Matthew Yglesias » Neoconservatism Today, Neoconservatism Tomorrow, Neoconservatism Forever!

Oct 24th, 2008 at 12:22 pm

Neoconservatism Today, Neoconservatism Tomorrow, Neoconservatism Forever!

Charles Krauthammer tries to refocus attention on national security issues:

The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.

This is a common conservative conceit — that progressive approaches to national security might be good enough if you don’t really care, but in a dangerous world you need to turn to conservative ideas. Here it’s instructive to consider the record. Even if you engage in the conservative conceit that George W. Bush deserves no blame for 9/11 even though his administration came into office and explicitly chose to put al-Qaeda on the back-burner, it can’t be said often enough that more Americans — and orders of magnitude more people — have died as a result of invading Iraq than died on 9/11. In non-proliferation terms, the situation is worse in Iran than it was when Bush took office. And the situation is much worse in North Korea than it was when Bush took office. Russia starting to push the limits of revanchism isn’t something that “just happened” it was a predictable — and, indeed, widely predicted — consequence of the Bush administration’s approach to Russia and general embrace of unilateralism. America’s standing in the eyes of the world is at its lowest ebb ever. Our level of influence in Latin America has declined precipitously on Bush’s watch. Israel’s security is more at risk than it was eight years ago, and Palestinian suffering is more intense than it was eight years ago. Osama bin Laden remains at large.

In March of 2001, Charles Krauthammer laid out the argument for a new approach to the world, one he believed — rightly — that George W. Bush would embrace:

In the liberal internationalist view of the world, the U.S. is merely one among many–a stronger country, yes, but one that has to adapt itself to the will and the needs of “the international community.” That is why the Clinton Administration was almost manic in pursuit of multilateral treaties–on chemical weapons, biological weapons, nuclear testing, proliferation. No matter that they could not be enforced. Our very signing would show us to be a good international citizen.

This is folly. America is no mere international citizen. It is the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome. Accordingly, America is in a position to reshape norms, alter expectations and create new realities. How? By unapologetic and implacable demonstrations of will.

We’ve been following Krauthammer’s advice for years. Has it delivered a peaceful and secure world? No, it has not. Not just according to me, but according to Krauthammer himself. To Krauthammer the “solution” to the peace and prosperity of the Clinton years was neoconservatism. With neoconservatism having created a dangerous and insecure world, his solution is — more neoconservatism. And yet somehow it’s supposed to be the people who want to stop pursuing failed policies who are said to be blind to the troubled nature of the present.

Comments
74

Filed under: Krauthammer, National Security,

74 Responses to “Neoconservatism Today, Neoconservatism Tomorrow, Neoconservatism Forever!”

El Cid Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
This is a common conservative conceit — that progressive approaches to national security might be good enough if you don’t really care, but in a dangerous world you need to turn to conservative ideas.

Only wimps stop to think things through before screaming about their fantasies to blow sh*t up.
Ohmy Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
But Matt, that’s the strength of Neoconservatism. First you accept the premise that American morality, and the morality of American causes is supreme. Then you just need to believe that cost-benefit analysis can not be applied to those causes. Once you do that, Neo-conservatism is unfalsifiable.

That’s what liberals can’t understand. The fact that Neo-Conservative actions lead to a more dangerous world justifies the need for more Neo-conservative action. Afterall we must not be defeated by the terrorists.

You liberals need to learn something. Sorry, I mean us liberals. Sorry, I meant us reality-bound people. Sorry, I meant us sane people…..
JohnH Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I know it’s salesmanship as well as the ideology of the old warriors, but the derision of Biden’s “test” remark is just so bogus. Sure, in the world Bush left us with, the next president, whether McCain or Obama, will face serious tests ahead, perhaps as serious as 9/11 or the Cuban Missile Crisis. That’s all he said, and he didn’t even single out Obama as facing tests McCain won’t. Quite the contrary.

And what kind of meaning are they putting into the word “test”? I could fairly predict I’d face a test or two at the end of each semester in college. That doesn’t mean I’d be unprepared for them. In fact, I like to think I went into the term knowing I’d ace them.
pragmatic idealist Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
The point can not be made often enough that Bush has created another “9/11″ in Iraq.

It would be very difficult for Al Quaeda to successfully carry through another attack the size of 9/11. So Bush sends Americans to Iraq where they can be killed and maimed more easily. The “fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here” trope seems to be a system of human sacrifice to appease the gods of terrorism.
jbd Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
At least Krauthammmer has the intellectual honesty to admit that Palin is a joke. Give him that. He may be a crazed warmonger, but he’s an honest one. He will never be able to compete for top prize in wingnut hackdom. (But then again, Bill Kristol sets the bar too high. It’s just unfair….)
gordonminor Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
America’s standing in the eyes of the world is at its lowest ebb ever. Our level of influence in Latin America has declined precipitously on Bush’s watch.

Our “level of influence” in Latin America has declined because they have bit by bit shrugged off military or right-wing governments, and experiences like Argentina’s were object lessons freeing them from the Washington consensus. It doesn’t have much to do with Bush administration policies or practices (except, perhaps, for supporting the attempted coup against Chavez).
tomemos Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Is he really putting forward the Falklands War as the kind of critical threat that the next President will have to face? Is someone going to take Guam from us?
Mixner Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
We’ve been following Krauthammer’s advice for years. Has it delivered a peaceful and secure world? No, it has not.

