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Home » Let’s talk Iran out of nuclear weapons…

Let’s talk Iran out of nuclear weapons…

The New Neo Posted on by

…says Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations. Sure, why not?

Actually, Haass’s article is not really as insane as it may sound. His rather half-hearted and even desperate argument goes something like this: all the alternatives are bad, so let’s give this one a go. Maybe we can sweeten the deal enough to make it worth Iran’s while to abandon its dogged pursuit of nuclear weapons. But perhaps not.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Whether there’s even a chance of such a thing succeeding depends on how rational and well-meaning you think the mullahs of Iran might be. My answer is “not especially.” I believe that at some point the hard choices will need to be made—among those rather poor alternatives Haass outlines in the piece.

But perhaps the most depressing part of the article are the comments. I only read the first few, but they tend towards sympathy for the mullahs, who’ve unfairly been kept out of the nuclear club. Boo hoo.

Comments

Let’s talk Iran out of nuclear weapons… — 46 Comments

  1. Why not bomb them and get it over with? Seriously. The Iranian regime is long due for a good bombing.

  2. Whether there’s even a chance of such a thing succeeding depends on how rational and well-meaning you think the mullahs of Iran might be. My answer is “not especially.”

    My answer would be “not so you’d notice.”

    “Sweetening the deal” strikes me, as a layman, as profoundly flawed psychology, much like bribing a child to desist from antisocial behavior. It sends the message that engaging in such behavior is a good way to get what you want, as opposed to being a certain way of getting something you very much do not want.

    Haass is engaging in some magical thinking to deny the horrific reality that, given the present regime in Iran, and its objectives, intentions, and capabilities, war is virtually inevitable. The regime has to go. Period. The problem is how to get rid of it.

  4. Neo’s profession probably has a term for it. I call it the “silver bullet” process. Think of something which hasn’t been done and ascribe to it complete infallibility.
    Sometimes you have to look pretty hard to find something which has both not been done and will not crack up a funeral procession when said to be infallible.
    Haas’ planted axiom is that we haven’t been communicating with the Iranians in every way possible save that of pre-emptive concessions. Or have we made pre-emptive concessions? I might be thinking of North Korea. Where it’s worked so well.

  5. Whether there’s even a chance of such a thing succeeding depends on how rational and well-meaning you think the mullahs of Iran might be.

    Discussing this subject and doing so with the same understanding that the leadership has is the first pre-requisite of being able to make a real point.

    Way before we start asking about the rationality of the players, lets first discuss the rationality of the premise. the seed of the idea that creates the point that one would construct a sentence like that.

    False premise 1:
    There is no such thing as well meaning at the state level. period. the concept of the benificience of leadership is a rightist concept out of noble sacrifice, the left absolutely has no such thing, just pragmatism. There is NO room for well meaning in the pragmatic doctrines of these states.

    “never appeal to a mans better nature, he may not have one! appealing to his self interest gives you more leverage”

    The concept of even thinking that ANYONE, let alone a world leader would make such critical choices based on meaningless arguments is actually funny (since accepting that kind of argument would mean he loses because that “well meaning” can be a point of manipulation, which is why we use it!). It become incredibly absurd when one realizes that the totalitarian type states are the least likely to actually care of the well being of their drought horses.

    Even worse:
    “It would be the greatest mistake, certainly, to think that concessions mean peace. Nothing of the kind. Concessions are nothing but a new form of war.” — V.I. Lenin

    this is the political system he is getting his lessons from, advice, material, etc… so don’t think that a system whose idea of negotiation is sociopathic, will actually make a deal in which they would follow. Their believed advantage is a lack of ethics and morals.

    And I left the best for last

    False premise two:
    How rational they are is VERY rational. We don’t believe so because we are weak and would allow another to walk in and take everything we have if we could be convinced that it was ok… want to know how rational they are? so rational that they could take control of billions in assets and hold onto them over decades when other countries would just as soon slit their throat and get rid of them.

