Lessons Learned

Someone I didn't notice that yesterday The Washington Post ran an editorial that didn't just endorse the Bush administration's loopy decision to label a branch of the Iranian government a terrorist organization, but actually said "it seems to be the least the United States should be doing, given the soaring number of Iranian-sponsored bomb attacks in Iraq" and that the Revolutionary Guard "is waging war against the United States and trying to kill as many American soldiers as possible."

This stuff keeps driving me crazy. If Fred Hiatt (and National Review and Joe Lieberman) thinks we should attack Iran, they should come out and say it plainly and make the argument. That seems to be the obvious implication of the idea that Iran "is waging war" against us already, but nobody wants to draw the implication.

Comments

You do realize that not attacking Iran is tantamount to surrender.

Posted by Bill | August 22, 2007 11:43 AM

poor matthew: if every time people who have trouble with logical thought and nonetheless have a position of prominence say something ridiculous it's going to make him crazy, then matthew is going to spend a lot of time over the decades being made crazy.

Posted by howard | August 22, 2007 12:05 PM

Matt,

I'm sure you are smart enough to realize that there exists a wide range of choices between invading Iran and negotiating with them. Many politicians throughout the cold war said the Soviet Union was effectively at war with us, but none of them proposed invading the Soviet Union. And just because the hawks didn't want to invade Moscow did not mean that the Soviets were not at war with us. It's not that hard a concept. Take for example the current Treasury actions against Iran. We threaten to ban banks that do business with designated Iranian ones from entering our financial markets, or at least this is the implied threat of the recent Treasury designations of the Iranian banks. We press the UN to authorize the siezure of certain Iranian state assets. Some people argue for robust internaitonal support for Iranian dissidents, far fewer say this support should include arms for ethnic opposition groups such as the Awazi Arabs or Iranian Kurds. In Iraq we wage a war with Sunni allies against Iran's revolutionary guard network. We kidnap their agents, kill their couriers etc.. just as the Iranians have waged a sub rosa war against our soldiers and Iraqi civlians. None of these actions add up to an operation iranian freedom, nor would bombing known nuclear facilities in Iran or for that matter the factories the military says Iran makes the EFPs that kill our soldiers. Did Clinton invade Iraq when he bombed their suspected WMD sites?

I hope this helps.

Yours,

Eli

Posted by Eli Lake | August 22, 2007 12:15 PM

Matt,

I'm sure you are smart enough to realize that there exists a wide range of choices between invading Iran and negotiating with them. Many politicians throughout the cold war said the Soviet Union was effectively at war with us, but none of them proposed invading the Soviet Union. And just because the hawks didn't want to invade Moscow did not mean that the Soviets were not at war with us. It's not that hard a concept. Take for example the current Treasury actions against Iran. We threaten to ban banks that do business with designated Iranian ones from entering our financial markets, or at least this is the implied threat of the recent Treasury designations of the Iranian banks. We press the UN to authorize the siezure of certain Iranian state assets. Some people argue for robust internaitonal support for Iranian dissidents, far fewer say this support should include arms for ethnic opposition groups such as the Awazi Arabs or Iranian Kurds. In Iraq we wage a war with Sunni allies against Iran's revolutionary guard network. We kidnap their agents, kill their couriers etc.. just as the Iranians have waged a sub rosa war against our soldiers and Iraqi civlians. None of these actions add up to an operation iranian freedom, nor would bombing known nuclear facilities in Iran or for that matter the factories the military says Iran makes the EFPs that kill our soldiers. Did Clinton invade Iraq when he bombed their suspected WMD sites?

I hope this helps.

Yours,

Eli

Posted by Eli Lake | August 22, 2007 12:15 PM

Eli,
Matthew didn't say 'invade Iran.' He said 'attack Iran.' And surely, you're smart enough to realize that there exists a wide range of choices between attacking Iran and invading it.

I hope this helps.

Posted by Greg Greene | August 22, 2007 12:24 PM

Greg,

In the original post on the national review editorial, Matt wrote, "I doubt Iran's regime is going to just abandon it's ideology if George Bush asks them too, so I guess this counts as a call for us to invade Iran, overthrow its regime, and install in its place one that's both more ideological acceptable and also prone to abandon the nuclear program that the Shah started and the Ayatollahs have continued." It is tantamount to saying that anyone who recognizes that Iran is at war with us must also supporting invading Iran. That's ridiculous.

