmadinejad off-guard enough to force him to consider accommodation. When Bush administration critics minimize this possibility and spin their unwarranted theories of an inevitable attack, they perversely make a confrontation more likely by encouraging Ahmadinejad to adopt a confrontational stance in response. After all, he can now perceive at least the likelihood of U.S. political system too divided against itself to form a coherent response, either domestically or internationally. A diplomatic offensive cannot succeed in the face of such a perception.
A recent (unscientific) poll at DailyKos showed President Bush only narrowly winning in a head-to-head contest against Ahmadinejad. Of course, this does not represent any real liking for Ahmadinejad’s regressive and repressive views on the political left, but it does provide a glimpse into the depth of their hatred and mistrust for President Bush. But until they begin to recognize the broader consequences of anti-Bush paranoia, some on the left may continue to feed the nightmare scenario that they fear.
So….you think an invasion of Iran would be a super idea. Gotcha. (here I apply your same logic: you minimize the grave consequences of invasion, and thereby “feed the nightmare scenario” of invasion)
Iran actually does provide weapons, training and personnel to anti-U.S. groups in Iraq
No really? Imagine that! The country that’s right next door to Iraq feels its security and national interests are threatened because a foreign power from 10,000 miles away is conducting military operations inside Iraq, with millions of Iran’s religious brethren there! How DARE Iran get militarily involved in the country WE invaded! What nerve! What aggression!
jpe,
I am long on record as arguing against an invasion or any other form of an attack on Iran. I argue in favor of diplomacy instead, in recognition of the fact that the United States and Iran both have some points of shared interest, such as trying to ensure some modicum of stability in Iraq.
So, in short, you still choose to lie instead of dealing with what others actually argue.
And I choose not to waste time arguing with someone who chooses repeatedly to lie.
If you are not capable of commenting on a post without telling lies about what the author argues, then I suggest you not comment.
Kathy,
That is specifically why I have long argued in favor of negotiations with Iran. I think both countries have shared interests in Iraq.
I think both countries are pursuing unwise foreign policies right now towards the other. My point is only that it is foolish to sugar-coat Iran’s foolish and counterproductive policies in the name of bashing what many consider the “real enemy”, the Bush administration. Not every report of Iranian misbehavior is just a trumped-up pretext for war, you know.
If you can’t see that, then I suggest that you reexamine your own priorities.
I can’t possibly be expected to know your long record. I simply applied your own reasoning to your post, which seems to be ‘the failure to condemn X is tantamount to support of X.’ Or, by minimizing the terrible consequences and flimsy rationale for invasion, you “act as [the] public relations firm” of the proponents of invasion.
It seems to me that the epistemology underlying this post is that everything needs to be judged by its political effects, rather than its merits, while simultaneously trying to exempt yourself. And by focusing on political effect rather than truth content, you ipso facto refuse to “choose to deal with what others actually argue” (aside from the one conclusory paragraph on Iran’s various transgressions).
I don’t do any such thing. I think an invasion or any other attack would be a terrible idea and I have said so and I will continue to say so. As I said in the post (in the part that you must have skipped over in your zeal to go for the uninformed comment), U.S. military leaders also oppose military action, which is one reason that I believe fear-mongers about military action are so foolish to embrace the tall tales and conspiracy theories.
Maybe you should read more than one isolated post before making sweeping assumptions about what the authors believe.
I don’t think that Bush is a greater enemy than Iran…but think about it for a minute:
The US is the sole remaining superpower, much greater than any other nation militarily. Thus, it could be argued that even relatively minor errors or character flaws could have terrible consequences. Therefore, even if Bush isn’t nearly as bad as Ahmedinijiad, given that he controls so much more power than the latter he could well do far more damage…even with well-intentioned actions.
Tom, I agree that U.S. policy is more consequential. That is all the reason to be more careful and less ideological in observing what U.S. policy actually is. Hyperbolic speculations and paranoid misrepresentations about what U.S. foreign policy towards Iran actually is carry the risk of exacerbating the situation, especially when they come from a high-profile source like the New York Times‘ Seymour Hersh.
Perhaps it is the case that the only reason that the “neocons” have been stiffed on this one is that the military leadership is dead-set opposed to an Iran attack, but the fact is that the U.S. actually is pursuing an actual diplomatic approach in its confrontation with Iran. It is also the case that the U.S. pursued a remarkably conciliatory and diplomatic approach towards North Korea.
Many critics of the Bush administration need to set aside their premature Halloween stories and deal with what IS.