    In the west, there are a few very wrong premises, and those premises are promoted since they serve to hide the truth.

    Two of these premises are that leaders who are good are smart, and leaders who are bad are stupid, crazy, lucky, etc. (the other I will end with).

    That is that what they decide to do, is a product of their crazyness, evil, etc. AND NOT A PRODUCT OF THE STRUCTURE OF THE SYSTEM THAT THEY ARE ADOPTING AND WHAT THAT SYSTEM REQUIRES GIVEN THE PREMISES.

    It keeps us from looking at the political systems as the reason that they end up with such leaders! Socialist systems end up with such leaders since socialist systems require the suspension of morals for the presumption of a greater good! once that is made, you have everyone considering that its ok to be immoral if the end is believed to be moral (and separate the two so that one can kiss jesus in the morning and avoid hanging oneself in the evening with ones own guilt and compassion).

    This lets us excuse and ignore the very thing that puts such people into office!!!

    In otherwords, it’s the seed premise that allows for the revisionism of socialism to be benificient even though most leaders have turned into murderous mass killers. Heck, once the US took socialism to heart, we exterminated 50 million children! and we don’t even blink an eye to that, because we are waiting for the boogey man, and not watching what the system and its structural changes create!

    Socialism requires terror… social engineering by force requires that there be some way to compel people because you cant accept people as they are, and what they want, and so forth. that’s structural to socialism. the wealthy want to keep what they worked VERY hard to get, sometimes over generations, so one must force them to comply. the poor want the help, but they do so with the states extortion of how they will live if they accept the money.

    So is it really that hard to understand that their actions lead to wars because that same fiddling with each other is what they want to do to states, but with states, the victims are not helpless and ARE the monopoly of force ni their areas.

    So this is a dead end concept too, which is why this kind of thing has never worked. your not going to convince a person that being a small fish in a big pond that they are not welcome in will be better than being the biggest fish in a small pond in which they are the tops, and they live better than most people in the other system, and have no restrictions on their behavior other than nationally.

    What the heck are you going to bribe such a person with? they OWN the country. bout the only thing they may accept for some part would be another country.

    And now in part two I will give the biggest false premise.
    It’s the reason that we think that they are not rational, when the turht is that they are more rational than the people who think they are not.

  6. This article is a classic of its type.

    Douglas Feith says the Pentagon has a joke about the State Department. In any crisis, State will say there are three options:

    1) Do nothing

    2) Do some diplomacy

    3) World War III and complete annihilation of the planet.

    I meet a lot of young people (Ivy Leaguers mainly) who are interested in international affairs and want to do what they have been taught is good in the world. I give them case studies of crisis situations, and they are wholly unable to imagine the range of actions available to either side. Not surprisingly, they can’t reason through the move and counter-move that could result. They sometimes look at me as a kind of monster for even raising the sordid realities of power politics.

    Are some people attracted to the kind of career that Mr. Haass has enjoyed because they are programmed in a way that keeps them from being very good at the job?

  7. The final and most key false premise:

    The idea behind RATIONAL… why do we think that Iran’s desire for nuclear weapons is not rational? Because someone who is an elite spokesman told us?

    Rationality with nuclear weapons has to do with accepting a false premise.
    That premise is nuclear winter and the impossibility of nuclear war.

    May I ask where that premise came from? what evidence was used, what premises were made to convince us. (and has anyone now noticed the same process as with global warming?)

    I posted the communist goals from 1963… one has to actually incorporate new facts into ones assessments, not read them, then gloss over them and keep going with the old set.