I hope this helps.

Eli

Posted by Eli Lake | August 22, 2007 12:29 PM

Everyone should go read Tony Karon's latest post on our choices with Iran. While it's primary concern is Iran's supposed nuclear ambitions, it applies here as well.

Posted by AJ | August 22, 2007 12:30 PM

Eli, it doesn't help at all, largely because of your promiscuous use of the notion that iran is "at war" with us. if you truly believe that iran is not merely pursuing its own national interests which do not coincide with ours but rather believe that iran is actively causing the deaths of american soldiers and that is an act of war, why would you limit yourself to banning banks from doing business? what kind of response to the killing of american soldiers is that?

if you want to "help," think harder.

Posted by howard | August 22, 2007 12:35 PM

that and bombing/invading/attacking iran is utterly batshit crazy.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised (or revolted) that one of the major editorial pages that midwifed the iraq quagmire should now be gnashing its teeth at iran. and suggesting in the most wussy way imaginable that we should double down on our middle-east stupidity.

really, can't someone just leave a burning bag of shit on fred hiatt's front porch?

Posted by mencken | August 22, 2007 12:37 PM

... but actually said "it seems to be the least the United States should be doing, given the soaring number of Iranian-sponsored bomb attacks in Iraq" and that the Revolutionary Guard "is waging war against the United States and trying to kill as many American soldiers as possible."

Setting aside the question of why these guys don't just call straight out for attacks, shouldn't WP editorialists be held to some standards of truthfulness and intellectual integrity?

Even among those professionals who seem convinced that some Iranian-backed assistance is going into making some bombs that are killing some US soldiers, I haven't previously heard anyone say that this is evidence of an Iranian or Revolutionary Guard plan to "kill as many American soldiers as possible," an assertion which is ridiculous on its face.

If Iran actually had a strategy of "killing as many American soldiers as possible", I think that strategy would be fairly obvious, since Iran could do very many things to kill US soldiers which it is apparently not doing. So, it is a preposterous and arrantly false claim. More simply put, it is a lie.

Posted by Dan Kervick | August 22, 2007 12:37 PM

Who is Eli Lake and why is he defending the warmongers?

Posted by gregor | August 22, 2007 12:40 PM

I want to know why WP ed board and Eli aren't claiming Saudi Arabia is "at war" with us.

Posted by Andruw | August 22, 2007 12:46 PM

Ah! This Eli Lake.

That explains it.

Posted by gregor | August 22, 2007 12:49 PM

"In the original post on the national review editorial, Matt wrote, "I doubt Iran's regime is going to just abandon it's ideology if George Bush asks them too, so I guess this counts as a call for us to invade Iran, overthrow its regime, and install in its place one that's both more ideological acceptable and also prone to abandon the nuclear program that the Shah started and the Ayatollahs have continued." It is tantamount to saying that anyone who recognizes that Iran is at war with us must also supporting invading Iran. That's ridiculous."

I'm guessing you are unfamiliar with the arts of sarcasm and snark. You just end up looking silly, like the guy who doesn't get a joke because it isn't completely realistic.

Posted by Reality Man | August 22, 2007 12:56 PM

This stuff keeps driving me crazy. If Fred Hiatt (and National Review and Joe Lieberman) thinks we should attack Iran, they should come out and say it plainly and make the argument. That seems to be the obvious implication of the idea that Iran "is waging war" against us already, but nobody wants to draw the implication.

Why are you letting it drive you crazy Matthew? You know they want to go to war with Iran. They've (neo-con types, such as Lieberman) already gotten burned pimping one aggressive war, and nobody believes them anymore, so they're simply trying to create a casus belli that doesn't have their fingerprints on it. Coming out and advocating war wouldn't and (in fact, back at various points in the past) didn't sell with the public or Beltway types, so they're not going to come out and advocate it now.

