Close to a decade of negotiations meant to end the Iranian nuclear program is about to culminate in the legitimization of that program and an enriched—in both senses of the word—empowered, and no less hostile Iran. Our government and the media that so often resembles its propaganda organ will attempt to characterize this colossal failure of nerve as a personal victory for a lame duck president and a milestone in international relations. It is important that they lose this battle, that the Iran deal is revealed to the world for the capitulation that it is, that the dangers of sub-letting the Middle East to the Koranic scholars of Qom and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps are given expression, not only for substantive reasons of policy and security but also because the way in which the advocates of détente have behaved has been reprehensible.
It’s who they are, it’s what they do.
In 2002 Netanyahu told Congress “If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.”
Too bad we didn’t get more specific terms on that “guarantee”.
He didn’t realize that the Bush administration would be so incompetent in the aftermath, and that Obama would abandon it. And of course, John Kerry voted for it as well.
Netanyahu sure didn’t make it sound like his guarantee came with fine print. Obama left out the fine print in his “keep your plan” prediction and you don’t have any trouble calling that a lie.
I don’t recall Kerry guaranteeing “enormous positive reverberations”.
Obama left out the fine print in his “keep your plan” prediction and you don’t have any trouble calling that a lie.
We know it was a lie. They’ve basically admitted it. And it was a much more predictable outcome than what would happen with the removal of Saddam.
So you did not expect a de facto civil war after decades of rule by a hermetic dictatorship and a decapitation of the same dictatorship by a foreign intervention force? You sure are naive Rand.
Comparing Iraq to Germany and Japan was always a mistake. Even in Japan the USA was smart enough not to repeat the mistake that was done with Germany during WWI and remove the Emperor from the throne. Whenever you remove a power structure without replacing it with something else the result is rather invariably vacuum and chaos.
I told here back then that the interventions in Iraq and Libya were a mistake. Even the intervention in Afghanistan, which I supported, will probably end poorly because they could not come up with a suitable leader with broad popular support to handle the transition.
The natural leader for Afghanistan was Massoud but he was murdered by Al-Qaeda just before 9/11. The alternative was putting the King there as a figurehead. That was not done either. It still remains to be seen what will happen there. I hope they succeed but I wouldn’t bet on it.
So you did not expect a de facto civil war after decades of rule by a hermetic dictatorship and a decapitation of the same dictatorship by a foreign intervention force? You sure are naive Rand.
I expected competence, and a strategic plan. I didn’t get it.
I expected competence, and a strategic plan.
Given the people involved, why would you expect those things? By late 2002 we’d already seen their lack of both in Afghanistan.
It wasn’t as obvious then as (say) Obama’s utter lack of qualifications to be president in the fall of 2008.
That’s a different question. Why, in 2002 or 2003, would you expect competence and a strategic plan from Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, et al? They’d stated that they wouldn’t need more than 100,000 troops to keep the peace, that reconstruction would be paid for by Iraqi oil revenue, that we’d be greeted as liberators, etc. All that really made you think we were being led by competent leaders with a strategic plan?
If so, no wonder you have such a rosy view of the possible consequences of a military strike on Iran. But given how dramatically your expectations were not met then, you might want to adjust your expectations going forward.
Why, in 2002 or 2003, would you expect competence and a strategic plan from Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, et al?
Because they had reasonable experience, and a hell of a lot more reason than I would have to expect that from Barack Obama in 2008. And I have much less reason to expect that now.
The incompetence was *solely* Obama’s by withdrawing after we had won. If you consider Bush an incompetent wartime leader you must consider Washington, Madison, Lincoln, Wilson, FDR and Truman to be incompetent also – or, more likely, you are suffering from a combination of poor memory and rose colored glasses. Sherman didn’t call war hell casually. Voting for Obama twice was much, much worse than voting for Nixon twice.