Yeah, because of course the world was so peaceful and secure afer 8 years of Clintonian internationalism. Saddam still controlled Iraq, and Clinton’s sanctions had killed hundreds of thousands of its people. Rather than going after al Qaeda, Clinton had allowed it to fester and grow, leading to the biggest terrorist attack in U.S. history 8 months after he left office.

Of course, Clinton himself took a break from the internationalist creed now and then, as when he bombed Yugoslavia in violation of international law….
Notorious P.A.T. Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Saddam still controlled Iraq

Yes he did, if by “controlled” you mean “was blanketed by no-fly zones, was cut off from the northern third of his own nation by US-backed Kurdish militias, and had UN weapons inspectors crawling all over him.” Other than that, though, Saddam Hussein was a real danger to the United States.

people. Rather than going after al Qaeda, Clinton

I guess Fox News hasn’t had any of the dozens of Republican officials on who thought Clinton paid *too much* attention to al Qaeda, and not enough to *real* dangers like Iraq.
Hector Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Re: Our level of influence in Latin America has declined precipitously on Bush’s watch.

Given that ‘our influence’ in LA has seldom accomplished anything positive, I don’t see that a decline in our influence is a bad thing.

GordonMinor is right that that has fairly little to do with Bush.
Mixner Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Yes he did, if by “controlled” you mean “was blanketed by no-fly zones, was cut off from the northern third of his own nation by US-backed Kurdish militias, and had UN weapons inspectors crawling all over him.” Other than that, though, Saddam Hussein was a real danger to the United States.

Yes, that’s right, “Pat”. “Saddam controlled Iraq” actually means “Saddam Hussein was a real danger to the United States.”

Is English even your first language? Because your reading comprehension skills don’t seem to have progressed beyond the first grade
Jamie Holts Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!
Notorious P.A.T. Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Given that ‘our influence’ in LA has seldom accomplished anything positive, I don’t see that a decline in our influence is a bad thing.

What? You think Venezuela should be spending its money to make its citizens’ lives better, instead of enriching multinational corporations? Outrageous!
Ohmy Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
If our enemies are evil, and as McCain said we must defeat evil, then we must adopt Neo-conservatism. Why Neo-conservatism? Because of the ease at which it finds enemies to define as evil.

In the sane world, Neo-conservatives are actually evil. These guys who go and kill 100s of 1000s of innocent Iraqis, displace millions of them from their lives and homes, in the name of giving them freedom. Yet they hate Muslims so much that they can not however counternance the notion of a President with a Muslim name. It’s obvious Iraq wasn’t the benevolent gift of freedom they claim it was. And since it wasn’t they’re fairly evil people.

They’re nowhere near as evil as the crazies on the other side, but they are multiplefold more dangerous.

I hope the rest of us learn the lesson that what should determine when and how we fight is not the predilection of our enemies to evil but their actual capacity to commit evil acts. Their predilection is infinite and can’t be contained but their actual capacity is constrained and limited.

Cost-benefit analyses have now become the number one tool for analysing foreign policy.

But I’m just a poor wimpy liberal, what do I know?
Jamie Holts Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Hello. I was reading someone elses blog and saw you on their blogroll. Would you be interested in exchanging blog roll links? If so, feel free to email me.

Thanks.
Will Fettes Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
It’s one big strawman anyway. The liberal internationalist agenda was never about cravenly seeking outside validation of American “international citizenship.” That’s rubbish. It’s always been about using American power to export norms, which internalised, would be in its own national interest; things like setting an rule-of-law framework for human rights-respecting behaviour and legal discourse, globalisation and open markets etc.

Just look at the contempt and suspicioun with which the whole democracy promotion agenda is treated now all over the world, and you can see the marked failure of neo-conservative to understand constructivist approaches to foreign policy, and norm entrepreneurship. They just don’t get it – which is why they have incoherent views.

In response to Mixer, the fundamental difference with the NATO bombing campaign is that it was actually a response to contemporaneous and humanitarian disaster involving large scale threat to life. It also had broad allied support, and was conducted through the NATO Coalition as a regional set-piece action. Looking at state behaviour at the time it is very clear that UK and US viewed it through the prism of an emerging humanitarian norms, like the current R2P. That’s completely compatible with a rule of law based collective security regime, and indeed, the UN retrospectively validated that action.

The Bush paradigm was nothing like that – it was an ad hoc challenge to the very basis of the collective security regime, which they subsequently tried to apply legal reasoning behind.

– it then received retrospective UN validation.
Notorious P.A.T. Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Mixner wrote:

Yeah, because of course the world was so peaceful and secure afer 8 years of Clintonian internationalism. Saddam still controlled Iraq

Since those two sentiments were grouped together in the same paragraph, they should be taken as part of the same thought. And since the first sentence of said paragraph was a sarcastic comment implying that the world was not secure, the next sentence should be taken as reinforcing that idea. So, you were saying that the world was not secure (ie, dangerous) because Saddam Hussein still controlled Iraq–a ridiculous proposition even if he did control Iraq, which he didn’t.

Now, if you didn’t mean that “Saddam Hussein controlling Iraq” referred to “world security”, you need to give more thought to how you construct a paragraph.

