Ignorance is Strength

Via Brian Beutler, yet another Washington Post column on the "war is peace" theme, this time from Richard Cohen:

But the true realism is that Iran is a menace -- potentially a great one -- and that its Revolutionary Guard is engaged in the dirty business of killing Americans and others. The fact that the Bush administration says so does not make it otherwise.

Uh huh. Meanwhile, Cohen offers us yet another example of an annoying rhetorical trope, namely the fact that the Iraq War has turned out to be such a disaster is deemed to discredit anti-war voices, because opposition to an escalation of hostilities with Iran can now be written off via cheap psychoanalysis as war fatigue or anti-Bush sentiment. Basically, if Bush were popular, it would be irrational to oppose him since he's so awesome, but now that Bush is unpopular, it's irrational to allow warranted dislike of Bush to cast aspersions on his policy agenda.

Comments

Basically, if Bush were popular, it would be irrational to oppose him since he's so awesome, but now that Bush is unpopular, it's irrational to allow warranted dislike of Bush to cast aspersions on his policy agenda.

And the next step is to then insist that Bush is, in fact, popular, and that any suggestion that he is not is based on irrational dislike of his policies.

Posted by El Cid | October 30, 2007 10:55 AM

Matt, why do you hate America?

Posted by szr | October 30, 2007 11:02 AM

Ah, one of the loveliest bits, perpetually a big hit in D.C., is selective indignation about who kills Americans. When it is Saudis doing the paying for it and providing the personnel, there's the discrete silence one maintains when a small gaffe is committed at an intimate soiree. Similarly, when, say, Pakistan provides North Korea with the ACME NUCLEAR WEAPONS kit, and visibly strengthens the Taliban, the D.C. honchos all worry about, oh, something else. But Iran, those evil devils, who just happen to be allied to Iraq and to Afghanistan, why those people are so evil for killing our boys. It makes the tears come into our eyes. Crocodile tears.

Why did D.C. become so riddled with this useless band of deadweights and sycophants?

Posted by roger | October 30, 2007 11:20 AM

Iran is engaged in the "dirty business" of killing Americans, and America is engaged in the dirty business of killing Iraqis. Dirty businesses all around. But we're the good guys, so it's only bad when they do it.

But honestly -- Iran, meddling in a foreign country affairs where the United States wishes to have its own way. Where would they get such an idea?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Mossadegh

Posted by Bill | October 30, 2007 11:28 AM

But Matt, he restored dignity to the office!

Posted by jhupp | October 30, 2007 11:32 AM

Even were the case for Iran's nuclear development compelling, it would still be wholly rational to take the keys away from these idiots until someone else takes over, first to reassess the evidence, if the evidence justifies action, to take all diplomatic steps first, and if all that fails, to take intelligent, measured military action.

It's completely rational to believe that Bush / Cheney has no chance of accomplishing any of that.

Posted by drinkof | October 30, 2007 11:41 AM

America is engaged in the "dirty business" of killing Iranians by supporting MEK and PKK. We always get the matter of fact statement that Iran is killing American. No room for argument, it is just so. We must accept that as a fact with either no evidence or hazy evidence which we cannot see because "it's too sensitive". We must accept it because "everyone agrees that Iran is a HUGE PROBLEM". And the media never acknowledges that we've been down this exact same road before, recently.

The U.N. are a bunch of BIG FAT LIARS, because we know better than inspectors who have been in Iran what their nuclear plans are. If Afghanistan says Iran has helped them, Bush knows more about what is going on in Afghanistan than Karzai, and he is a big fat liar anyway. If Iraq says we kidnapped a bunch of Iranian diplomats, not terr'ists, Iraq just doesn't know the whole story, and Iraqis are big fat liars, too.

Then we turn around and hand over Karbala to the one militia than Iran is actually known to support (Badr). So. next week Bush will go batshit because Iran has influence is Southern Iraq, without acknowledging we gave them that influence.

Posted by apishapa | October 30, 2007 11:47 AM

The main dirty business in which Iranians are engaged in Iraq is providing assistance to Shia groups in so that the latter can defend themselves and consolidate their democratically justified political gains against Sunni insurgents who wish to reverse those gains and restore the old order, and who, it is widely believed, are our enemies in Iraq.