Yours,
Tom
“So you did not expect a de facto civil war after decades of rule by a hermetic dictatorship ”
Except the civil war was Shia militant groups organized by Iran killing Sunni, while Syrian supported Sunni terror groups killing shia. The civil war was instigated by two nation states Iran and Syria. But it got too bloody and Iraqis didn’t want to live that way so they turned against Syria and Iran and worked with the USA to expel AQ and limit Iran’s involvement.
The USA certainly made mistakes but there were other players who’s actions also influenced events. Even if you play your best game, your enemy can also play a good game.
“Why, in 2002 or 2003, would you expect competence and a strategic plan from Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, et al?”
Regardless of any mistakes made, they handed off Iraq to Obama in great shape. Obama and Biden called it one of their greatest accomplishments. But while Bush did the military job the diplomatic work would take as long as you want Iraq to be an ally and Obama washed his hands of Iraq, including diplomatic work.
That Iraq went so poorly, in your opinion, yet ended so strongly suggests that the Bush team wasn’t that incompetent and that Obama couldn’t maintain the favorable situation is due to his own mistakes not Bush’s.
Tom, by that token Nixon also lost the Vietnam war because he was the one who withdrew US troops from Vietnam.
Some wars are either unwinnable or a pointless waste of time and resources. Often objectives are poorly defined. If the point was toppling Saddam that was done. If the point was safeguarding the oil resources, which officially wasn’t the reason for going there, then yes they should have stayed back. But with Saudi Arabia priming the pump and US shale oil why bother.
It did have enormous positive reverberations. Saddam’s army was no longer a threat to anyone, Kuwait gave women the right to vote, Assad pulled out of Lebanon, Libya gave up its nuclear weapons program, and Iran laid very low. Things were moving forward on all fronts. They we elected an America-hating appeaser who sympathized with the Muslim radicals who felt oppressed, and he staffed the State Department with people who thought they represented the authentic voice of Islam and a counterweight to right-wing Western imperialism. Now much of the region is in ruins.
It did have enormous positive reverberations.
With successes like Iraq, who needs disasters?
Iran laid very low
You must be joking — Iran saw its greatest enemy replaced with a sympathetic regime of co-religionists.
Who were faced with massive US firepower. Iran couldn’t do anything until we withdrew all our troops, which Obama obligingly did. Is it any wonder his vaunted nuclear negotiations have been stuck in reverse for six years?
The negotiations were bound to fail regardless. They keep failing for a rather simple reason. Iran has the aspiration and the resources to be a nuclear weapons state.
Iran couldn’t do anything until we withdrew all our troops
Iran was doing plenty from 2003 on. Our troops couldn’t stop them, both because there weren’t enough of them (there would have needed to be at least a million of them to stop every Iran-linked militia) and because our troops were working hand-in-hand with pro-Iranian Iraqi Shiites.
From the beginning there was no way that taking Saddam out could be anything but a strategic windfall for Iran.
“From the beginning there was no way that taking Saddam out could be anything but a strategic windfall for Iran.”
Iran has been benefited by many strategic windfalls over the last 6 years.
“With successes like Iraq, who needs disasters?”
We still have military presence in Japan and Germany, 60 years after the end of the most destructive war in human history. No problem with either of them. Having unilaterally pulled out of Iraq while a war was still raging was the cause of the disaster you cite, and that was done by your God, our current president. He doesn’t like the idea of “victory”, unless it’s for Progressives in elections or him against the American people. You know, all of those “bitter clingers.”
Having unilaterally pulled out of Iraq while a war was still raging was the cause of the disaster you cite,
And everything was hunky-dory for the 8 years before we pulled out? You must be joking.
No U.S. soldiers were killed by insurgents in Germany or Japan. The situations aren’t remotely comparable.
Libya gave up its nuclear weapons program
Gaddafi was rewarded for that by being murdered. Are you surprised Iran and the Norks are not interested in following suit? They might be evil but they are not dumb.
Assad pulled out of Lebanon
Assad pulled out of Lebanon because the Lebanese told the Syrians they did not want them there anymore. It had little to do with what happened in Iraq.
