Back in the summer of 2006, war with Iran fever swept Washington when Israel got into a dustup with Lebanese Shi'ites dug into Southern Lebanon. I did a lot of research back then and discovered that ... well, fewer and fewer people outside Washington are really all that obsessed with war anymore. So, here are my half-dozen year old postings. We now have over a half-decade of history to test who was right and who was wrong in 2006: responsible foreign policy experts or me. So, who was it?
War: The Human Race Just Isn't Trying Very Hard Anymore
The Decline in the Need for Global Force Projection
The Decline in the Need for Global Force Projection
Why doesn't the Kurdish "state-within-a-state" justify war too?
The Logic of Nuclear Genocide
Hezbollah's Schmutzkrieg!
How many aircraft carriers does the Islamic World have?
The Logic of Nuclear Genocide
Hezbollah's Schmutzkrieg!
How many aircraft carriers does the Islamic World have?
Some really good posts linked to there. Sceptical conservatism at its best.
ReplyDeleteMay I ask a crazy question? Is State *trying* to create a more realistic threat to the world by destabilizing the region in order to create a pan-Islamist state? If they were, wouldn't they be doing exactly what they have been doing?
ReplyDeleteI bet that Whiskey said you were all wet, every time.
ReplyDeletePat Buchanan: 300 nukes in Israel yet Iran a threat?
ReplyDeletewww.youtube.com/watch?v=L033M6wqNCI&t=7m30s
Vote for Steve.
ReplyDelete"Pat Buchanan: 300 nukes in Israel yet Iran a threat?"
ReplyDelete100 Jewish millionaires donate to Obama and 1 Jewish millionaire donates to Gingrich, yet Gingrich beneficiary of 'superdonor'.
The end of the Soviet Union "deprived us of an enemy," says Irving Kristol, the intellectual godfather of neoconservatism. "In politics, being deprived of an enemy is a very serious matter. You tend to get relaxed and dispirited. Turn inward." Notorious for his self-confidence, Kristol now confesses to a sad bewilderment in the post-communist world. "That's one of the reasons I really am not writing much these days," he says. "I don't know the answers."
ReplyDeleteOne might think the triumph of the free market would thrill right-wing intellectuals. But even the most revered conservative patriarchs worry that the market alone cannot sustain the flagging energies of the movement. After all, Reagan and Thatcher summoned conservatives to a political crusade, but the free-market ideology they unleashed is suspicious of all political faiths. The market's logic glorifies private initiative, individual action, the brilliance of the unplanned and random. Against that backdrop, it is difficult to think about politics at all—much less political transformation. William F. Buckley Jr. says, "The trouble with the emphasis in conservatism on the market is that it becomes rather boring. You hear it once, you master the idea. The notion of devoting your life to it is horrifying if only because it's so repetitious. It's like sex." Kristol adds, "American conservatism lacks for political imagination. It's so influenced by business culture and by business modes of thinking that it lacks any political imagination, which has always been, I have to say, a property of the left." He goes on, "If you read Marx, you'd learn what a political imagination could do."
http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/print/0101/cover_cons.html
Israel has had nukes and fought two major wars with Egypt, the latter of which they nearly lost, with nukes. So no, the record suggests that nope, Israel having nukes is about the same as say, Belgium having them. Israel is conservative the way a population of 5 million surrounded by 500 million who want to kill them has to be. Very conservative. They can't sustain military action for long, and have to fight with big blows to keep their enemies at bay.
ReplyDeleteIran is a nation of 78 million, who have in the past sent tens of thousands of ten and eleven year old boys as human minesweepers. The Iran-Iraq War that dragged on for 8 years suggests that yes, Iran CAN sustain long, heavy casualty conflicts.
Moreover, Steve does not get it -- nukes and ICBMs make the "equalizer" the way Smith and Wesson negated, say the knife-fighting schools that Col. Bowie and others ran in Arkansas and Louisiana in the 1820's and 1830's.