Under that standard, Tom, the US can never be justified in taking ANY action, as they will never face a threat as big as the US. An odd sort of weighted-equivalence reasoning, that.
Also under that standard, if we had a military consisting only of a brigade of Army Rangers we could do all sorts of things without having to consider the consequences.
I disagree with Jason that we don’t have the forces to “attack” Iran, which is clearly nonsensical bybeing overly broad. The range of military responses that could be used against Iran covers a hell of a lot more than full-scale invasion. Even if we were not involved elsewhere, a full-scale invasion of Iran would be foolish. But selective-strike options are not remotely out of reach. The question is, what would justify them?
I didn’t mean that a country can only attack when faced with an equally strong opponents. I just meant that you have to be cautious when you have great power.
And completely OT, don’t ever move if you can help it!. I’m sitting here on the floor with my computer, surrounded by various bags, an unpended sofa, a dissembled TV table, two disoriented cats, and various boxes whose contents I am unsure of. The moving took a day, the sorting of things will probably take a month.
Don’t ever move.
And completely OT, don’t ever move if you can help it!
See? We CAN agree! Our last move was twelve years ago, and our next will involve a large inheritance, a lottery ticket, or a coffin. ‘Cause if I can’t pay someone else to do all the work, it’ll happen over my cold dead body.
Your logic doesnt make any sense.
If American liberals take the saber-rattling too seriously, and get all upset about an impending war, that only serves to make the saber rattling more effective.
What would you prefer - that the President of the United States talks tough and threatening to Iran and everyone across the political spectrum here just assumes (and says so publicly) that he is bs-ing? Is that in our interest - or in Bush’s interest?
If he is, in fact, just saber rattling, then telling then world that that is all it is (as you are doing here) undermines that strategy.
I am one of those many who are distrustrul of and quite scared of the way the administration and Congress are handling tensions with Iran, without being one of a group who obsess about neocon conspiracies and without tooking to Daily Kos for guidance.
I agree with the core of the post in that I also think that diplomacy should be given a chance while keeping the military option on the table.
Where I disagree, and I do so strongly, is about the role of saber rattling. Rather than reinforcing the strength of diplomatic efforts, I think this practice seriously undermines diplomacy..
What I see is that every time the militrary option is raised, or some minor action taken, Iran’s resistance stiffens. They are playing a game of tit for tat, and their rreacitons seem to be working better for them than our tough words are working for us. So, what do we gain?
We capture Iranians in Iraq; they kidnap British sailors and gain a PR advantage by clever manipulation of the media. We pass a resolution assigning terrorist status to their Security Guard (which is intermingled with their army), and they pass a resolution doing the same for our army and CIA, only Ahmadinejad earns applause from the Iranian population in the process. The result was strenghened support for the man we would like to weaken whete he lives. Arabs are looking on with envy and delight at how Iran is succeeding at countering every US move. What do we gain?
At the same time, if we keep on rattling those sabers without anything coming of it, it begins to sound like the roaring of a toothless tiger.
I would definilely change the language of how we talk publically about Iran. And if we feel compelled to use tough language, that should be a rare event in order to make it stand out from the rest of the babble - for maximum effect Sarkozy’s words reververated because they were rare and unexpected, not because they were the stuff of daily pronouncements.
I have no access to the inner workings of our diplomtic contacts, but I was troubled by Crocker’s description of his experience. He described it as having told Iran what we wanted. Diplomacy can not consist of merely presenting a list of demands. That smacks of a master-to-servant communication, which is exactly what is most likely to result in resentment instead of positive results.
It’s very possible that things hppen that I don’t know about. From what has been publically viisble, however, I have the distinct impression that we are not represented today by many people who understand diplomacy even as they attempt to engage in ti.
The other ocncern is about the limited srike option. It’s certanly the most doable. I just hope the aftermath is the subject of serious planning. We would not be applauded by anyone in the ME, not even by those like the Saudis. While upset themselves about the rise of Iran, they fear instability more. The most conveniernt target for regional retaliation would be Israel, in my estimaiton, and that is a serious concern in itself. Israel will be where it is for a very long time, but Arab memories appear to be limitless.. The retaliation would be a long term problem.
By far the best route is the diplomatic route, but we have to get over posturing and do serious diplomacy.
There is another problem with the argumentation on the topic of Iran.
Just like the correctness of Bush’s appraisal of the threat posed by Iran can’t be dispoved by wild speculation at Daily Kos, no other position taken can be shown to be correrct by merely pointing our how wrong Daily Kos is.
That A is wrong, does not prove that B is right.
Surely there are better points of reference. Opinions and analysies of the Iranian problem are offered and available from a variety of foreign policy analysts and ME experts.
