Hillary: Neoconnish
Matthew Yglesias explains why Hillary Clinton is “a bit too neoconnish” for his taste. In short, one of Clinton’s major financial backers is Haim Saban. Saban said that Ahmadinejad reminds him of Hitler (“When I see Ahmadinejad, I see Hitler. They speak the same language”), that it is clear what drives Ahmadinejad (the return of the Mahdi by annihilating Israel) and that, therefore, Iran cannot be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
Now, I don’t know about Matthew – who is a fine blogger – but I am not exactly looking forward to a nuclear Iran either. In fact, most people aren’t looking forward to that. Everyone who ever listened to Ahmadinejad talking about Israel, for instance, will fear that if Ahmadinejad has a nuclear weapon, he might actually do what he has said he wants to do: wipe Israel off the map.
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16 Responses to “Hillary: Neoconnish”
How many times do I have to say that Ahmadinejad does not run Iran. Not even close.
And the Ayatollah? He supports normalization of relations with Israel:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/13/AR2007021301363_pf.html
Good for her.
Chris you are naive.
Laura,
Don’t worry, Dick Cheney’s terrorist war against Iran has already begun. I expect you to be at your local military recruiter along with all of your loved ones.
Since nobody, absolutely nobody, would fail to be alarmed at Iran going nuclear, the real debate is over whether a confrontational style can work and if not, about how exactly the approach should be nuanced.
Very few political analysts will admit the complexity of the question or admit the complesity of the various political statements they comment about.
It’s a rotten shame and a disservice to all of us that everything gets boiled down to simplistic commentary: is this being soft enough or hard enough on Iran? Dumming down the way the issues are presented can not dum down the complexities. This can only dum down the public some more.
I think I should explain my comment.
Yglesias writes about what, not Hillary, but one of her backers has said about Ahmediane.
Then this post ponders how complacent Yglesias can be judged to be about Iran’s aspirations.
Nothing is known, at this point, what any of the parties would actually do in any situation involving Iran and its nuclear facilities. Nothing along those lines is even addressed.
But we are all dummed down to think that we are better informed.
dom,
Duncan Hunter said he’d nuke Iranian centrifuges if conventional weapons wouldn’t do the job.
There’s another aspect of the “simplification” issue which is that there is no recognition, and therefore no planning for, the possibility of failure.
“We are the good guys and therefore we can never fail.” This sort of thinking has not carried us very far. Iraq was supposed to be a clean sweep. The mere possibility that we wouldn’t succeed couldn’t even be considered, so it was never planned for. Then when it wasn’t a clean sweep, as reality gives a damn about patriotism, we were stuck without a plan.
Now it’s the same thing, we aren’t even discussing what to do if Iran obtains nuclear weapons. That would imply that we could fail to prevent it, so it cannot be considered. Personally I believe that anything short of a full-scale war against Iran will fail to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons. And we need to think loooooong and hard about going to war with Iran unless OUR very survival (and not Israel’s, ours) is at stake. Iran would make Iraq look like a walk in the park. So maybe we may actually have to sit by, realize that we can’t be the boss of everything, and deal with a nuclear Iran. We need to at least plan for it, no?
Lynx,
You are absolutely right. There are people abroad talking about this, but not in the US.
I’ve tried to bring up the subject of how to manage a world with the new nucrear power states outside of the tratitional old boys club.
I’m not sure what we’ve started re India, for example, with its rivalry with Pakistan.
We have non-stop elections to worry about and can’t be bothered, it seems.
Chris-
Yglesias cited Sabin.
I don’t know where Hunter comes into this re Hillary.
Let me pose a question for those who want war with Iran over their nuclear development. Here is a list of possible ramifications. I would like to know if the war was worth it if it resulted in:
1 – 50,000 US military deaths? 20,000? What number are we willing to sacrifice?
2 – Oil at $150/b? $200/b? for 5 years. How would the effect on the world economy of these high oil prices affect your personal situation.
3 – A war with Iran would be expensive. What impact would it have on the US long term if we had to bottow another $1 trillion from the Chinese to pay for it. Or the alternative, doubling your income tax for the duration of the war.
4 – What kind of long term damage to American prestige in the world are we willing to tolerate?
5 – Without a full blown occupation of Iran we could not stop them from resurrecting the nuclear program in secret. Are we willing to implement a draft so we can produce the 1.0 to 1.5 million troops to effectively occupy Iran?
6 – Are we willing to forego any ongoing relationship with the majority Shia running Iraq that would probably become instant enemies if we attacked Iran?
7 – Are we willing to see possible ruptures in the regimes running Saudia Arabia and Bahrain which both have sizeable Shia populations.
This list can go on and on but you get the idea. It’s time for war supporters to come clean with the price they would be willing to pay for an Iran war. It will NOT be without cost to our human, financial and image resources.
dom,
I was responding to this comment:
Chris=
Okay, I get it.
I was talking about the closed circle of the post, which touched only on Hillary, Yglesias, Sabin and Michael’s own thoughts. Yglesias was wondering about Hillary via Sabin and Michael was wondering about Yglesias. And there I was, waiting for spme
mew wosdom or insight.
I’m being unfair, though. Circles is how I would describe all of today’s political discussions. I guess it’s up to me, then, to put an end to it and solve all of the world’s problems. HaHaHaHaHa.
“Loooooong and hardâ€â€™ Lynx has it right. Iran imports something like 40% of its refined gasoline, when the government talked about ending the fuel subsidy public opinion was, shall we say, not supportive. Before war cutting off the gas supply and sending the economy into a tailspin is a good option. The public is already not happy with the way the Mullahs have run the economy, waiting in line for gas or paying black market prices will cause major civil unrest. The Mullahs will also have the problem of explaining why they went for building a nuclear program and not refineries. There are options short of war, and effective ones at that.
grognard – Cutting off Iran’s supply of refined gasoline would be considered an “Act of War” – the same as a naval blockage. If such a cutoff were implemented do you honestly think Iran would be passive? They would retaliate and we would retaliate against the retaliation. Soon a full scale war would erupt. If you think Iranian nationalism would blame the mullahs rather than the US for this gasoline cutoff, you do NOT understand the Persians or their proud 3500 year history.
I think it’s a poor idea to try to bring in some roundabout Bush-bashing (i.e. neconnish) into a debate that is as serious as Iran. I’d like to hear a realistic solution on how to deal with Iran for anyone who calls people “neoconnish.” How can you disagree with the statement “we must not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons?” If you can’t disagree with that statement, then you can’t disparage someone as “neoconnish” for saying it. That’s dishonest.