The United States spends an awful lot on men, planes, ships, tanks, and more to deliver conventional weapons. As Steve knows perfectly well (since he blogged about it) Ike cut military spending by using hair-trigger nukes via Operation Chrome Dome, B-52's armed with nukes circling the Pole.
Iran does not have to spend that much to achieve its objective -- punish the US, drive it out of the Gulf, and raise the world price of oil to over $200 a gallon. Nukes work for it to make it basically untouchable, the way North Korea is now, the latter can do anything short of nuking the US and we can do nothing. Because North Korea is perfectly happy to lose half their population, and no President can afford to lose NYC or LA.
Steve is more like wishful thinking conservatism. Pakistan a nation in concept only has been cranking out nukes (likely for the Saudis).
We will get war if we like it or not, because Iran is intent on it. We can either shape it to our advantage or play moral status games as the Pearl Harbor/9-11 victim. Yes of course Iran is a threat, because it is getting or has already, nukes.
How have nukes changed in the Indian-Pakistani relationship?
ReplyDeleteTo whiskey,
ReplyDeleteThere are two schools on the conservative side. The neocons believe our greatest threat to be Moslems in foreign lands threatening Israel and the US, and whom must be defeated militarily, or the world as we know it will end. This is the position pushed by whiskey.
Then there are the paleocons who believe the greatest threat are the demographic shattering, third world immigrant hordes, and free trade policies that are hollowing out our industrial base. This is the position pushed by Pat Buchanan.
Now whiskey you should realize most on this blog, and related ones you frequent, share the views of Buchanan more than the neocons. Yet you believe you can change our opinion by posting the same material over and over. You claim you do not support third world immigration, but clearly your actions suggest otherwise. If you thought 3rd world immigration was a threat, like most here do, you would understand that it makes little sense to fight Moslems over there while importing them over here. You'd also frequent blogs like Commentary, Little Green Footballs and Red State and try to convert those neocons into supporting sane immigration and trade policies. But since you don't, it kind of confirms where you stand.
So save your breath, or your typing fingers, because you cannot scare us into believing we need to fight Moslems endlessly while we ship our manufacturing base to China and replace our population with third worlders. This has nothing to do with Israel, it has to do with our perceived survivial. Once you understand this, maybe you can move on.
This has nothing to do with Israel, it has to do with our perceived survivial. Once you understand this, maybe you can move on.
ReplyDeleteHere is the key: 'Scots-Irish' like Whiskey do not care if we survive; they care only that Israel survive. When Fortress USA decides it's had enough of defending the rest of the globe, then Israel becomes a pretty lonely place.
@ Beecher Asbury said...
ReplyDeleteTo whiskey,....
So save your breath, or your typing fingers, because you cannot scare us into believing we need to fight Moslems endlessly while we ship our manufacturing base to China and replace our population with third worlders. This has nothing to do with Israel, it has to do with our perceived survivial. Once you understand this, maybe you can move on."
Well said. I only have one quibble. It does not have to do with our perceived survival. It has to with our actual survival. The mid-east does not, perceived or otherwise.
Beecher, it's much better to have Whiskey around posting those views here. As tiresome as reading them good be it provides excellent practice for outright ignoring them and responding with your own points. This encourages others to do the same. Whiskey's side isn't going to stop just because you've pleaded with them (fat chance!).
ReplyDeleteHow does a Gabriel Schonfeld respond to paelo taking points? He just says that but this is exactly the sort of thing that "isolationists" of the past, like Charles Lindberg, believed. And he leaves it at that. He does that because he knows it works, and so he'll keep doing it. Your side keeps trying to engage the Whiskeys, as though there were anything you could possibly say that would change their minds. A better idea would be to just dismiss Whiskey as anti-white. Or ask him if he's not anti-white then which pro-white policies does he support? Then ask him why only those. And done.