The world is a sadder place because of America.
The British Empire wasn’t exactly an exemplar of perfection in foreign policy either, sir.
And I seem to recall some good done by America, like WWI, Lend-Lease, WWII, NATO and the Marshall Plan. Would you really have enjoyed seeing the end of Britain being told with the stories of Dunkirk and Operation Sea Lion?
And it is worth remembering that if I am wrong about Iranian nuclear intentions, the missiles would be able to range Britain long before they would be able to range the United States. A little more recognition of a shared national interest might be in order here.
So maybe you might want to attenuate your sweeping condemnation with, you know, little things like “context”, “specifics” and “alternatives”.
This is a good suggestion. There is much to dislike in the United States’ ham-handed tone of voice, particularly when dealing with anyone in the Middle East. Unlike a lot of others, I think the problem is ignorance and arrogance more than bad intentions, though. The habit of some in assuming bad U.S. intentions no matter what creates lose-lose scenarios where any policy will be rejected cynically and out-of-hand and where Iranian intentions go completely unexamined.
“I think the problem is ignorance and arrogance more than bad intentions”
Agreed.
Arrogance and ignorance are extemely hard to combat, though, in these days of debate by attack.
On the one hand, some see evil intententions in all US actions that result in so much as a feather on a bird being ruffled.
On the other hand, others see any and all criticism of US policies and actions as un-
American and tantamount to treason.
All the while, those in Washington too often make political (party) consideraitons more important than national interests.
The atmosphere is poisoned, so corrections are extremely difficult.
Jason,
I just now saw your reply; otherwise I would have posted this sooner.
If both Iran and the U.S. are pursuing unwise foreign policies, and if you agree that Iran has far more of a right to protect its interests against the U.S. military presence in Iraq than the U.S. itself has a right to be in Iraq, then it’s the United States’s behavior that is more foolish, more counterproductive, and more dangerous. I conclude that the greater enemy to a sane solution right now is Bush, not Iran.
Given the fact that the U.S. invaded Iraq and has all but destroyed the country, and that the Shiite nation of Iran has its own fellow Shiites to protect against OUR invasion, the aggressor in this is the United States. The defensive position is Iran’s.
And I think it’s appalling that a regime as brutal and repressive as Iran’s has the higher moral ground right now in terms of reasons to be in Iraq. Bush put Iran on that higher moral ground by invading Iraq. Bush gave Iraq to Iran, period, by invading in the first place. We wouldn’t even be discussing any threat from Iran to the region if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq.
If YOU can’t see that, then I suggest you reexamine YOUR own priorities.
The world is a sadder place because of America.
Wow, Andy. Did you ever say a mouthful. All the more powerful for being so succinct.
And I seem to recall some good done by America, like WWI, Lend-Lease, WWII, NATO and the Marshall Plan.
Your other examples are arguable (and I don’t know what Lend-Lease is), but unquestionably you are wrong about WWI. World War I led directly to World War II. World War II was justified, but it would never have had to be fought if it hadn’t been for World War I. World War I is a classic example of a totally useless war. It did the world no good; and the U.S. did the world no good by participating in it.
Kathy, I do not agree that any state has “more” right to protect its own interests than another state. I certainly do not agree that such a difference could be derived just from geographic proximity. I think you would be better off arguing that the U.S. should think of its interests differently than it has rather than asking the U.S. to subordinate its interests in order to somehow be more morally correct.
Calling Iran’s involvement “defensive” just because the country it is intervening in happens to be geographically proximate is rather silly, even if you cite ethnic or religious similarities. By such a definition, the German annexation of the Sudetenland and its invasion of Poland were “defensive” since both were claimed to be motivated by a desire to protect German minorities.
It is also rather ludicrous to suggest that there would be no problems with Iran if not for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Problems with Iran go much further back than 2003, as does Iran’s desire to interfere in Iraq.
I think your hatred of Bush has given you tunnel vision, a truncated view of history and very skewed priorities.
And Kathy, I think you need to read up on what the actual causes of World War I were and what role the U.S. played. Your list of assertions shows very little knowledge on the subject. I teach it in several of my classes, if you want to enroll.
Kathy and Andy: After reading your comments, I wonder who would ever have thought that some critics of the Bush administration were outright anti-Americanist. :rolleyes:
In his book on anti-Americanism, Revel identifies the key characteristic of anti-Americanism as being double standards — the application of negative judgments towards the United States that are not deployed in the same way against other countries. Both of your comments meet his definition pretty clearly.
good suggestion.
