Neocon Egomania on Iran
Kyle Rayner
Thanks to John McCain’s campaign finance reform legislation it was a bit difficult for me, legally speaking, to state this point clearly back during the campaign but now that we’re not within the BCRA window of any election he’s participating in we can say clearly that the guy is a dangerous madman whose ideas would risk incredibly suffering and destruction around the world. Just saying. His twitterview today with Jake Tapper is full of examples as he talks about Iran not so much as an actual country full of actual people doing actual things in a difficult situation, but instead as a kind of phantasmagoric canvass onto which we should paint a tableau of American hubris and militarism.
But nothing sums it up better than this Tweet:
@jaketapper no prediction, but if we are steadfast eventually the Iranian people will prevail. But this regime has tight control.
That’s right. Whether or not the Iranian people prevail depends on how steadfast we are. How steadfast we are in what? In wishing them well? In tweeting mean things about the Iranian security services? Of course what Americans do isn’t totally irrelevant, but it’s unquestionably a peripheral factor in this drama. Iran is a country populated by Iranians, and their fate is primarily in their own hands.
59 Responses to “Neocon Egomania on Iran”
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June 16th, 2009 at 9:42 am
the obvious question is which one of his houses will he choose to be steadfast in.
June 16th, 2009 at 9:45 am
His twitterview today with Jake Tapper
Oh good Christ. Maybe we are living in the evil mirror universe.
If you’ll look back through the “twitterview” you can see that the senator is not only calling for victory through will against Iran, but retroactively against the Soviet Union as well. What a nutjob.
June 16th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Matt, he’s not talking about America. McCain has never rescinded his “We are all Georgians!” assertion, so it’s clear to me that he believes that it’s our steadfastness as Georgians, who are after all only a few hundred miles from Iran’s northern border, that will determine the outcome in Iran.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:00 am
… we can say clearly that the guy is a dangerous madman whose ideas would risk incredibly suffering and destruction around the world.
Oh, that felt good.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Kyle Rayner? Really? One would have to imagine that McCain is at LEAST as steadfast as Hal Jordan.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:22 am
He’s not so crazy. The key word is “eventually,” As in, “if we are steadfast eventually the sun will turn into a red giant.”
June 16th, 2009 at 10:28 am
I wish the executive had less power in our system. Because it’s frighteningly easy to elect someone with this sort of enthusiasm for foreign adventures. The media don’t care or don’t know how to notice the signs, and on the rare occasions when the voters do notice they interpret it as a sign of “toughness.” How long before we elect the next GWB?
June 16th, 2009 at 10:45 am
McCain is right, though. If we don’t remain steadfast, how ever will our constructs of willpower defeat the evil yellow impurity?
Oh, ooh my.
This Green Lantern analogy can be pushed HARD upon the neocon agenda and…I kind of don’t like it.
Great post though, Matt.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:52 am
[...] likely) corruption and incompetence of the Iranian government. This is why it’s so silly to read something like this about how the success of the protesters in Iran turns on the support of Western bloggers and [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 10:54 am
I have no idea how this fit into their twitter discussion but it seems pretty typical of the tapper lack of intellectual curiosity:
@jaketapper again, same old argument by the left during the Cold War – we’ve seen this movie before.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:00 am
It occurs to me that this vision of America’s supernatural influence over events elsewhere in the world is not inevitable. Few Americans openly embrace the ideal of an American world empire; even McCain would likely say such an empire does not and should not exist. The rhetoric of American imperialism is mostly restricted to those who oppose the idea.
So why is it so easy for some Americans to embrace the fantasy that our nation’s actions can determine outcomes in every other country?
My hypothesis is that it’s a hangover from the cold war, when we interpreted every conflict around the world in terms of an ever-present, existential great-power conflict with the USSR. That conflict has mostly passed, but those habits of thought remain. Unfortunately, they are much less useful in the unipolar or multipolar world we live in now.
What do you think?
June 16th, 2009 at 11:06 am
@7. Ted
How long before we elect the next GWB?
I think we just did in January. cf. Afghanistan
June 16th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Okay, now if John and Jake can just find someone to vouchsafe, Iranians will finally be able to stand athwart.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:13 am
“@jaketapper again, same old argument by the left during the Cold War – we’ve seen this movie before.”
Red Dawn?