    1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
    2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
    3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

    It took me a bit of searching but I found the parts from Golytsyn

    The attendance of KGB agents, such as Academicians
    Topchiyev, Artobolevskiy, and Khvostov, at international scientific
    conferences and their role in promoting the idea of the Soviet Union’s
    common interest with the United States in avoiding nuclear conflict
    deserve the closest scrutiny for the bearing they may have had on
    American willingness to engage in strategic arms control and
    disarmament negotiations with the Soviet Union and the voluntary
    decision by the United States in the early 1960s to surrender its
    nuclear superiority in the naive belief that if the Americans reduced
    the rate of development of their nuclear arsenal, the Soviets would do
    the same.

    so history shows that the kind of thing that is being offered here is just a way to put us on the back burner. And in fact, if his idea is to pay them off, then what he is ACTUALLY suggesting is helping them fund a SECRET nuclear program with American dollars rather than have them use their own, they will hang us with the rope we make for them.

    On January 17, 1955, the Soviet government announced that it
    would assist China in setting up nuclear research establishments. Later
    the USSR undertook to construct a nuclear reactor in China that
    would be operational by March 1958.

    This game has been going on so long that we don’t even see that it’s a constant repeat performance!!! and the performance is milk the other state for as much as you can while giving them nukes as slowly as possible. they got the Chinese to cooperate by selling out all their spies to them! one was Soong Ch’ing-ling, the widow of Dr. Sun Yat-sen…Another declared agent was Kuo Mo-jo, the well-known poet and Scientist

    Anyway… Sakarov, turned out to be working for the agencies, though most in the west haven’t learned the updated non revisioned histories. (the info is there, its not tin hat, but if you cant say che was bad, how can you even get into other discussions of facts?). to quote “It is
    inconceivable that, if he were seriously at odds with the regime and
    therefore a security risk, he would have been given the opportunities
    he has had to maintain contact with Western friends and colleagues.”

    Only people who don’t understand how things work would think otherwise, only people who used the ins and outs of their nice political system would think falsely.
    “The only conclusion consistent with these facts is that Sakharov is still a loyal servant of
    his regime, whose role is now that of a senior disinformation spokesman for the Soviet strategists.”

    And now we start to get to the false premise, and where it came from.
    The theme of “common interests” between East and West, developed
    by Soviet agents of influence in the 1960s, was expanded
    after 1968, most notably in Sakharov’s writings, into the concept of
    “convergence” between the communist and noncommunist systems.

    This was the core reason we started to belive that they were our friends, and that they should get a billion dollars a year from us.. .that they would give up their military programs, get rid of missles, and so forth. but the truth is that they didn’t get rid of the missles, they spend the years rebuilding in secret, they have created hundreds of huge new nuclear bunkers, and used our money to rebuld and update yamentau mountain, and more. (meanwhile, the Chinese just informed us last week, taking the hood off the charade after 40 years, that they are not changing. So soddy).

    From all this came the games of proliferation disguised as non proliveration. Note how many states AFTER that date ended up getting the secrets through the game of the communists helping them build them. china helped India, russia heled Pakistan, china and russia helped north korea, and russia is helping iran, while soon Venezuela is going to start up next year. Do you see the pattern?

    [note that in his book he talks of eurocommunism… his name for the European union that came 20 years after his book!]

    Going to other sources, one learns that the idea of nuclear winter is false. And all these actions over the past 40 years (before you laugh, remember how many believe that the US invented HIV in labs, and that was an ADMITTED active measure and we still cant get that info washed out of the public!!!)

    I have to switch to a much more recent and confirmed defector than golitysn. However, the reason I brought him up was to show that this thing has been worked on by literally thousands of people constantly for 40 years… and yet what about the premise of nuclear winter?

    The premise the west has accepted is that nuclear war is not a valid and viable concept for war. That if it happens, nuclear winter will occur and like global warming all life in earth will perish if we don’t head that message (the fact that this message worked so well, was why they thought that global warming would work out, but there are a lto more experts on weather and such and a lot more information that nuclear!)

    So we turn to Comrade J, Sergei Tretakov. According to wiki (yes I can give better, but if wiki is not wrong on a specific piece of info, then its easier), “active measures” and they go into the GRU (the military version of the KGB, but totally separate). That the GRU spent more than 1 billion dollars in peace movements in the west, funding any and all they could. 40 years later they have warped from just stopping a war, to actually taking command of the country (Stanislav lunev).