Another way to look at it, is they're recreating the atmosphere that existed in the 90's with regard to Iraq. Saddam was constantly reported as a threat even though he wasn't. The background hum gave most people the impression Saddam was dangerous. Of course, if you traced the background hum to its origins it turned out to be coming from the same sources, that is, the people who wanted a war with Iraq.

m, perhaps this would be a good time to refer to neo-cons as 'chickenshits'

Posted by max | August 22, 2007 1:03 PM

It's all in the timing of course. Along the lines of Dan's comment above, the accusations-assertions keep growing larger, more frequent, more vague. All of it started with a box of imported lead pencils with an Iranian label for all we know, or for all any 'journalist' knows. Setting the stage for the opportune day, month for optimum impact is again proving to be an easy task for the PR team in the White House with a national media who find their greatest job satisfaction not in mercilessly running down a lead but in simply basking in the glow of being in the 'IN' crowd.
I'd be surprised if Vegas doesn't have book on this yet.

Posted by Susan | August 22, 2007 1:17 PM

that newsletter that Eli Lake writes for sure sounds interesting, and with 18,000 subscribers it looks like it has quite a large group of regular readers. Rightwing newsletters are always provide so many giggles.

In Iraq we wage a war with Sunni allies against Iran's revolutionary guard network. We kidnap their agents, kill their couriers etc.. just as the Iranians have waged a sub rosa war against our soldiers and Iraqi civlians.

Wow! Dawa and SCIRI are now part of Iran's revolutionary guard network? Do Eli's newsletter readers know about this aspect of the War?

Posted by mrs. ibrahim al-jafaari | August 22, 2007 1:24 PM

Not only that, but the sunni guerrillas which we've been fighting have somehow magically switched sides.

Truly we've always been at war with Eastasia!

Posted by Barry | August 22, 2007 2:05 PM

As Andrew Card said about a slightly different matter, you don't introduce new products in August. I don't think you'll have to wait that long, dear Matt.

Posted by snarky | August 22, 2007 2:09 PM

This makes me madder than hell. What the FUCK are they possibly talking about? The vast majority of attacks on US troops are executed by Sunnis, funded largely by Saudis -- we all know this. Iran and the US are backing the same side -- this is also common knowledge. I have a hard time imagining that the writer of this editorial is not aware of these most basic of facts.

So, assuming they know the basic nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its structure vis-a-vis its neighbors' interests, then this is just a transparent fucking lie. It's motivated by nothing but the most blatant warmongering: a desire to construct a narrative about an America which crushes its external enemies, and scorns the internal liberal menace. Forget idealism -- proponents of the Iran war know very well that it won't succeed. What matters more is the proper narrative, the ideal of a muscular, aggressive America. In a sense, it's a kind of egotism, as Lieberman and Hiatt and whoever else hope to goad the nation into acts of masculine heroism, and thus partake in them.

We all mention how little the neocons (and their more insipid successors) actually knew about the Middle East before the Iraq adventure. But more important than this ignorance is their willful embrace of things they know already to be largely false -- in the case of Iraq, the WMD fiasco, and in Iran's case, its alleged role in jihadist activity.

Posted by CG | August 22, 2007 3:38 PM

Matt - This stuff keeps driving me crazy. If Fred Hiatt (and National Review and Joe Lieberman) thinks we should attack Iran, they should come out and say it plainly and make the argument. That seems to be the obvious implication of the idea that Iran "is waging war" against us already, but nobody wants to draw the implication.

No, Matt. And the poor reasoning abilities of Lefties here that oppose any war with Iran don't assist your case. They seem to believe that if Iran was actually killing Americans in Iraq, that we would have to go from peace to total war, therefore, to prevent war - they must all join in lockstep Lefty denial that (1) Iran is doing anything or (2)That Iran is killing Americans, but that is harmless because it is morally equivalent to Americans killing Iraqi fighters.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Iran is playing the same role we did against the Soviets in Afghanistan or the Chicoms did against us in Vietnam - supply weapons and intel to help bleed the Main Enemy via proxies.

The Soviets weren't about to start a total, all-out war against us for bleeding them after we began paying them back for their masterful use of their Western media and intelligensia allies against us in Vietnam. Nor did we wish to broaden the Vietnam War to a major Asian war by going after the Chi-commies.