I will admit, though, that Bill Clinton ignored al-Qaeda. Why, in early 2003 he said of bin Laden “I don’t know where he is and I really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.” Wait a second–who was president in 2003?
Jamie Holts Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Nice site. There
Mark D Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Rather than going after al Qaeda, Clinton had allowed it to fester and grow …

Actually, the guys who bombed the WTC in ‘93 are in jail. Where, exactly, is bin Laden?

Also, maybe he could have paid more attention if he wasn’t so busy — the GOP decided to not let Clinton do his job, instead spending $40 million in taxpayer money on an asinine witch hunt that exposed nothing more than a blowjob.

There’s also this:

In August 1998, when [Clinton] ordered missile strikes in an effort to kill Osama bin Laden, there was widespread speculation – from such people as Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) – that he was acting precipitously to draw attention away from the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal, then at full boil. Some said he was mistaken for personalizing the terrorism struggle so much around bin Laden. And when he ordered the closing of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House after domestic terrorism in Oklahoma City, some Republicans accused him of hysteria.

Clinton also tripled the budget to fight terrorism to $6.7 billion a year.

In other words, Clinton did his best to fight terrorism, only to have Republicans push back and attack him for doing so.

So how’s about you gulp down a nice, hot cup of STFU?
Glenn Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
C’mon guys, you aren’t really going to let a steaming turd like Mixner goad you into a fight about who was responsible for 9/11, are you?
otto Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Let’s have more foreign policy blogging please Matt, it’s been a bit thin here recently.
Jamie Holts Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Great post. I will read your posts frequently. Added you to the RSS reader.
Not as stupid as Mixner Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Idiots like Mixner have a wholesale interest in re-writing the history of 1992-2008. After all, admitting that Clinton worked hard against terrorism and that Bush came in and diverted resources away from the hunt for bin Laden and that Bush’s AG made a list of priorities that nowhere included terrorism and that Saddam Hussein was in no way a threat to either the United States or the world would just destroy their worldview.

The Mixner’s of the world also manage to blame Clinton for the deaths under sanctions, acting as if they were Clinton’s
idea. They apparently have never heard of GHW Bush nor do they recognize the benefits of the oil for food program. Nor can they demonstrate that life under GW Bush’s monstrous dictatorship is actually better. Empirical evidence shows that it is not – look at the violent death rate under each.

No, for Mixner, the bloody slaughter of human beings by Bush is an entertainment. It has fuck-all to do with national security.
Jamie Holts Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Just wanted to say HI. I found your blog a few days ago on Technorati and have been reading it over the past few days.
Jamie Holts Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Would you be interested in exchanging blogrolls links with my site? Please email me if you are interested
Peter K. Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Just look at the contempt and suspicioun with which the whole democracy promotion agenda is treated now all over the world, and you can see the marked failure of neo-conservative to understand constructivist approaches to foreign policy, and norm entrepreneurship.

Funny how the debate breaks down into Democrat versus Republican.

During the Bush years, you had the purple fingers in Iraq, kicking out Saddam, you have the majority Shia and Kurds gaining freedom and sovereignty.

Hamas won an election in the occupied territories. Authoritarian Syria was kicked out of Lebanon. Authoritarian Russia was kicked out of Ukraine and Georgia. Elections played a part.

In Burma, you had protests but they were crushed. Kosovo declared independence.

In Pakistan, Musharraf resigned peacefully, and messy democracy has returned.

Funny when supposed liberals get all callous and cynical.
Mixner Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Will Fettes,

In response to Mixer, the fundamental difference with the NATO bombing campaign is that it was actually a response to contemporaneous and humanitarian disaster involving large scale threat to life.

So was the invasion of Iraq. Clinton bombed Yugoslavia without authorization from the UN, which is a violation of international law. A war crime. Clinton is a war criminal.

and indeed, the UN retrospectively validated that action.

Ha ha ha ha! Do please show us this “retrospective validation” by the UN.
Mixner Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
So, you were saying that the world was not secure (ie, dangerous) because Saddam Hussein still controlled Iraq–a ridiculous proposition even if he did control Iraq, which he didn’t.

You’re still having problems understanding clear English, “Pat.”
Mark D Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Dear lord … will an admin kick Jamie and his blogwhoring the curb? Sheesh.

Also, I think America should be glad that Krauthammer’s a pundit, not a doctor. Because with his “logic,” it’d be deadly:

Patient: So … what’s the news, doc?

Dr. CK: Well, remember how I told you that smoking a pack a day would be fine?

Patient: Yeah.

Dr. CK: Well, turns out you have lung cancer.

Patient: Oh no!

Dr. CK: Now don’t worry. Yes, this type of cancer is deadly, but I really think I have a solution.

Patient: Um … okay.

Dr. CK: Start smoking two packs a day. I bet that’ll work.
not-as-stupid is insane Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
The Mixner’s of the world also manage to blame Clinton for the deaths under sanctions, acting as if they were Clinton’s
idea.

What a brilliant defense: “I know I murdered lots of Jews, but I didn’t come up with the idea, you see. That was the Fuhrer. I was just following through.”
Edward, the mad shirt grinder Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Claiming that the US invasion of Iraq was a response to a contemporaneous humanitarian disaster involving large scale threat to life, as Mixner did, strikes me as the single most disingenous argument I have ever seen in my life. Incredible.
Trixie, the fabulous hairdresser Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Claiming that the US invasion of Iraq was a response to a contemporaneous humanitarian disaster involving large scale threat to life, as Mixner did, strikes me as the single most disingenous argument I have ever seen in my life.