The other main dirty business Iranians are engaged in is the dirty business of investing in the Iraqi economy to help stabilize Iraqi society and strengthen its government, the same government that Washington purports to support.

Iranians: fighting our enemies and defending our allies. Those dirty bastards!

If nothing else, this war has reacquainted us with one important historical lesson. It really is remarkably easy for a powerful central government to lie to its people, and to get willing majorities to believe almost anything they want. Cohen, thy name is Tool.

Posted by Dan Kervick | October 30, 2007 11:58 AM

The larger implications of such despicable tricks not withstanding, one has to really admire the rhetorical devices that these guys conjure up to justify more destruction and human suffering.

Posted by gregor | October 30, 2007 12:05 PM

Would it be gauche to point out that Bush hasn't declared that we're going to knock the stuffing out of Iran? that these guys are going to bat for policies that haven't been announced and that Bush (conceivably) might renege on? (Where would they be after that, eh? tarty little Bush-whores all dressed up and no place to go?)

Actually, it looks like Bush is trying for the Get Out of Jail Free trick of muscling dissidents in advance. Hopefully, enough people refuse to buckle this time and sanity can prevail.

(A fella can dream.)

Tangent

I wonder if Cohen would have conceded that the Soviet Union had a right to kill Americans after Americans helped kill Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 30, 2007 12:06 PM

"The fact that the Bush administration says so does not make it otherwise."

Yeah, but that's sure as hell the way to bet, and has been since, about, oh, 2000.

And even if there were an iota of insight in Cohen's piece, the fact that we're talking about the *Bush* *Administration* here means that it is *not* a good idea to listen to their policy prescriptions, unless you're completely fucking stupid, or criminally insane. Or both. Cohen may well have turned that corner some time ago.

Posted by Chris | October 30, 2007 12:11 PM

Cohen is just another average guy, sticking up for the common man against the presumptuous elites who don't think Bush and war are the two most guaranteed things in the universe. And like all good average down-to-earth non-literate folks, what really worries him isn't senseless war--because that's just hundreds of thousands of dead people far, far away--but 'malaise'.

The mind reels.

Posted by Thomas | October 30, 2007 12:23 PM

Yep. Heads they win, tails you lose. Your conservative movement's rhetorical strategery in a nutshell.

Posted by DMonteith | October 30, 2007 12:25 PM

I think its pretty clear Bush is going to try his best in the next few months to launch military strikes on Iran. I don't think there is effective opposition to such a move on his part.

I worry that if we take out the Iranian government and its military (as well as a few nuclear research facilities) via air strikes, chaos in Iran will ensue. Such chaos could be worse that in post-invasion Iraq because at least in that situation we had troops in the country. Chaos in a post-strike Iran could lead to significant terrorism spill over (not terrorism in an Al Qaeda Islamic sense, but generally anti-American terrorism from the chaos ridden land.)

I can't imagine a rosey scenario in Iran post military strikes if they aim for regime change. Democratic activities does just emerge from the rumble and take control of the country. I just see the creation of a new failed state in the Middle East. If the US funds a bunch of radical anti-regime terrorist groups, then Iran could fall to a civil war itself between Kurdist separatists, hardline Islamic groups and secular leaning Islamic groups.

Of course, both the Iranian Jewish and Iranian Zoroaster communities will be the sure losers.

I think we need to talk about about post-strike environments in Iran, because I think we are glossing over the harsh and undesirable reality of such a situation.

Posted by Ben | October 30, 2007 1:16 PM

Oops. I wrote in the previous post: "Democratic activities does just emerge from the rumble and take control of the country."

I meant to write "Democratic activists don't just emerge..."

Sorry, should have previewed my comment.

Posted by Ben | October 30, 2007 1:18 PM

I read Cohen's article & I'm frankly kind of confused as to why it would generate this much hostility.

The point of his article is that Bush/Cheney have so abused the public trust that they are no longer to be trusted on national security matters. The Republican Guard angle seems to have been brought up in order to make a 'boy who cried wolf' point only - not that we had to strike or anything.

The basic message I took from Cohen's entry - don't trust Bush on Iran. Not really sure why this is controversial.

Posted by BFR | October 30, 2007 1:22 PM

Cohen writes

More than a senseless war with Iran -- certainly premature at the moment -- I fear the sort of malaise that came over America after the Vietnam War or, more to the point, the defeatism-turned-cynicism that crippled Britain and France following World War I.