    The KGB programs — which would run all sorts of congresses, peace congresses, youth congresses, festivals, women’s movements, trade union movements, campaigns against U.S. missiles in Europe, campaigns against neutron weapons, allegations that AIDS … was invented by the CIA … all sorts of forgeries and faked material — [were] targeted at politicians, the academic community, at the public at large.”[2]

    Imagine about 10 schools of the size of Harvard and each puts out about 4000 operatives a year that then go out in the world.. then imagine that practice going on sinve before the 30s. in other words, the scale of the thing is what hides it. make it so big, have it self funded (through socialist programs where people like obama can give a few million to a socialist organization, and then fund the political games through it. in other words, they only need seed money, then the others here will then disburse our tax money to fund their programs. So even if the soviet union disappears, the creature and beast will still march on, on its own or rather our own energies).

    In the book Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia’s Master Spy in America after the End of the Cold War Sergei Tretyakov makes the claim that the KGB “created the myth of nuclear winter.” Sergei, a former Colonel in the Russian KGB/SVR that defected to the United States in 2000, says during the 1970s the KGB wanted to prevent the United States from deploying Pershing II cruise missiles in Western Europe. The plan, under KGB Director Yuri Andropov, aimed at fostering popular opposition to the deployment included a massive disinformation campaign requiring false scientific reports from the Soviet Academy of Sciences and funding to European anti-nuclear and peace groups opposed to arms proliferation. The Soviet Peace Committee, a government organization, spearheaded the effort by funding and organizing demonstrations in Europe against the US bases.[29][30][31] The KGB propagandists then went to work creating two different scientific studies to be released from the Main Geophysical Observatory and the Institute of Terrestrial Physics but never submitted for peer review. The second study, using the findings from the first, concluded that temperatures across Europe would plunge after the use of nuclear weapons in Germany from dirt launched into the atmosphere blocking the sun’s rays. The Soviet propaganda was then distributed to sources within environmental, peace, anti-nuclear, and disarmament groups including the publication Ambio.[29] The concept hit mainstream from there and propelled into popular culture with the help of Carl Sagan. The book goes on to mention that while Ambio was targeted that there is no evidence to suggest that Birks or Crutzen were aware of the KGB’s goal. Claims of KGB involvement have existed for years fueled in part by the strange disappearance of Vladimir Alexandrov, the man that created the mathematical model for the Nuclear Winter theory released in the study from the Institute of Terrestrial Physics, in 1985.[32]

    Ok… so now with this out in the open… what happens to the irrationality of obtaining nuclear weapons?

    Nuclear weapons are the greatest insurance a country can have from being taken over. if iraq had nukes would G W had rolled in? would we have thought it worth taking Kuwait back? will we act correctly in the India Pakistan thing now?

    Well, ya want to see how much a lie this is? go research how many years it was before they rebuild Hiroshima and Nagasaki… and read the science reports from Chernobyl.

    So basically the well being is a false argument on the world stage.
    And irrationality of nuclear weapons is also a false argument.

    Its completely rational to want nukes. It is a magical charm against invasion.

    And the punch line?

    It changes the game to only one game! the subversion of the people of a state to change them bit by bit to take over the country since once nuclear arms are on the table, one can only take a country by rotting it out on the inside. Like whats been done to the US since, the US has created nuclear weapons!!! (ergo ipso facto anyone?)

    There is TONS more… but hey… ya got to slog through these histories… they are completely amazing… the asymmetry between ours and theirs is HUGE… and ours is crippled, and theirs never stopped. Infact, theirs picked up and got more going the minute the borders were opened.

    So now what happens to the discussion when the majority points of it are no longer valid..