Saddam’s army was not much of a treat as in the past. He lost a large part of his tanks during Desert Storm. He also had weak control of the North and South of Iraq due to the no fly zones. After a decade of sanctions on military weapons sales, without any meaningful national arms industry, their equipment and capabilities had degraded to the point of irrelevance.
So in other words, because of that, we should not believe Netanyahu about Iran.
Why are you lefties so pissed off he’s coming to lecture? Does it have something to do with being control freaks and pushing Congress around? I didn’t hear that sentiment in 2006-2008 when you were all about pushing Bush around.
You know that James Baker (Reagan’s secretary of state) banned Netanyahu (then a deputy foreign minister) from the State Department after Netanyahu pissed him off? Look it up. Netanyahu gets US officials annoyed in a bipartisan fashion.
Whoops, Baker was Reagan’s chief of staff , of course, and he banned Netanyahu when he secretary of state under Bush (#41).
Yes, because Bush 41 was such a great president.
Do you have no idea how stupid you sound when you make these kinds of comparisons to people who aren’t Republicans, or Bush fans?
Jon wanted to know what was going on with “lefties”. I’m pointing out that the same thing went on with Republicans because Netanyahu irritates US officials in a bipartisan sort of way. The fact that you’re neither a Republican nor a Bush fan has no bearing on my point.
To be more precise: Jon asked “Why are you lefties so pissed off he’s coming to lecture?” and the answer is because the “lefties” run the executive branch right now. When Baker ran the state department, he didn’t want Netanyahu to come lecture him either. When Clinton and Albright were in, they didn’t like Netanyahu’s lectures. When Bush 43 was in, Netanyahu annoyed Condoleezza Rice. However, in general, there was much less friction with Bush 43, but that was more because Netanyahu was mostly out of power during Bush 43’s term and when he wasn’t ( Bibi served as foreign minister in 2002) there was less focus on peace in Israel and more on terrorism & Iraq, and moreover, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was dominant at that time. Had Netanyahu been PM, I’m quite sure Rice or Powell or Bush himself would have clashed furiously with him.
My point was that the Legislative Branch has the right to do its own things. It has the right under the Constitution to have its own speakers without the approval of the Executive Branch or the pathetic State Department.
I think you’re pissed off because Obama wants to boss around Congress.
Had Netanyahu been PM, I’m quite sure Rice or Powell or Bush himself would have clashed furiously with him.
And I’m quite sure you’ve allowed millions of people who otherwise couldn’t go to bed because someone is wrong on the internet to get a decent nights sleep. Thank-you for your selfless dedication bob. I’m quite sure you’re blissfully unaware of how many people depend on knowing what you’re quite sure of.
For the rest of us, gaining insight into what pisses you and your fellow progs off is valuable and entertaining.
I’m not pissed off at all. Well, ok, I’m pissed off at the Israeli Left, for not being able to find a better candidate to defeat Netanyahu and thus better ensure Israel’s security. I don’t waste any thought on being pissed off with Iran, because that’s like being pissed off at a rattlesnake.
I think it is fine if Netanyahu breaches diplomatic protocol — he annoys people in private when it matters, so I don’t care if he annoys people in public since it won’t matter anyway: no vote in Congress will be changed because of Netanyahu’s speech, no relationship with any US politician will change, and no new information will be exchanged. It is all a big meaningless show at this point.
I think the diplomatic protocol itself is silly – I agree with you that the three branches of our government are co-equal, and while they do have different responsibilities, inviting people to give a meaningless speech is something any branch of government should be able to waste time on without notifying the other branches.
But my overall point: the conflict over the speech isn’t some leftwing vs rightwing ideological clash. And it isn’t a constitutional clash either. And, most importantly, the conflict over the speech is not a proxy for the conflict over US and Israeli policy with respect to the Iranian nuclear program. The conflict over the speech is just another example of Netanyahu annoying US officials once again.
Curt, Find me someone that Netanyahu hasn’t annoyed. Look at his allies in the knesset – oh, wait, he doesn’t have any, only ex-allies.
Whether or not Netanyahu is annoying is irrelevant.