Which seems to mean that it's better to start a senseless war with Iran than to allow the U.S. to become weary of Iraq-style foreign policy adventures.

Once again, Iran is breezily compared with Nazi-Germany (or what else is the reference to post-WW1-fatigue in Europe supposed to mean?), so a new Churchill is needed to counter the new fascists, now of the "Islamo-" variety. But, pity, Bush has discredited robust Churchillian foreign policy, and the appeaseniks reign supreme.

The basic message is not "don't trust Bush on Iran". It's "Oh god, they won't trust Bush on Iran because he's a fucking idiot, and then won't be willing to invade just another country although it's really, really necessary, just because they can't stand him, those silly, defeatist fools!"

Never mind the actual arguments brought to the table against adventurism. It's all just Bush-hatered. Groan.

Posted by Patrick | October 30, 2007 1:59 PM

BFR, I disagree. The basic message, as I read it, is this: "How unfortunate that Bush has eroded the public's trust in Washington, because now we are afflicted with a dangerous skepticism and defeatism that is making it hard for the White House and Congress to enlist public support for vitally important projects, like tightening the screws on Iran. Even liars are sometimes right. Although Bush hasn't earned our trust, we should still heed the clanging Iran warning bells coming from him and Congress."

We get one of the usual swipes at the "Democratic left", and also this gem:

More than a senseless war with Iran -- certainly premature at the moment -- I fear the sort of malaise that came over America after the Vietnam War or, more to the point, the defeatism-turned-cynicism that crippled Britain and France following World War I. Both nations had been mauled and were exhausted. Britain's intellectual elite celebrated their pacifism; they would fight for neither king nor country. France had effectively been defeated in World War I. It was a nation of amputees and widows.

More pre-WWII analogies. This is the moderate, Democratic centrist, WPo version of the crazy Poshoretz-style appeasement-and-Hitler riff. Cohen worries our will to fight has been sapped, our enemies are on the march, and if we don't get our mojo back, we'll end up like France and Great Britain in the first half of the twentieth century. He claims he's even more worried about this creeping defeatism than a "senseless war" with Iran. After all, what's a little senseless war now and then, if that's what it takes to keep the fighting colors flying.

Posted by Dan Kervick | October 30, 2007 2:05 PM

Cohen is a hopelessly fatuous, superannuated neocon-lite boomer chickenhawk shmo. If tomorrow- a grizzly ate him- would anyone mourn his passing? I mean- I bet even his family is sickened by him.

Posted by Trevor | October 30, 2007 2:09 PM

Cohen's logic (as elucidated by Matty) reminds me of a hoary old scifi cliche.

Two robots: One always lies; the other always tells the truth. Ask either of the two robots what the other will say, and then choose the opposite answer.

Posted by jamey | October 30, 2007 2:50 PM

The basic message I took from Cohen's entry - don't trust Bush on Iran.

Actually, the message is: don't trust Bush on Iran; trust Cohen. Who happens to agree with Bush.

He tells us he supports these measures because they will help prevent war, at the same time admitting that Bush misled us to start a different (not to mention disastrous) war. But Cohen isn't president, is he? The demonstrated warmongering liar is. See why some might react to that with hostility?

Posted by ibid | October 30, 2007 3:54 PM

Actually, the message is: don't trust Bush on Iran; trust Cohen. Who happens to agree with Bush.

He tells us he supports these measures because they will help prevent war, at the same time admitting that Bush misled us to start a different (not to mention disastrous) war. But Cohen isn't president, is he? The demonstrated warmongering liar is. See why some might react to that with hostility?

Dunno, I still look at Cohen as a columnist - not an Iran/geopolitical expert. He's entitled to have the opinion that Iran is an awful, horrible place deserving of a bombing and to convey that opinion in his writing. That would make him poor excuse for a policy analyst, sure but that's not the same thing as labeling him as a party hack which is how I'm reading the comments here.

I did notice the swipes in his article but they did not jump out at me with nearly the same intesity as his fundamental criticism of Bush & Cheney. It was pretty harsh as far as WaPo columnists go. Maybe I'm being too generous.

Posted by BFR | October 30, 2007 4:46 PM

The Republican Guard angle seems to have been brought up in order to make a 'boy who cried wolf' point only

?