June 16th, 2009 at 11:28 am
John McCain combines an unquestioning certainty that everything revolves around us with a creepy belief that only sufficient will is necessary to fix any problem.
Add in the fact that he’s a serious hothead, and we really dodged a bullet last fall.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:28 am
But Kyle’s ring doesn’t have the yellow impurity.
Or at least it didn’t used to.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:29 am
5. With his anger problems, right-wing politics and belief that violence is the first solution to any problem, McCain is much more like Guy Gardner than any of the other Lanterns.
The libertarian wing of the Republican party are, of course, Orange (greed) Lanterns.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:30 am
There is a definite probability that Iran will be a country populated by more fresh corpses than any country in the history of the world. That is what conservative Americans want. It is what Israel wants. It is what Saudi Arabia wants. It is what China and Russia could deal with.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:41 am
The libertarian wing of the Republican party are, of course, Orange (greed) Lanterns.
more like the libertarian wing of the Republican party are, of course, carrying actual lanterns, playing make-believe in the hope that we can somehow return to the “wild west” circa 1890.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:47 am
In the context of the current situation in Iran, this somewhat narcissistic inquisition into the narcissistic tendencies of political opponents here at home strikes me as petty.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:54 am
i think suddenly talking about solidarity with the people you wanted to drop bombs on last year is probably even more petty.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:56 am
In the context of the current situation in Iran, this somewhat narcissistic inquisition into the narcissistic tendencies of political opponents here at home strikes me as petty.
I’ve already forgotten about John McCain. He’s passé. But if you don’t agree with the antiwar narrative you’re painted as McCain in an ad hominem fashion.
It’s amazing that the Iranian Supreme leader agreed to a recount! Saddam would never do that. The US Supreme court wouldn’t do it in 2000!
Obama is doing the right thing by offering qualified support and keeping the US out of the middle of it. Maybe his Cairo speech did have an effect in a small manner!
I really don’t care if the neocons and the Likudniks hate the Iranian regime, I’m hoping the opposition prevails.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:58 am
er not a recount, an “investigation” but still it’s a concession to the opposition.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Aren’t you really just criticizing him for the limitations of Twitter?
June 16th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
[...] 16, 2009 by Lee I fully endorse this meme. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)PHOTOSHOPPING PHOTOSHOPPED MISSILESA kick in the [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Paul Camp: If he had expressed more nuanced foreign policy ideas during the campaign, that would be one thing. But McCain is always a “Ya gotta be tough with ‘em!” guy, whether it’s 140 words or 1400 words.
Poptarts: You know that Iraq has nothing at all to do with this discussion. I’m tired of having the same argument with you and so is everyone else. Stop trying to derail threads.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Aren’t you really just criticizing him for the limitations of Twitter?
McCain *should* be criticized for making pronouncements on important policy questions with an inherently vapid medium. He could have called a reporter and had a real interview; he chose not to.
Then again, it’s not like a full length treatment of McCain’s statement would make much more sense. Remain steadfast, good God.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Poptarts: You know that Iraq has nothing at all to do with this discussion. I’m tired of having the same argument with you and so is everyone else. Stop trying to derail threads.
Yeah right Iraq has NOTHING TO DO with it even though they share a long border and both are majority Shia ETC ETC ETC.
Look I don’t like McCain with his insane jokes about bombing Iran but you are blind.
Yeah a democratic revolution in Iran has nothing to do with democracy in the Middle East. Nothing.
A more moderate Iran would be a disaster for the Likudniks in Israel and the dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Egypt who would longer have a bogeyman to rail against and distract attention.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
George Bush, and his war, are the reason Ahmadinejad is President in the first place, you ninny.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Poptarts,
The best advertisement for Ahmadinejad’s regime (which I dislike strongly, btw) is that he will keep Iran out of the hands of neocolonialist meddlers like yourself.
June 16th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Hector also likes the fact that Ahmadinejad will jail, torture, and kill urban hipsters.
June 16th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Wow, I have never really looked at a twitter page before, and McCaine has one scary twitter page.
Why would someone like McCaine expose his brain like that. Or is the twitter format -it makes everyone look stupid?