This strikes me as the dumbest statement I have ever seen in my life.
Not as stupid as Mixner Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Unsurprisingly Mixner whines that someone read more into his statement than he “meant” (Mixner doesn’t mean anything, he’s just a nutcase with an internet connection) meanwhile he completely re-writes criticism of him to a laughable extreme.

But it doesn’t matter, since his argument is “The mess Clinton inherited and made better is worse than the improved situation that Bush inherited and turned into a fucking bloodbath.”

This is why Clinton’s policy in Iraq was better than Bush’s. Clinton worked to make life better for Iraqis. Bush invaded so Mixner could see brown people dying on his TeeVee.
Edward, the mad shirt grinder Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Please. The invasion resulted in loss of life that (a) was predictable and in fact predicted at the time and (b) has been orders of magnitude higher than what was occurring before the invasion. Nobody except the most blinkered and blinded ideologue believes for a single second that the invasion was designed to prevent a humanitarian disaster.
Edward, the mad shirt grinder Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Although I hasten to add, I surely don’t think Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq for the amusement of Mixner; I find plenty to disagree with in Mixner’s statements but honestly “Not as stupid as Mixner” goes way way too far.
Not as stupid as Mixner Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
There were no legitimate reasons to start slaughtering Iraqis. It didn’t benefit us, it didn’t benefit them, it didn’t benefit the world.

I go too far because Mixner is a racist asshole who makes the insane claim that Bush’s unprovoked assault on the people of Iraq represents a better policy choice than Clinton’s attempts to engage and to improve the lives of the common Iraqis.

We will never have an accounting of why Bush started dropping bombs on the innocent people of Iraq. But fuckheads like Mixner treat it as a game and refuse to recognize the humanity of Bush’s victims. He does, in fact, treat the whole thing like a fucking game. To all appearances he is entertained by this slaughter. I am not.
Will Fettes Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Peter K, nothing you said there related to the comment.

My comment was that democracy advocacy is now an incredibly poisoned chalice caused by the association between it and the Iraq project. This is undeniable.

When Western powers speak about exporting democracy now they are looked at with suspicious by moderates. When they act to advocate universal norm they simply bolstering hard-liners in regimes around the world, like in Iran. When Western NGOs are found cooperating with reformers, they are hurting these groups domestically.

The foreign policy of the Bush Administration has had an incredibly polarising effect in way grossly unhelpful for democracy advocacy.

Mixner, um no. There was no wide-spread humanitarian disaster of equivalence occurring in Iraq; there was nothing like this threat to life. The last time something of that scale was occurring was the al-Anfal campaign against the Kurds in ‘88.

As I said the other, the other differences were numberous:

The NATO action had no explicit authorisation, but at least had the required majority votes in the Council against Russian veto.

Iraq had no authorisation but ALSO not even the bare 9 vote majority need to pass the draft UK-Spain-US authorisation resolution.

NATO action explicitly justified under the legal paradigm of humanitarian intervention – an emerging norm – which is compatible with the collective security regime.

The Iraq war was a direct challenge to the collective security regime, based on ad hoc threat justifications which turned out to be false and exaggerated, or heterodox interpretations of existing UNSC resolutions.

The NATO action was endorsed by the UN Council retrospectively.

The Iraq war was labelled illegal by most international law scholars and the sitting Secretary General, amongst many other commentators.

when Bush engaged tough kind of rapprochement with Gaddafi did Bush achieve his singular accomplishment of disarmament in Libya.
Will Fettes Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
This is also a helpful link outlining the bases for a war to qualify as a humanitarian intervention.

http://www.hrw.org/wr2k4/3.htm
Khaled Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Mark D., you’ll be sad to know that Krauthammer is in fact a doctor (psychiatrist), although he is no longer practicing. He occasionally makes reference to his background in psychiatry, including in the op-ed where he coined the phrase “Bush Derangement Syndrome”.
Mixner Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Mixner, um no. There was no wide-spread humanitarian disaster of equivalence occurring in Iraq; there was nothing like this threat to life. The last time something of that scale was occurring was the al-Anfal campaign against the Kurds in ‘88.

Will Fettes, um no. Clinton’s sanctions had killed hundreds of thousands of iraqis. If you think that’s not a humanitarian disaster, you’re even more blinded by knee-jerk partisanship than I thought.

The NATO action had no explicit authorisation, but at least had the required majority votes in the Council against Russian veto.

Clinton bombed Yugoslavia without the authorization of the Security Council required under the UN Charter. That’s a violation of international law. A war crime. Clinton is a war criminal. Why aren’t you trying to bring him to justice?

The NATO action was endorsed by the UN Council retrospectively.

Do please show us this “retrospective validation” by the UN.
not-as-stupid is insane Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
“Not as stupid as Mixner” is a racist genocidal maniac.
Richard Steven Hack Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Matt: “In non-proliferation terms, the situation is worse in Iran than it was when Bush took office.”

Actually, no, the Iran situation is exactly the same as it always was – in terms of Iran. In terms of the US, it’s become ridiculous. At the moment, it seems Bush has decided to give up and foist the issue onto the next Administration, just as he did with Iraq and North Korea. Nonetheless, the usual crowd of neocon crazies like Krauthammer – not to mention the Zionists freaks in Israel – are still screaming to attack Iran.