Iran is smart enough to know that they can get some free shots in on the USA and Israelis at this point with a weakened President and divided USA keeping them safe from full retaliation consequences. What Iran is not smart enough to realize is that the major players on the global and ME stage have sickened of 25+ years of constant Iranian treachery and mischief. They have not made allies outside their Hez proxies - just nations that collectively agree that it would be best for everyone if the radical Islamist troublemakers were no longer running Iran, that they are an irrational nation that is a growing safety risk. For now, they don't trust USA leadership and of course, almost all despise Iran's other target Israel, and have no wishes to overtly help them against Iran.

In the meantime though, the Lefty aversion to war compelling them to deny that Iran is killing US troops, destabilizing any Palestine peace talks is amusing in a pathetic sort of way.

Like all the Jewish Communists in the USA that lined up dutifully and endorsed the Hitler-Stalin alliance and denied their idol Stalin was wrong about the Nazis and swallowed the Party line that the "new enemy" of Jewish Communists was British capitalism, not Stalins new Nazi friends, so the US should stop any aid to the UK. Then of course when the Nazis reneged and attacked Dear Old Joe and Mother Russia - the same crowd did a 180 and demanded the US immediately join the war and fight the "monstrous Nazis".

Posted by Chris Ford | August 22, 2007 5:24 PM

One thing I like about the WaPo editorial is that it shows some awareness of the fact that the Revolutionary Guard is one distinct element of Iran, and not representative of the whole. It's a shame that no one in this comments discussion is making the same distinction.

The Guard is a major player in Iranian politics – it is President Ahmadinejad’s main power base – but it’s not the only one. The Guard is not the same as the regime. In Iran, the president does not control the government. The influence that President Ahmadinejad does have derives from his power base, including the Guard, not from the office of the president. Real authority lies with the Supreme Leader (Khamenei) and the various inner councils. Although Khamenei has been obliged to bend a little due to the president’s clout, the real regime of Iran is still controlled not by the Revolutionary Guard, nor even by the religious community, but by government plutocrats like Rafsanjani and his allies. Indeed, it is by running against this class that Ahmadinejad has been able to make anti-Americanism reasonably popular again, which until recently it was not in Iran.

Whether targeting the Revolutionary Guard with economic sanctions would be beneficial to the United States is hard to guess. It’s a complicated question and I would welcome more serious discussion about it. But that discussion can’t even begin if we’re still talking about “Iran” or “the regime” as if it’s a united front. It's not. My first question would be whether this move would give Ahmadinejad’s faction more power or less. Depriving his base of funds would presumably weaken him, but depending on how it’s done (and heaven forbid that the Bush administration would do anything clumsily!) it could just as easily deliver more power into exactly the factions that we like the least.

Posted by mdl | August 22, 2007 7:43 PM

If I hear one more nitwit say that there is a difference between bombing Iran and invading Iran, I, not Matt, will go crazy - and bomb the nitwit.

Look, stupids! If you bomb Iran, THEY WILL RETALIATE IN IRAQ!

Get it through your heads! If they retaliate in Iraq, Bush WILL INVADE! How the else do you think he can deal with large scale incursions into Iraq by IRGC and possibly Iranian regular army?

Jesus, this isn't rocket science! Get over your fascination with "shock and awe" air war ruminant evacuation TV shows and realize that the enemy doesn't conduct his war the way YOU want him to!

The air war will do NOTHING but eliminate a certain percentage of the Iranian forces - no where NEAR enough to prevent a ground retaliation let alone their ability to drop missiles on a perfectly-targeted Green Zone - and will have next to no permanent effect on their ability to wage war - except to kill a lot of Iranian civilians and unite even the dissidents against the US.

Get a goddamn clue!

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | August 22, 2007 9:04 PM

The IRGC may not be the entire government; but it is directly tied to the upper strata of the Iranian Govt. Ahmadinejad is a paid up member, running operation against dissidents in Vienna;
possibly scouting out a hit on Rushdie, running
Evin prison; among other duties. Larijani, the
chief nuclear negotiator is a member. Needless to say those four 'diplomats' in Kurdistan were members. They like the PLA in China and the silovki in Russia; control a sizable portion of business interests. Past and present high defense officials like Mustafa Chamran; organizer of Hezbollah; Shamkhani; naval liason to Hezbollah
according to Bob Baer, during his tour in Lebanon

Posted by narciso | August 22, 2007 9:24 PM