Didn’t I mention recently that righties tend to exaggerate? Get a load of this —
Munich II
By James Jay CarafanoNo, that’s not a facile, partisan jab. What just went down in Geneva is, in fact, a replay of the greatest diplomatic tragedy of the 20th century.
The Munich deal rested on the ridiculous notion that Hitler could be satiated. The new pact builds on the equally ludicrous idea that Iran would give up the means to build a nuclear weapon that will serve as the tip of its foreign-policy spear.
Seriously. Carafano — vice president of foreign- and defense-policy studies at the Heritage Foundation — went there. And they wonder why we laugh at them.
Carafano says that the only outcome acceptable to right-thinking Americans is regime change, and sanctions must not be modified until the current regime utterly collapses. The possibility — probability, seems to me — that a new regime might be even more radical and anti-western than the old one is not on Carafano’s radar.
John Holbo explains why Carafano’s preferred scenario boils down to, oh, what the bleep, let’s just nuke ’em now. In Carafano’s world, potential enemies are enemies, period, and they must be treated with extreme prejudice and not be allowed any opportunities to moderate or become less of a threat. We make sure they remain enemies until they do something awful enough that we are justified in killing them.
It’s a bit like the righties who say they never hear about moderate Muslims, which is mostly because their definition of “Muslim” is “psychopath anti-Christian mad-dog terrorists who wear strange clothes.”
There was an article in the September 2013 issue of Harper‘s that described in detail exactly how the sanctions are affecting Iran, and it’s actually pretty horrific and not, I don’t think, likely to win the good will of the Iranian people. So if we want to compare Iran to the Third Reich, we might consider how a nation became radicalized by a policy of humiliation and economic hardship. Anything that smacks of “appeasement” is anathema to the Right, but I don’t recall when rock-hard rigidity ever forced a good outcome, either.
See also “How Bush Let Iran Go Nuclear.”
But how will Halliburton ever make money now? Poor creators.
It struck me a while back how this kind of attitude actually belittles the United States. Treating Al Qaeda as an Existential Threat, for instance, implies that the United States is too puny to deal with a bunch of fanatics in caves. And in the case of Al Qaeda, at least, it gives them exactly what they want. “Look!” they can tell their recruits. “The greatest military power in the history of the world is scared of us!”
Of course the Iranians have always seem more interested in survival than expansion to me. The idea that the mullahs would want to nuke Israel rests on the assumption that they’re suicidal, which seems improbably given that they’ve managed to hold on to power for 34 years now. And if you want to compare them to the Third Reich, they’re long past the point where they should have started invading their neighbors. There was the war with Iraq, of course, but I believe Saddam started that one, and at any rate it didn’t go quite as well for the Iranians as the Nazis’ attack on Poland did.
But, whatever. As you noted yesterday, if the warmongers are freaking out over the deal with Iran, it’s undoubtedly a good thing.
Mr. Carafano needs to climb out of Bibi Netanyahu’s trouser pocket and get some fresh air.
Last time I looked, the followers of Allah and Mohammed aren’t the ones endlessly talking about “The End Times” being nigh.
THAT, would be Dominionist Evangelical Christians.
And one of the biggest problems we have in this country, is that in MSM punTWIT land, and Wingnut Welfare, there are no penalties for being wrong.
No matter how badly wrong, or how many times you’re badly, they’re never censured, never written-up, and certainly never fired.
Somehow or other, being wrong, badly and often, makes you more of a “Serious Person.”
But you kinda almost feel a bit sorry for the NeoCLOWNS and punTWITS.
No more USSR.
China no longer an enemy, but a competitor.
Saddam dead.
Castro at death’s door.
And now, potential peace with Iran.
Where are the new bogeymen?
Who do they have to keep scaring the kiddies and the rubes?
vice president of foreign- and defense-policy studies at the Heritage Foundation
Now that’s a job that I want to aspire to. It’s one thing to be able to make shit up, but it’s a whole other thing to be the vice president in charge of making shit up. The really good part is that nobody in the organization is going to question your brilliance because you’re the vice president.
Who do they have to keep scaring the kiddies and the rubes?
Obamacare!
My fellow Americans don’t appear to realize that out team overthrew their leader round about ’54, installed the brutal shah, aided Saddam in the Iran /Iraq war, shot down an Iranian airbus carrying 290 people after invading Iranian coastal waters, conducted covert war against Iran and supported the PKK terrorists, enforced brutal sanctions, froze their assets, and turned a blind eye to mossad assassins who were picking off Iranian scientists.
This has been a very bad relationship for a very long time.
“vice president of foreign- and defense-policy studies at the Heritage Foundation”
Why not is there any real difference between Heritage and say The Blaze or Brietbart? MSNBC rightfully referred to Heritage as a Stink Tank, ouch! As far as this agreement, anything that Bebe is against I’m onboard 100%. Finally an American President that is willing to tell the Israel Firster’s to sit down and shut the F$%k up.