The Talk About An Imminent Threat From Iran
Real Clear Politics’ Kevin Sullivan, in a post on The Huffington Post, looks at the controversy over the threat from Iran:
Reflecting on his now infamous appearance before the UN Security Council in 2003, former Secretary of State Colin Powell has referred to his act of WMD drumbeating at the time as a “blot” on his long record of government service. “I’m the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and (it) will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now,” laments the former cabinet member. Given the benefit of hindsight, we now know that Powell’s charges against Saddam Hussein were spurious at best, and downright deceitful at their very worst. While holding no vested interest in exonerating the general, I do think it’s worthwhile for us to examine the full context of Powell’s efforts to convince the global community of immediate bodily harm.
Critics likely scoff today when Iraq’s alleged “yellow cake” and mobile bio-weapons labs come up in conversation, but the rush to create an imminent Iraqi threat has less to do with incompetent intelligence gathering, and much more to do with the administration’s need to mobilize the country behind a war they had already decided on starting.
And down a bit:
This narrative — or rather, exploitation — of American security dominates foreign policy discourse to this day. As a result, we get this week’s kerfuffle over the imminent (or not so imminent) threat posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Referring to Iran’s capabilities as “tiny,” Senator Barack Obama shook the proverbial beehive that passes as foreign policy dialogue in this country today. As a result, we get rather puerile debates over the size of Iran’s economy, or whether or not they’ve acted in a fashion similar to that of the Soviets or the Nazis. Not only does this litmus blur the legitimately horrible actions of these aforementioned regimes, but it makes dealing with lesser threats far more difficult.
There’s a lot more (including his take on Obama’s arguments so far).Read it in its entirety.
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7 Responses to “The Talk About An Imminent Threat From Iran”
“This narrative — or rather, exploitation — of American security dominates foreign policy discourse to this day.”
It's not winning votes any more. Oh, the tendency among some on the Left to be naive at best about threats by our adversaries is laughable to shameful, and their tendency to take the side of our enemies is more sinister. The lefties can't wish these facts away. The lefties' demented attempt to exploit security backfires, as it always should, among normal people. But the more conventional way in which this issue can be used to appeal to voters, or more basely to be exploited for the GOP's benefit, doesn't work in large numbers. The 2006 elections have shown this. This year's elections will show this as well.
Too bad Colin Powell never wanted to run in earneast for the Presidency, incidentally. Many of us would still vote for him today.
Oh, the tendency among some on the Left to be naive at best about threats by our adversaries is laughable to shameful,
I made a post yesterday in which I referred to Europe as filling up with Muslims migrating to their continent for various and specific reasons and the response from one rather far left progressive was simply
O ohh.
LIke So what? The problem the progressive left continues to have in my opinion is not seeing the forest for the trees. They are not bad people. They are not misinformed people. They are not ignorant nor lack education. What they lack is a perspective of importance to all people and not just to themselves.
By that I mean they have their order of importance to things and anything that does not fall under that umbrella is to be ignored and labeled with condescension as the other sides Paranoid dellusions.
Too scoff at a nation filling with the very thing they hate as unimportant is just sheer lunacy. They despise religious zeal in the pursuit of government aims and yet the very Muslim people flooding into Europe bring with them a Religious zeal that makes the Religious right in America look like Atheists.
So having said that I must agree with DLS. They choose to be naive in order to remain focused on their agenda rather then simply being unintelligent or uninformed.
“By that I mean they have their order of importance to things and anything that does not fall under that umbrella is to be ignored and labeled with condescension as the other sides Paranoid dellusions.”
You're too kind in being too willing to concede innocence and assume ignorance rather than address the deliberately destructive and nihillistic pathology (beyond merely that stupid, never-valid sense of “guilt”) we've seen since the late 1960s.
” They choose to be naive in order to remain focused on their agenda”
I would argue that at times they definitely are not naive. They are angry, resentful, or hateful toward the USA and the West (including Israel, PC demon) for no valid reason whatsoever — it is truly inverted morality as well as perception of reality.
Pakistan is a far graver threat than Iran, but just as we did with Iran in the 70s, we're ignoring that because it doesn't fit the mold of our political talking points.
Oh, and way to go belittling millions of Americans, guys. That will surely help get your points across.
1. It's not the Right, but the lefties (as we see here, for example) who are using the word “imminent” in their imaginary horror of an “imminent” military strike on Iran (which they rush too quickly and wrongly to defend).
2. “Oh, and way to go belittling millions of Americans, guys”: Their positions and behaviors have earned the just-scratching-the-surface-of the analyses and critiques you see here.
3. “Pakistan … we're ignoring that”: No, we're not. We're aiding and propping the Musharraf regime as best we can without earning too much enmity from the wacky crowd in Pakistan and that here at home, because everything points to it being worse if he were to fall from power. As I've said before, the same is true with the Saudis (also arguably affecting us more than Iran is, other than our troops in Iraq). We're not fans of Musharraf or the Saudis (though the Bush-Cheney gang has oil ties that bind them more tightly to the Saudis than the rest of us will ever experience). The alternatives, though, are all but assured to be worse in both countries. (Only the naive and delusional believe that instant democracy is possible. Have they learned nothing from the Iraq situation they routinely decry?)
benefits of acai…
I forgot to point out the word error in the……