You are angry he’s been invited and Congress went over Obama’s head. Rather than blaming Netanyahu, maybe you should blame Obama for such a lousy foreign policy. A policy so lousy Congress needs to step in to rectify the situation.
The world is better off with Saddam gone. The current situation in Iraq, and the wider middle east, is not the result of taking down Saddam. It is instead the result of the abandonment of Iraq from 2009 onward. The radical islamic rampage we are witnessing was predicted by George W. Bush in 2007 if we followed the policy that Obama has followed.
Jim, do you have a reason to believe there was a problem with Netanyahu’s claim?
Yes, he guaranteed something that he could not reasonably guarantee, and which did not in fact occur.
Jim offers us a new debate tactic…
“If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.”
Too bad we didn’t get more specific terms on that “guarantee”.
A month after his September 2007 statement, Sen. Obama submitted a letter to then-FCC Chairman Kevin Martin arguing that the “proposed timeline and process” used by the agency to adopt rules are “irresponsible,” noting that while a specific proposal “may pass the muster of a federal court, Congress and the public have the right to review any specific proposal and decide whether or not it constitutes sound policy.”
Too bad we didn’t get more specific terms on that “guarantee”.
Is it just me, or is Jim completely ignoring the content of the linked article?
It looks like he takes exception to it, but I haven’t seem him give a rebuttal to anything in that article.
The point of the article was that the present U.S. administration, not only with indifference but with its blessing, is about to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. The administration appears to be motivated by the appearance of diplomatic victory and peace in our time. Some people fear that this is a horrible idea. These include the author, and the prime minister of a free country in the region that the Iranian government would like to destroy. And so, the author considers that prime minister’s upcoming speech to Congress on the matter to be of some importance.
Does Jim disagree with any of the article? If yes, why?
I do. I think the deal being negotiated with Iran is the best option on offer, and that the efforts of the author, Netanyahu, and GOP hawks in Congress to derail that agreement is contrary to the best interests of the United States.
Under the deal Iran accepts some limits and monitoring of its nuclear program.
Without the deal the sanctions regime collapses, and Iran gets to pursue its nuclear program unhindered. That leads either to an Iranian bomb, or a U.S. and/or Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, followed a bit later by an Iranian bomb.
Or followed by regime collapse, or followed by repeat performances.
Just how good are we at forcing positive regime change in Muslim countries using military force? Afghanistan is sliding back into Taliban hands. Iraq is split into pro-Iran and ISIS territories. Libya is a disaster.
Making friends in the Middle East by bombing their countries: as Rocky would say, that trick never works.
We never attempted to “make friends by bombing their countries.” We were bombing their countries to kill the enemy, not make friends. The Taliban, or ISIS, or the mullahs, are never going to be our friends, regardless of our behavior, short of converting to Islam and instituting sharia.
Huh, how good are we? You blame Bush but when it comes time to look at Obama’s actions, all of the sudden its “we”.
“Is it just me, or is Jim completely ignoring the content of the linked article?”
Jim has proven, time and again, that not only does he ignore the content of articles presented to him…
he even ignores content of the articles he presents himself.
If the program is legitimized it just means they are finally accepting the status quo.
Iran borders Pakistan, which is a large Sunni Muslim nuclear weapons state, so naturally Iran has a desire to have their own nuclear weapons. They also have the internal resources to do it, to a large degree, and their economy had little exposure to the international economy to begin with, due to decades of sanctions, so increased sanctions were always going to have little effect.
Invading Iran is a stupid idea. It has twice the population of Iraq and they have high altitude mountainous terrain. If Afghanistan is the place where empires go to die, Iran was the birthplace of many empires along its history precisely because their terrain is so easily defensible in the first place.
Israel and the USA have had some success at sabotaging the Iranian nuclear program with targeted assassinations and other kinds of industrial sabotage. Their program was certainly delayed a lot. However, in the long run, if Iran wants them, they will get them. Also the current international political environment has the conditions for them to import the relevant know-how if they want to.