Meanwhile, not JUST the neocons are urging war on Iran:

Bipartisanship and threats of war toward Iran
by Glenn Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/10/23/iran/index.html

Two former Senators — conservative Democrat Chuck Robb and conservative Republican Dan Coats (that’s what “bipartisan” means) — have a jointly authored Op-Ed in The Washington Post today decreeing what the U.S. must do towards Iran. The essence: Iran must be prevented, using any means necessary, from not only obtaining nuclear weapons, but also denied even
“the ability to quickly assemble a nuclear weapon,” which means “the complete cessation of enrichment activities inside Iran,” even for civilian purposes.

To achieve that, the Patriot Act should be used to block all Iranian banks from any involvement in the U.S. economy and “our European allies [must] sever commercial relations with Tehran.” And this is what we should immediately prepare for:

The U.S. military is capable of launching a devastating strike on Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure — probably with more decisive results than the Iranian leadership realizes.

An initial air campaign would probably last up to several weeks and would require vigilance for years to come. Military action would incur significant risks, including the possibility of U.S. and allied losses, wide-scale terrorist reprisals against Israel and other nations, and heightened unrest in the region.

Both to increase our leverage over Iran and to prepare for a military strike, if one were required, the next president will need to begin building up military assets in the region from day one.

They conclude with this grave warning: “Time may be shorter than many imagine, and failure could carry a catastrophic cost to the national interest.”

So here we have, yet again, our glorious Foreign Policy community threatening another country — one which hasn’t attacked us and can’t attack us — with war, threatening to bomb them with “devastating strikes” that “would probably last up to several weeks and would require vigilance for years to come.” And they want the next President, beginning this January, to “build up military assets in the region” in
order to threaten and prepare for those attacks.

It’s just objectively true that there is no country in the world — anywhere — that threatens to attack and bomb other countries as routinely and blithely as the U.S. does. What rational leader wouldn’t want to obtain nuclear weapons in a world where the “superpower” is run by people like Dan Coats and Chuck Robb who threaten to attack and bomb whatever countries they want? Even the Coats/Robb Op-Ed argues that
Iranian proliferation would be so threatening to the U.S. because “the ability to quickly assemble a nuclear weapon would effectively give Iran a nuclear deterrent” — in other words, they’d have the ability to deter a U.S. attack on their country, and we can’t have that.

And then there is the supreme irony that Coats, Robb and their
war-threatening comrades justify an attack on Iran by referencing U.N. Resolutions which Iran is putatively violating, even though Article 2 of the U.N. Charter explicitly provides that “All Members shall refrain in
their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” Yet Supremely Serious Bipartisan Leaders like Coats and Robb who shape U.S. foreign policy — along with the rest of our political establishment — routinely violate that provision more than any other country in the world, by constantly threatening to invade and bomb a whole roster of
other nations.

Not only does this war advocacy reflect the reckless militarism of our Foreign Policy Community, it also illustrates how deceptive is the Beltway concept of “bipartisanship.” In their Op-Ed, Coats and Robb are
summarizing the “findings” of a new report (.pdf) from what they call a “high-level task force, a politically diverse task force,” and which The Post calls “the Bipartisan Policy Center’s national security task force on Iran.” That task force was convened by the “Bipartisan Policy Center” — an organization founded in 2007 by former Senator Majority
Leaders George Mitchell, Howard Baker, Tom Daschele and Bob Dole.

The Serious bipartisan task force that produced this war-threatening report employed two “consultants” which it described as “two leading Iran experts: Dr. Michael Rubin, and Mr. Ken Katzman.” “Dr. Michael Rubin” is the supremely crazed neocon of National Review and the American Enterprise Institute, a former Giuliani advisor who has a single-minded obsession with urging American war on Iran. Katzman is a
less ideological D.C. bureaucrat who covers Iran for the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service — a competent expert by all appearances but hardly a counterweight to the extremist Rubin.

So those are the two “experts” on whom they relied: a raving neocon and a neutral technocrat. And the conservative co-Chairmen — Coats and Robb — were joined on the 11-member panel by such disinterested beacons of bipartisan objectivity as:
* AIPAC loyalist Dennis Ross, current Chairman of The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute that includes scores of Israeli government officials;
* Steve Rademaker, a former Bush official and chief of staff to Bill Frist, current BGR lobbyist and Iran extremist (Iran “could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days”);
* Kenneth R. Weinstein, a Weekly Standard contributor and chairman of the neoconservative Hudson Institute, which ” frequently champions aggressive and Israel-centric U.S. foreign policies”; and,
* Henry Sokolski, former top aide to Paul Wolfowitz and Dan Quayle, and resident at the right-wing Heritage Foundation and Hoover Institution.

The rest of the panel was composed of several retired military
officials, such as McCain supporter Ret. Admiral Gregory “Grog” Johnson, and former Clinton administration Pentagon official Ashton Carter. In other words, it was the very embodiment of Glorious Beltway “bipartisan” foreign policy tribunals — numerous hard-core, right-wing ideologues
sprinkled with a couple of like-minded right-wing Democrats and a neutral establishment technocrat or two, all endorsing a pre-ordained, flagrantly extremist, war-loving policy which is then deemed “the harmonious mainstream Center” which no Serious Person opposes.