June 16th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
We’re really going to have to put more $ into NASA. If some people in this society have their way we’ll all need to find some extraterrestrial planet to inhabit. Who in their right mind could push for an intervention into another country’s business at this time in addition to our current ones? Who in their right mind would want to provoke an already possibly unhinged leader? Who in their right mind would risk a third world war, involving rogue nations, unstable nations, nuclear armed nations that would line up against each other, during which perhaps one of these nations would exercise the nuclear or chemical option? Who in their right mind would endorse the possible devastation of the world’s population, land, climate, buildings, etc., just to either score political points or because of an unwillingness or the inability to view other cultures as being comprised of humans just like the U.S.? Who would be willing to sacrifice their spouses, children, and other family members to pursue a possibly hate-filled agenda? Who would embark on a course of action to which the outcome bears serious, possible deadly consequences at a planetary level?
Only a NUT who sincerely feels there is no future for him or his children, his family, or his planet.
This is why I pray for our nation and world everyday. May the Lord rescue us from ourselves.
June 16th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Not only do you get to make the Green Lantern joke, you simultaneously demonstrate your steadfast solidarity with the Iranian protesters, which is essential to their prevailing against the forces of evil!
[/sullivan]
June 16th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Poptarts,
The best advertisement for Ahmadinejad’s regime (which I dislike strongly, btw) is that he will keep Iran out of the hands of neocolonialist meddlers like yourself.
I’m against meddling with Iran, but now when Israel comes to Obama and says they are going to bomb Iran, he can respond to critical advisors by pointing to the protests. Why would you want to bomb the hipster twitters? It would just piss em off.
June 16th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Hector,
Also, the hipster, Calvin Kleins-wearing, disco-loving decadent demographic helped get Obama elected so I doubt he will bomb a country (or allow Israel to) which has so many of that type working peacefully for political change. Bombing Iran would only strengthen Ahmadinejad.
June 16th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Pro-democracy protests in Iran have EVERYTHING to do with democracy in the Middle East; they just have nothing to do with the Iraq War.
Since you, and many like you, seem to have forgotten, let me refresh your memory about democratic protests on the streets of Tehran:
Back before Bush’s ill-advised adventure in Iraq, pro-democracy protests like this were a common occurrence in Iran. On one occasion, the celebrations of a soccer victory turned into a mob chanting “USA! USA!” Students from Iran’s university’s frequently led protests. By 2000, the movement had grown so large that the regime was forced to arrest and convict some of its own “security” personnel for murdering a student leader by throwing him out the window of his dorm room.
Then the Iraq War happened, and that all ended. There was a massive “rally ’round the flag” effect, and the protests stopped. Where the hardliners had once been unpopular, after we invaded Iraq, looney-toons Ahmedinejad won the presidential election.
And now, a year after we announce we’re ending our war in Iraq, and half a year after we elect of conciliating opponent of the Iraq War as president, we see Iranians students leading yet another round of massive anti-government, pro-democracy protests.
Your way failed, Poptarts. The Sandman kicked your butt off the Apollo stage. It’s the other guy’s turn now.
June 16th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Poptarts,
I can’t even parse what you are saying above. Are you for the Calvin Klein crowd, or are you for the rural Iranian working class men and women who elected Ahmadinejad?
Dave,
I have no desire that Mr. Ahmadinejad kill or torture or jail anyone. I hope that order can be restored peacefully, and I hope that Iran can remain a society run for the benefit of the rural peasant, and not for the benefit of urban hipsters. I strongly dislike both Ahmadinejad and Moussavi for different reasons, and haven’t taken a side.
June 16th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Here’s a crazy thought, Hector: instead of a government being run “for the benefit” of people, how about a government “of the people, by the people, for the people?”
Don’t worry; the gentleman who came up with that line came from country folk.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Matt, the flip side of this Twitter-view is Tapper becoming a poster boy for the decline and fall of much of the MSM.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Joe from Lowell,
If by ‘country folk’ you mean ‘p*ssified aristocrats who had slaves to work his plantations, and to serve as rape victims when necessary’, then yes, Jefferson was ‘country folk’. Not my sort of country folk, though. Country folk in-bloody-deed.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
“Government of the people, for the people, by the people” is from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
History FAIL!