Jason,
Actually, I said nothing about the causes of World War I. I said that World War I was a leading cause of World War II. And it was.
As for the Revel book, I don’t know him, but I’m sure his definition of “anti-Americanism” is the very last word .
I do not agree that any state has “more” right to protect its own interests than another state.
And again, I did not say that one state has a greater right to protect its own interests than another state. I said, “… Iran has far more of a right to protect its interests against the U.S. military presence in Iraq than the U.S. itself has a right to be in Iraq, …”
The U.S. has the same right to protect its interests as any other nation has, but the U.S. does not have any legitimate interest in Iraq that requires a military response. Oil and domination of the Middle East are not legitimate interests. Iran has a survival and self-defense interest in Iraq. That trumps any interest the U.S. claims to have.
I think you would be better off arguing that the U.S. should think of its interests differently than it has rather than asking the U.S. to subordinate its interests in order to somehow be more morally correct.
Okay, I can agree with that. I added “that requires a military response” to my sentence in the paragraph above to accommodate this point. Iran, however, as I said above, has a compelling self-defense argument for being in Iraq, if it is; and for arming Shiite groups in Iraq, if it is — because in fact there is no evidence that Iran is doing either one, other than the claims of Petraeus and other U.S. officials.
Calling Iran’s involvement “defensive” just because the country it is intervening in happens to be geographically proximate is rather silly, even if you cite ethnic or religious similarities.
I take it then that if Iran invaded Canada, it would be silly to claim that U.S. had a self-defense right to intervene.
By such a definition, the German annexation of the Sudetenland and its invasion of Poland were “defensive” since both were claimed to be motivated by a desire to protect German minorities.
That is an exceedingly poor analogy. “Sudetenland” (now the Czech Republic, I believe) and Poland were not occupied by a foreign army after an aggressive invasion not justified by any prior provocation. Hitler claimed that the German minorities living in parts of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire were legitimately part of Germany. That claim was based on the new national boundaries established by the winning side in WWII — Germany was not happy about those arrangements. This is a far cry from the situation in Iraq, where, as noted above, the U.S. aggressively invaded Iraq, overthrew Iraq’s government, and has been maintaining a brutal military occupation ever since.
The more apt analogy, in my view, would be one that drew a parallel between Hitler annexing the Sudetenland and Poland, and Saddam Hussein annexing, or invading, Kuwait. (And no, this does not mean I think Saddam Hussein was Hitler, but in terms of the situation itself the elements are analogous).
It is also rather ludicrous to suggest that there would be no problems with Iran if not for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Problems with Iran go much further back than 2003, as does Iran’s desire to interfere in Iraq.
Yes, problems with Iran go back to 1953, as a matter of fact. But Iran’s emergence as a dominant power in the region was facilitated by the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It absolutely would not have happened absent that invasion, and the subsequent disastrous occupation, which led to the insurgency, and the destruction of Iraq as a cohesive state. And Iran’s emergence as a regional power is a separate issue from the enmity that existed between Iran and the U.S. before the Iraq invasion.
I think your hatred of Bush has given you tunnel vision, a truncated view of history and very skewed priorities.
I don’t hate Bush as a person; I hate his policies, and what he’s done to my country, to its standing in the world, as well as the enormous harm he has done to the people of Iraq and all the others caught up in the so-called “war on terror.”
The “Bush derangement syndrome” meme to which the right has become addicted is simply a lazy debate tactic, in which you don’t have to support your arguments with facts, because everything is explained by that convenient “Bush hatred.”
I could just as easily, with just as much justification, say to you that you are blinded by your right-wing ideology and a worshipful attitude toward Bush that is deeply antithetical to democratic values and principles. But I won’t, because, to paraphrase Hillel, those debate tactics that are hateful to me, I will not employ with others.
Well, Kathy, since I didn’t vote for President Bush and since I do not support the administration’s policy towards Iran (a fact easily discerned by anyone who actually read my posts), your comments are once again based in ignorance and unwarranted assertions.
Jason,
Well, I read this post and your opposition to the administration’s Iran policy is not discernible. So if in the past you did oppose that policy, perhaps you have changed your mind.
I would also suggest that if you do not want me to make assertions about you that you believe are unwarranted and based in ignorance, you should refrain from initiating such assertions. Perhaps then you will not elicit them from others. If you look back at each of our comments, you will see that you began making unwarranted, patronizing, personally insulting assertions in your replies to my comments, in the absence of my having provoked such behavior by anything I said to you. Practice courtesy and respect in the way you express yourself to others, and you will receive it back.
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