Meanwhile, both presidential candidates, at least rhetorically, affirm the central premise (one must “do everything” to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, including the use of force), and leading right-wing journals publish plans for bombing and invading Iran and seizing its oil assets until they agree to change its governnment to one
that we approve. There is a prevailing perception that the bipartisan Foreign Policy Community has learned its lesson from the Iraq debacle, but threats of war and endless war itself are their primary, indiscriminately used weapon and that has not changed.

Top Obama Adviser Signs on to Roadmap to War with Iran
http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=198

If you haven’t seen it already, check out the op-ed by former Sens. Daniel Coats and Charles Robb in the Washington Post today, entitled “Stopping a Nuclear Tehran.” It is the summary of a report issued last month by an organization called The Bipartisan Policy Center (at whose website you can find the full report), and it amounts to a roadmap to war with Iran to which a senior Middle East adviser in the Obama campaign — namely, Dennis Ross — has apparently signed on.

[UPDATE: Make sure you also read in this connection today’s New York Times article by David Sanger, particularly the part about the purported e-mail from Obama that was routed through an unidentified “aide,” who I presume to be Ross. The coincidence of the appearance of this article with the Coats-Robb op-ed suggests an effort to box Obama into a
pre-election position. The Iran part of the story by Sanger, who considers himself a foreign-policy player, as well as a reporter, tracks the report’s narrative quite nicely.]

While Coats and Robb were the co-chairs of the task force that produced the report, “Meeting the Challenge: U.S. Policy Toward Iranian Nuclear Development,” the main authors appear to have been the Center’s project director, Michael Makovsky, and Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), who listed the report as his work on the AEI website earlier this month. Makovsky, of course, is the younger brother of David Makovsky, the former head and currently senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which has acted more or less as a “think tank” for the so-called “Israel Lobby” over the 20-some years since it was created as a spin-off of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Michael, who reportedly emigrated to Israel in 1989,
served under Doug Feith at the Pentagon where he was part of the team that helped manipulate the intelligence to facilitate the path to war in Iraq. Rubin, of course, also worked in Rumsfeld’s office at the same time.

Now, you would expect a report like this, which is clearly aimed at the transition team of an incoming president, from hard-line neo-cons with a distinctly Likudist bent like Makovsky and Rubin, or, for that matter, task force member Steve Rademaker, the spouse of AEI’s Danielle Pletka,
who also worked under John Bolton in the State Department. But what really drew my attention to the report when I first heard about it two or three weeks ago, was the fact that Dennis Ross, who is a senior foreign-policy to Barack Obama, also signed on to the report as a task-force member. Ross, who previously served as the chief Israel-Palestinian negotiator for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, has been associated with WINEP in various positions since he left public service, although, unlike Makovsky or Rubin, his sympathies have leaned more to Labour than to Likud, at least in the Israeli context.

According to a variety of sources, Ross was the main drafter of Obama’s pander (except on the settlers) to AIPAC’s annual convention here in May and has since raised his hopes for a top post in an Obama administration, possibly even secretary of state. Frankly, I doubt that the latter prospect is realistic, but — and here’s the main point — I have it from several sources close to the campaign that he is more eager
to gain control over the Iran portfolio (possibly special envoy) than to work on the problem that he knows best from his long experience, the Israel-Palestinian conflict. If he succeeds in his quest and if this report is any reflection of his views, then the U.S. could very well find itself at war with Iran within a remarkably short period of time.

I leave it to you to read the column or, better, the executive summary of the report. But I would highlight just a few of its major points on which Ross should be closely questioned if Obama should win the election and considers Ross for any post that would have anything to do with Iran policy:

– A strategy of deterrence, if Iran became a “nuclear-capable” state, would not necessarily work because of the “Islamic Republic’s extremist ideology.”

— No agreement can be reached that would permit Iran to enrich uranium on its own territory under any circumstances, including even under the strictest international inspections regime.

— A “grand bargain” with Iran cannot be worked out in the time that remains before Iran builds a stockpile of 20 kgs of highly enriched uranium 6 kgs of plutonium which would make it technically “nuclear weapons-capable” and which thus must be unacceptable to the U.S.

— The U.S. should be willing to suspend all bilateral nuclear co-operation with Russia in order to pressure it to cooperate on Iran;that is, lending Washington full diplomatic support and refusing to provide additional assistance to Tehran’s nuclear and missile programs or to sell it advanced conventional-weapons systems.

— The U.S. should maintain a constant dialogue with Israel because “…(o)nly if Israeli policymakers believe that U.S. and European policymakers will ensure that the Islamic Republic does not gain nuclear weapons will the Israelis be unlikely to strike Iran independently.” In other words, unless the U.S. is prepared to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities, Israel will likely do so without seeking a green light from Washington.

— If the next administration agrees to enter into direct talks with Iran without insisting on its suspension of enrichment, it must set a pre-determined deadline for compliance with its demands, after which it should be prepared to enforce a blockade of Iranian gasoline imports, followed, if Iran still does not agree, by a blockade of its oil exports. If that does not have the desired effect or if Iran retaliated in some way, the U.S. should be prepared to launch a military strike that would “have to target not only Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but also its conventional military infrastructure in order to suppress an Iranian response.” Such an attack would be followed immediately by “providing food and medical assistance within Iran…” [!!!]

