I've got an op-ed in today's LA Times noting that though it's certainly good news that Iran seems to not have a nuclear weapons program, I'd still like to know what our Democratic candidates would have done had things gone the other way. I'd like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, in short, to follow Bush's lead and repudiate unilateral preventive military action as a plank of nonproliferation policy.
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Preemption
08 Dec 2007 11:54 am
Comments (18)
How do I campaign for MY to replace Jonah Lucianne in order to make my Tuesday morning reading the LA Times more pleasant?
I take it that was sarcasm in that last line?
Bush has unintentionally repudiated unilateral invasions through his crew's bungling in Iraq?
Superficial, and short on facts, Matt. What pre-emption? It was foolish of Bush to talk about this generally assumed perogative in the context of Iraq, but why perpetuate the stupidity?
What, pray tell, is pre-emptive about enforcing the terms of a ceasefire after twelve years of its comprehensive violation, or enforcing long-standing Chapter VII Resolutions?
The invasion and occupation of Iraq may have been ill-advised, poorly planned and woefully executed, but no one anywhere has made a remotely valid case that it was illegal, based on lies, or, God forbid, pre-emptive.
"...it's certainly good news that Iran seems to not have a nuclear weapons program..."
All intelligence info must first be vetted by Israel. And you know how that's going to work out.
"to follow Bush's lead and repudiate unilateral preventive military action as a plank of nonproliferation policy."
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Say what? I suggest a re-write since this makes no sense at all. Bush is still advocating attacking Iran as an option.
For a leading Democrat to articulate a sound policy on Iran - they'd have to risk running afoul of the Israel Lobby...something they're loathe to do. Obama dipped his toe in the water a bit when he exclaimed that "No one is suffering more than the Palestinians" (the horror, the horror), but I don't see him (or Edwards) going any further than that. The question of what they (or Hillary for that matter) would have done as President if the NIE report was different is a good one. But, chances are good...unless a concerted effort from patriotic Americans of all stripes including the upper echelons of the military (active and retired) work in unison to marginalize the Lobby - not much will change and a Bush-lite Middle East foreign policy will emerge.
For a leading Democrat to articulate a sound policy on Iran - they'd have to risk running afoul of the Israel Lobby...something they're loathe to do. Obama dipped his toe in the water a bit when he exclaimed that "No one is suffering more than the Palestinians" (the horror, the horror), but I don't see him (or Edwards) going any further than that. The question of what they (or Hillary for that matter) would have done as President if the NIE report was different is a good one. But, chances are good...unless a concerted effort from patriotic Americans of all stripes including the upper echelons of the military (active and retired) work in unison to marginalize the Lobby - not much will change and a Bush-lite Middle East foreign policy will emerge.
If you read the editorial, it is clear that he meant "follow Edwards' lead" here.
Superficial, and short on facts, Matt. What pre-emption?
Matt didn't say "preemption", dude, or any cognate of that word. He said "preventive". Read it. They mean very different things.
You're right, the Iraq war wasn't preemptive. It was preventive, which is worse. It's a form of aggressive war.
I suspect you know the difference, so why the obfuscation?
Funny, Matt; the Egyptian aren't buying it either, they and other Sunni majority states
are next after Israel and the US. The NIE plays
"what is the meaning of is" questions over whether
processing uranium involves making a bomb. It doesn't have any information about developments in Natanz, Arak, Bushehr, or Isfahan; after Ahmadinejad's election. Or the tie in to the Shahab missiles, which as of now can only take
bases as far as Incirlik, Turkey. When we get the first flash out of the Zagros Mountains, we'll oops; double oops if the target is Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.
Ryan--I don't know what your screen is displaying, but mine shows a big bold headline "Preemption". Then Matt uses "unilateral preventive military action", which Iraq was also not, in his post, but in the linked article used "preemption" again. Not that I think you and he are obfuscating or anything, but neither term properly applies to Iraq.
This has been a national trauma, and significantly worse than that for Iraq. It would compound the errors to fail to learn the appropriate lessons due to partisan distortions of the true history of our engagement in Iraq.
"the Bush administration's post-9/11 invention, the 'preemption' doctrine, which asserts a U.S. right to use military force unilaterally against countries that have neither attacked another state nor have any clear plan to do so -- merely because, say, we feel nervous about its weapons programs."
Matt, the Bush Administration may have put the doctrine into words, but they weren't the first to apply it. Clinton was prepared to use military force against North Korea if necessary to stop the North Koreans from producing weapons-grade plutonium.
Furthermore, I see no reason think that Bush believes this doctrine. In the case of North Korea, he did nothing when North Korea resumed production of weapons grade plutonium. In the case of Iraq, I think that the WMD case is just something he put out for propaganda purposes, and that in fact he was determined to invade Iraq regardless of whether Iraq disarmed.
Another hilarious pile of revisionist bullshit from Powell, when he claims:
"but no one anywhere has made a remotely valid case that it was illegal, based on lies, or, God forbid, pre-emptive."
Where has this fruitcake been for the last four fucking years?
EVERYONE has declared it illegal - even the Brits admitted that in retrospect. EVERYONE who didn't just fall off a tree knows it was based on lies. And EVERYONE knows what "pre-emptive" means - and why it doesn't apply here, and why we're discussing "preventive" war, Matt's typos and babbling notwithstanding.
As for Clinton being willing to use force against North Korea, that would have been the stupidest thing he could have possibly done, given that Pentagon war games indicated fifty thousand US casualties within the first ninety days of a war with North Korea. Clinton would have made Bush look smart by trying that one. So, of course, he didn't - instead, he did what Bush should have done and used diplomacy - which Bush then renounced immediately on his election and then spent the next six years trying to repair the damage, allowing North Korea to make actual nukes.
It is true that WMDs were just Bush lies to get the oil for Dick Cheney. The same applies to Iran, except that in addition to the oil, the neocons even more want Iran knocked off their hegemony perch and also of course, Israel sees Iran as their major enemy in the ME, much more so than Iraq.
This is why the war on Iran is still on, despite the NIE handicapping Bush on using the nuclear program as the excuse. Scott Ritter has just made the same point on Antiwar Radio - nothing essential has changed, despite the NIE.
"EVERYONE" in Nazi Germany knew the Jews were ruining the nation. Thanks to Hack for demonstrating the groupthink analysis, and for bringing in Scott Ritter. Now all we need is Claire Short and Valerie Plame and we can have a tea party. My statement stands as written, unrefuted.
NAZI Germany, Mr. Powell!? Why I say, you're a rhetorical JEENIUS you is!!
Thanks Greg. But I'd say the real jeenius lies in convincing "everyone" that a war underway for twelve years was "pre"-anything, and that in spite of being approved by the chief legal officers of the nations that wrote the Charter, Parliament, the US Congress, and the official legal authorities of over a score of the world's most important democracies, it's still "illegal" because Jacques Chirac, Koffi Annan, and an anonymous cabal of politically-motivated outside "experts" say so.
Ryan--I don't know what your screen is displaying, but mine shows a big bold headline "Preemption".
He's clearly being punny -- he wants Clinton and Obama "preemptively" to repudiate Bush's policy -- i.e. take any repeat of it off the table before circustances arise which may put it on.
Comments closed December 22, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
I'd like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, in short, to follow Bush's lead and repudiate unilateral preventive military action
Bush's lead? What?
Posted by Christmas | December 8, 2007 1:24 PM