You do know the moral of the 'boy who cried wolf' story, right?

Cohen is arguing that Iran is the real wolf.

Posted by Jinchi | October 30, 2007 5:30 PM

You do know the moral of the 'boy who cried wolf' story, right?

Cohen is arguing that Iran is the real wolf.

Right - I understand that. I said above, that makes him a shitty policy analyst, but that's not the same thing as a hack & a shill for the GOP.

Assuming I'm right, you could conceivably set Cohen down and educate him on how misinformed he is. Can you imagine saying the same thing about Krauthammer? I think there's an ocean of difference between the foolishly wrong and the disingenously wrong - Cohen here seems in the former category.

Posted by BFR | October 30, 2007 5:39 PM

Nobody's arguing that he's a shill for the GOP. They're arguing that he's a shill for the neoconservative's perpetual war.

I don't believe you could educate Cohen at all. He's firmly convinced of his own worldview. He's derisive of those who (even he now admits) were correct in their warnings before the Iraq war. He's not going to sit down with anyone who disagrees with him on this.

Posted by Jinchi | October 30, 2007 5:54 PM

I think its pretty clear Bush is going to try his best in the next few months to launch military strikes on Iran. I don't think there is effective opposition to such a move on his part

Last night I went to a "town hall" (or something like that) session for Rep. Chris Van Hollen to ask him about that very issue (and about impeachment). Van Hollen is one of the better Dems, and his district is among the most highly educated and leftish in the country. He's also a pretty sharp guy, and a rising star in the party: He's become head of the DCCC after only a couple of terms. (It's a startling contrast to "my" Congresscreature, Al "I occupy space" Wynn, who after more than a **dozen** years heads a minor subcommittee.)

Anyway, Van Hollen tackled my loaded questions pretty well, and he was kind enough to give me some more time when I buttonholed him after the event. He's not a dope, he's not arrogant, he's not craven*. But for all that, I came away from the event with the sinking feeling that he's got no real sense of the urgency of our situation. I couldn't get *any* specifics about how the Dems plan to impede a rush to war with Iran.

As I say, Van Hollen seems to me to be one of the better ones. Now imagine Steny Hoyer or Pelosi herself. So if Bush decides to give the order, all we have to rely on, now, is the good judgement of the officer corps. Those guys aren't dopes either, and they're not murderers. But we're talking about a banana republic situation, here.

* The issue that really seemed to draw the most emotion was immigration, and though Van Hollen made the usual concessions ("We need to secure our borders"), he didn't go for any foreigner-bashing, which didn't make the crowd very happy.

Posted by sglover | October 30, 2007 6:38 PM

I have to disagree with Trevor - if a bear ate Cohen, I think his family would miss him. On the other hand, Cohen does share certain traits with those of the Grizzly Man, whose gruesome death made those who saw the movie ... shall we say, less than mournful about his passing. In Cohen's case, if we substitute neo-cons for grizzlies, and if a neo-con ate him while he was proclaiming his protection of them, all on his ownsome, against the demented and vicious attacks of the far left fringe of the democratic party - and in so many ways, Cohen's columns and the Grizzly Man's rants are similar ... hmm. I'd still feel bad for the guy, but ... less than mournful.

Posted by roger | October 30, 2007 7:58 PM

"Cohen is just another average guy, sticking up for the common man against the presumptuous elites who don't think Bush and war are the two most guaranteed things in the universe."

That reminds me of the line from "Blazing Saddles":

"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 30, 2007 10:19 PM

Ben: "I worry that if we take out the Iranian government and its military (as well as a few nuclear research facilities) via air strikes, chaos in Iran will ensue."

Don't worry about it, Ben. The opposite will happen.

Despite the Air Force's wonderful predictions of total destruction of the Iranian government and infrastructure in three days of bombing - seriously, they believe this - what WILL happen is that the moderates will shut up, the hard liners will gain support, most of the Iranian population (other than the Arabs in Khuzestan - and probably even some of them) will support the government against the US.

And the Air Force is going to be utterly incapable of destroying Iran's military. Iran has been preparing for this war for at least the last several years, and probably for decades. They know exactly how Hizballah survived Israel's attack last year, and they're going to do the same thing to the US.