— To convey his seriousness both to Iran and to the international community, the new president should begin building up the U.S. military presence in the region “the first day (he) enters office…” Specifically this would involve “pre-positioning additional U.S. and allied forces, deploying additional aircraft carrier battle groups and minesweepers,
emplacing other war material in the region, including additional missile defense batteries, upgrading both regional facilities and allied militaries, and expanding strategic partnerships with countries such as Azerbaijan and Georgia [!!!] in order to maintain operational pressure from all directions.” The report goes on to note that “the presence of
U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan offers distinct advantages in any possible confrontation with Iran. The United States can bring in troops and material to the region under the cover of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, thus maintaining a degree of strategic and tactical surprise.” [Emphasis added in light of recent concerns raised in Iraq about the Status of Forces Agreement.]

In other words, if Tehran is not eventually prepared to permanently abandon its enrichment of uranium on its own soil — a position that is certain to be rejected by Iran ab initio — then war becomes inevitable, and all intermediate steps, even including direct talks if the new president chooses to pursue them, will amount to going through the motions (presumably to gather international support for when push comes to shove). While I would certainly not be surprised if such an approach were adopted by a McCain administration, what is a top Obama adviser doing signing on to it?
Not as stupid as Mixner Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Mixner, showing off his ability to project claims I’m a genocidal racist. Only one of us supported the brutalization of the Iraqis – ever. The sanctions were brutal and should have been halted under Clinton. That’s his shame. The war was genocidal and Mixner supports it – even now that it has been demonstrated to be nothing but a brutal bloodbath.

Good show fuckwit. You want to try proving Bush’s bloody slaughter was better for the Iraqis than Clinton’s neglect? Show some evidence you evil fucking monster.
jason Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Would someone please call social services about “not as stupid as mixner.” There’s an asylum somewhere being deprived of a lunatic.
I voted today! Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
If Obama gets his way with our government, it will force businesses to lay off workers in order to keep up with the taxes. The price of everything us everyday people buy will go up for corporations to absorb the costs of those extra taxes. Many of us everyday folks will end up broke and/or out of work, just like my parents during the Carter years of 21% interest rates, whopping unemployment, and gas lines around the block of people waiting to fill their tanks. Vote McCain/Palin! (I did just today!)
Vivisfugue Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
I hate it when zombies break in with an off-topic post. Doesn’t I voted today know that the subject we are discussing is Mixner vs. anti-Mixner?
kantanov Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
According to a poll taken in March, almost half of Iraqis (49%) believe that the U.S.-led invasion of their country was right. This is the highest number who have expressed approval of the invasion since the question was asked. If conditions in Iraq continue to improve, I expect the number to go even higher.
J.H. Bowden Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Yglesias needs to relax. If everyone agrees America is wrong, and not fighting evil makes evil weaker, then that the neo-conservatives are exiting the stage should leave him in a state of assured calm.

Seriously– Islamic Supremacists have been killing people in Russia, Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Algeria, Spain, the UK, Nigeria– even though we Americans get the privilege of being the Great Satan, we’re not the problem. Even during the Clinton Administration, al-Qaida bombed our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. I’d love to believe Yglesias is correct– Obama can use his magic Obama powers, have a Oprah-style therapy session with people who hate us, and then POOF! theocrats and tyrants will magically love America.

But this is fantasy. Deep down, liberals know it too, which explains Yglesias’s nervous attacks on the neo-cons, even at the moment of their demise.
Kevin Carson Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
What do you mean, “our standing in Latin America”? Have you got a mouse in your pocket? I feel a lot more affinity to the regimes in control there now than to the landlord-and-general oligarchies installed by Washington in previous decades.
Not as stupid as Mixner Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Wow, a poll says 49% of Iraqis think the invasion was a good idea. Odd that there isn’t any actual link to the poll. Not that failing to provide evidence of an assertion undermines it. After all, it’s pretty obvious that the Iraqi people love living under the occupation. It’s hard to imagine how anyone wouldn’t love a nation where suicide bombings are a regular occurrence – I don’t know how we get by here without them.

Anyone wanting to whine about my posts needs more than just name-calling. Show where I’m wrong. Show that the Iraqi people have better life-expectancy under the Bush dictatorship. Show that they have lower energy prices. Show that they have better health care. Show something other than vague “but they have democracy” bullshit.

The unprovoked assault on the Iraqi people is a stain on the people of the United States who let the murderous George W. Bush loose on the world.
not-as-stupid is insane Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
http://abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1060a1IraqWhereThingsStand.pdf
Ms Chris Says:
October 25th, 2008 at 12:00 am
I’d love to believe Yglesias is correct– Obama can use his magic Obama powers, have a Oprah-style therapy session with people who hate us, and then POOF! theocrats and tyrants will magically love America.

Actually, this is where those nutty “Obama is a secret Manchurian candidate Muslim!!!” rumors come in handy. For the first several months of the new US administration, the Islamo-tyrants will be too busy speculating on whether BHO is a secret Sunni or secret Shiite, what date/time his programming will kick in, etc. As time passes and nothing is revealed, they’ll be driven slowly mad, obsessively scouring the blogosphere and InTrade for theories, clues and odds, while scarfing down halal Cheetos in their moms’ basements. Eventually they’ll realize that they’ve become just as soft and useless as we are – prompting them either to commit mass suicide, or to buy enormous TVs.
not-as-stupid is insane Says:
October 25th, 2008 at 12:02 am
The unprovoked assault on the Iraqi people is a stain on the people of the United States who let the murderous George W. Bush loose on the world.