June 16th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
[...] Spencer Ackerman offers the sensible observation that if Iraq were a major source of inspiration for Iranian opposition leaders you might expect to hear something about that from the Iranian opposition leaders. But then again, the right-wing has gotten very invested in partisan criticism of Barack Obama for following the lead of actual Iranian dissidents and not injecting himself in a ham-fisted and counterproductive way into the crisis, and the general neocon view seems to be that Iranians are irrelevant to events in Iran. [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
For those who haven’t run across this yet, please read it:
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2009/06/15/silence-is-golden/
Between the ravings of neocons and the naive patter of Twitter liberals like Yglesias it’s a welcome breath of fresh air.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Dear Matt:
Your opening sentence raises a very important issue that I wish you would explain in detail:
“Thanks to John McCain’s campaign finance reform legislation it was a bit difficult for me, legally speaking, to state this point clearly back during the campaign but now that we’re not within the BCRA window of any election he’s participating in we can say clearly that the guy is a dangerous madman whose ideas would risk incredibly suffering and destruction around the world.”
What laws made it difficult for you to express your opinions on John McCain?
June 16th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Yeah a democratic revolution in Iran has nothing to do with democracy in the Middle East.
Given that plenty of the protesters in Tehran are carrying placards with the image of Ayatollah Khomeini, you might want to rethink your somewhat facile description of what’s happening in Iran.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
[...] Here is the original post: Matthew Yglesias » Neocon Egomania on Iran [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
[...] of action. When Jake Tapper asked McCain what would happen in Iran, he blandly (and unconvincingly) insisted that "if we are steadfast eventually the Iranian people will [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Steve Sailer:
Matt’s constrained from electoral advocacy by the need for (desire of) the Center for American Progress, which publishes Think Progress, to maintain its non-profit status.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Joe from Lowell,
I could have sworn Lincoln was quoting the late and unlamented Tom Jefferson there. But perhaps not, I’ll take your word for it. I’ll freely cop to not being an expert on United States history, all two-odd centuries of it.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Steve S.,
I don’t get why you’re ragging on Yglesias. He isn’t writing posts demanding that Barack Obama tie a green scarf around his head and trash-talk the mullahs. I don’t understand your beef.
From your link Except for the most generic statements condemning violence and urging peaceful resolution to the crisis, Washington should say nothing
Isn’t that more or less what MattY has been saying?
June 16th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
[...] really do have to read McCain’s twitters to get a sense of how rambling and incoherent his line of thought is on the current Iranian [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
You can start with his tacit acceptance of the “stolen election” paradigm. Based on the rather thin reed of evidence presented thus far the range of possibilities ranges from clean election (in the same sense that American elections are clean) to wholly fabricated results. Both extremes seem unlikely, but none of us are in a position currently to have any idea where the truth lies, though some think Twitter provides a profound insight. Of course, it’s laughable for anybody in the United States, liberal or conservative, to complain about Iranian elections when its own Presidential election is quite carefully controlled and limited to acceptable corporatist candidates.
Then there is “assist the development of a favorable outcome on the ground.” Sorry, but none of us have a say. And even if we did, the side Yglesias is ostensibly backing look like the type to impose neoliberalism (YAAAAAAAAYYYY!!!! Neoliberlism!!!! It’s worked so well everywhere else!!!!) on the larger society. Really, I have nothing in common with Ahmadinejad nor with any of the outcomes that Mousavi would likely embody, and the masses of Iran would have to decide how much so they themselves do. Much like American political theatre this is strictly a “hold your nose and vote for X” affair as far as I can tell from my internet perch.
I could go on but I think I’ll stop there for now.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:46 am
Who cares about freedom anyway? Ideas like that get in the way of our self adsorption and other fun stuff. Besides, like John McCain himself, it is anachronistic. We will not see much of it in the near future.
June 17th, 2009 at 4:37 am
[...] of action. When Jake Tapper asked McCain what would happen in Iran, he blandly (and unconvincingly) insisted that "if we are steadfast eventually the Iranian people will [...]
June 17th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
The bottom line is that France’s statement is full of clarity on their possition without meddeling in Iran’n affair’s
June 17th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
[...] link [...]
June 18th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
[...] the United States should make a noisy show of support for the protesters, believing that by being “steadfast” we can somehow bend the will of the Iranian [...]
June 19th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
[...] the protests has been the almost narcissistic focus on American action -– in particular being “steadfast” (in what?) and assuming that Iranian protesters “await just a word that America is on their [...]