Iran will lose its Air Force in a day, that's for sure. Most of its small Navy's larger ships that are easily detected from the air or from US Navy ships will be sunk. It's smaller patrol boats hidden in bunkers along a VERY long stretch of coast won't be destroyed until they've taken down at least one US Naval vessel. Not to mention that thousands of mines they can release which will prevent any oil tankers from navigating the Straits for weeks until the Navy can clean them up - while under swarm attack from a thousand small boats loaded with anti-ship missiles. The Iranian Navy just yesterday declared some of its personnel willing to do "suicide attacks" against US Navy vessels.

The IRGC and regular Iranian Army bases will be destroyed, that's a given. Nobody in Iran probably thinks otherwise. It won't matter since they have bases and bunkers all over the place to retreat to that won't be easily destroyed. Simple dispersal will be sufficient to survive the bulk of the US air attacks.

The main nuclear energy facilities will be destroyed - that's a given. Iran will simply wait for the war to be over in X years and build them again - this time deep in a mountain like North Korea.

Meanwhile, the US military in Iraq will be in deep shit. An almost total cutoff of supplies via Kuwait will leave the US forces there out of food, water, ammo and fuel within ninety days. US casualties will spike seriously due to coordinated attacks by Iraqi Shia militias and embedded IRGC agents.

The US Air Force will knock out many of Iran's missile systems - but not all. It took three weeks to NOT get all of Iraq's SCUDS in 1991. So Iran will dump a few dozen missiles on US bases in Qatar - and possible the Green Zone and the Baghdad Airport or other US bases in Iraq - all of which have precise GPS coordinates provided to Iran by IRGC agents in Iraq.

The Mullahs themselves of course have emergency escape routes that are likely to be effective, just as Saddam's were - even if they're not tipped off by Russia, which they probably will be. They can count on the support of over 100,000 IRGC armed to the teeth, plus the support of one million to seven million or more Basiji militia, whose bases surround Tehran and can lock down the city in an hour with an armed Basiji on every street corner.

So chaos in Iran is not a likely outcome.

Chaos in Iraq is a near certainty.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 30, 2007 10:35 PM

Sglover: "I couldn't get *any* specifics about how the Dems plan to impede a rush to war with Iran.

As I say, Van Hollen seems to me to be one of the better ones. Now imagine Steny Hoyer or Pelosi herself. So if Bush decides to give the order, all we have to rely on, now, is the good judgement of the officer corps. Those guys aren't dopes either, and they're not murderers. But we're talking about a banana republic situation, here."

This is indeed precisely the problem. The Dems simply have no motivation to prevent a war with Iran. None.

Neither do the Air Force and US Navy leaders. Marginalized by the lack of need for their services in the Iraq, and seeing less career improvement because of that fact, they see Iran as their baby. The Army generals, of course, are dragging their feet for obvious reasons.

So even counting on the generals is not a good idea. While Admiral Fallon is clearly against war with Iran (although not so much that he will actually speak publicly against it, or not echo the Bush party line), it's not going to be hard for Bush to find toadies like Petraeus to carry out his orders if he has to.

Only if the bulk of the senior leadership in the Pentagon actively resigns upon an order to attack Iran, and does so publicly, and says why publicly, is it likely that Bush can be stopped.

It is likely that the present pushback by the Pentagon is what is slowing the war. The Pentagon is probably gaming Bush by constantly coming up with new "contingencies we need to prepare against", and excuses such as "we don't have that resource right now, it's in Iraq or Afghanistan", and the like which is dragging out the Iran war planning.

Sooner or later Cheney is going to tumble to this and put a stop to it. He's already commissioned a war game to see if he can get Israel to do the initial attack on Iran, and then force the US to follow up when Iran retaliates. This would end-run the Pentagon almost completely (although Israel would need US military permission to run an attack on Iran, at least using its jet bombers, if not its submarines.)

But the Dems are going to be useless. Not one single Democrat has said anything about what they will do if Bush tries to start a war with Iran. The best some of them have said is that Bush "needs to go to Congress for permission." But what have they done to ENFORCE that "requirement"? Nothing. Pelosi explicitly took it off the table last spring. What would they do if he IGNORES that "requirement"? Impeach him? In the middle of a hot war with Iran with Iran sinking US ships and dropping missiles on US troops? Please...

Face it, folks. There is no stopping the Iran war. It's a done deal.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 30, 2007 10:50 PM