Ah yes, that would be the “unprovoked assault” that half the Iraqi population (and growing) believes was right.

William J. Clinton’s genocidal sanctions murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Clinton’s murderous bombing of Yugoslavia was a war crime.
logicat Says:
October 25th, 2008 at 4:48 am
Krauthammer (like many on the right) is clueless when it comes to foreign policy. Bilious xenophobia does not constitute a policy. You would think that the events of the 5-6 years would have caused him to reconsider his position, but you would think wrong. He’s in too deep.

http://www.thedailystar.net/2003/11/21/d31121020326.htm
Zadie Be Says:
October 25th, 2008 at 6:54 am
All I know is that I cannot vote for Obama. He sat in Rev. Wrights church for 20 years and clapped as the Rev. spewed hate against America, whites and jews. Not only did he not defend his mother and grandparents against the hate being preached in church he did not defend the house of the Lord. Church is for talking about the word of the Lord which is about love. Obama should have the minute he heard the hate should stand up and say have respect for GOD’s house. If Obama does not respect his mother and grandparents who are white and does not respect the house of the Lord what makes you think he will protect America. He listed to Rev. Wright say he hated America. You know Obama is in the senate and is sworn to defend America from all enemies foriegn and domestic did he stand up and tell the Rev. to stop, NO.
Jonathan Says:
October 25th, 2008 at 7:56 am
In the 1990s 70,000 trained in Al Qaeda trainimg camps. Before the US took down Saddam. What was the problem then?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4146969.stm

Mone of the 9-11 hijackers nor anyone in Al Qaeda is from Afghanistan. The problem of Al Qaeda goes far beyond Afghanistan.

The real cause of terror is that mideast regimes and elites allow it to happen or even encourage it.
J.H. Bowden Says:
October 25th, 2008 at 9:37 am
“Eventually they’ll realize that they’ve become just as soft and useless as we are – prompting them either to commit mass suicide, or to buy enormous TVs.”

We can only hope, Mr. Chris!
Not as stupid as Mixner Says:
October 25th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Mixner, in one of his seven variants, claims that 49% of Iraqis support the invasion. Meanwhile 42% (from the same document) say that attacks on US forces are acceptable.

None of which changes the fact that the assault on the Iraqi people was unprovoked. None of which changes the fact that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead and millions are displaced.

And here’s an example of why socipathic cheerleaders for slaughter like fuckwit Mixner should shut the fuck up about how great Iraq is now that we’ve slaughtered so many of its citizens:

It’s not just about power. Eight in 10 lack adequate fuel for cooking or driving. Sixty eight percent rate their supply of clean water negatively. Sixty-two percent say they lack adequate medical care, a number that’s grown sharply from 36 percent in November 2005 – likely relating to the flight of doctors, among other professionals, who’ve had the wherewithal to leave the country.

Now, if I had supported paying a trillion dollars for this result I would be embarrassed. But genocidal racists like Mixner are proud to spend as much money as it takes so they can enjoy the suffering of brown people far away.
Not as stupid as Mixner Says:
October 25th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
To the person asking what was wrong in the 90s that allowed 70,000 members of Al Qaeda to train, it’s a lot more complex than your simple claim. You have a good start, but there are domestic terrorists here – Eric Rudolph, Ted Kazinski, the anthrax bomber. We don’t have as many because there are more outlets for political change and less inequality. There is also a lower awareness of political events outside of our nation.

No rational person suggests that “America is the cause of Middle Eastern terrorism”. That’s a strawman you see from total fucking morons. But the American oppression of Iraq for more than a decade and then it’s brutal unprovoked slaughter of Iraq’s citizens certainly hasn’t demonstrated to the bulk of the Middle East that we have the best interests of the people who live there in mind.

One hopes you aren’t defending the assault on the Iraqi people, as Mixner does, by pointing to the survivors and saying “see, almost half of those we didn’t murder or drive out think the invasion was okay.”
Ed Smithe Says:
October 25th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
On the verge of handing the neoconservatives a significant electoral defeat, we’re going to lump Conservative realists in with the neocons?

Firstly, neoconservatives are not conservative. The neoconservatives of today are former democrats of the 60s and 70s that latched onto Ronald Reagan in order to gain power. It is amusing that a movement that seeks to restore certain founding principles to the republic (including foreign policy prudence) is paired up with the prefix “neo.” There is nothing “neo” about conservatism. Which is why neocons are not conservative.

Second, from what I can discern from your website Matthew, you are, for all intents and purposes, a realist. There is nothing progressive about realism. Realism is a school of thought that rewards intelligence and power, punishing the opposite. It is also a philosophy that is far older than “progressivism.” Moreover, a progresivism was a domestic policy movement.

What realists need to do is stick together and finish the neocons and liberal hawks off (at least for an Obama administration). Already, these two groups are finding common cause with one another (Bruce Jackson and Ron Asmus) and if we keep dividing our group along political lines, we will once again cede them the higher ground.
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Matt Yglesias

Neoconservatism Today, Neoconservatism Tomorrow, Neoconservatism Forever!

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