    [I will bet that they will ignore that they are invalid, and then keep arguing in their comfort zone]

  8. A few examples of active measures against the United States were described in the Mitrokhin Archive:[1]

    Promotion of false John F. Kennedy assassination theories, using writer Mark Lane.
    Discreditation of the CIA, using historian Philip Agee (codenamed PONT).
    Spreading rumors that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was a homosexual.
    Attempts to discredit Martin Luther King, Jr. by placing publications portraying him as an “Uncle Tom” who was secretly receiving government subsidies.
    Stirring up racial tensions in the United States by mailing bogus letters from the Ku Klux Klan, placing an exposive package in “the Negro section of New York” (operation PANDORA), and spreading conspiracy theories that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination had been planned by the US government.
    Fabrication of the story that AIDS virus was manufactured by US scientists at Fort Detrick; the story was spread by Russian-born biologist Jakob Segal

  9. Iran’s real intentions are hard to understand. They talk a good game of annihilation and may be different enough in outlook to think there will be no blowback from this.

    A mere raid or two might make them see reality or it might make them crazier.

    We probably will have to destroy their military and government, not just their nuclear and missile capabilities. We would also have to seize the oil fields to take away their financial ability to rebuild.

    For some reason Russia and China are supporting them in their madness. Until we understand what Russia and China are really up to, we don’t understand Iran.

    The ICBM’s are not for generating electricity.

    Iran supports suicide terrorism and has a suicidal philosophy. A nuclear Iran is too dangerous.

  12. “Peace prize winner Tutu urges action in Zimbabwe”

    I’m behind him all the way. What does the Tutinator propose to do, apart from running his yap?

  13. Wow. The only think Canadians hate more than The US and Jesus are Israel and Jews.

    There are lots of Neo-nazis in Soviet Canuckistan… Lots.

    Merry Christmas to all.

  14. The problem with concessions is always, where do you stop and say “enough”? When the other party is not negotiating in good faith, there’s always another demand to be met, and eventually you’re giving away your own vital interests if you’re not careful. Chamberlain found this out the hard way after Munich. Let’s hope Obama learns the lesson before he’s faced with his own equivalent of the invasion of Poland.

  17. Oblio — Thanks for posting. I also get the impression that to a diplomat (or Ivy-leaguer) everything looks like a case for diplomacy.

    What I don’t get from these people (and Barack Obama) is how they imagine that diplomacy has not been tried with Iran. Then tried again, and tried again and so forth.

  18. When militarism fails, as in Iraq, the neo-conservative argument is: be patient. war takes time. we can’t give/don’t need/don’t want a timetable or exit strategy. We will succeed when we succeed, so shut up and get to cheerleading. All the while, the goalpost keeps moving from removing WMD that weren’t there to inculcating democracy throughout the region to inculcating democracy in Iraq to fomenting a quasi-democratic/Islamic democratic infrastructure in Iraq to fomenting a semi-Democratic mullah state in parts of Iraq to, now, getting out without allowing Al Qaeda to take the place over. Oh, and by the way WE WON!!!! Anyone who denies it is a liar.

    On the other hand, if diplomacy fails to usher in pro-U.S. free market utopia within a specific timeframe, the neo-conservative line is: utter failure. Why hasn’t diplomacy forced this country to do what we want it to do? How can you possibly be so naive as to believe this could possibly “work,” i.e. achieve disarmament and regime change, at any time.

    Meanwhile, the costs of diplomacy are what, 1/1000 or less than that of a military invasion, not to mention a lower risk profile and the obvious logic that diplomacy doesn’t foreclose a military option, where is military action almost always forecloses the opportunity for diplomacy.

    Bottom line is neo-conservatives exercise a massive double standard when comparing diplomacy to military responses. Without that double standard, their worldview liquifies and spins right down the drain.

    Again, costs AND benefits need to be weighed.

  19. Bogey Man,

    Spoken like a true leftard. Soros is proud, I’m sure.

    The only “diplomacy” that Aminneedofjihad will recognize is a punch in the nose, and I hope to God that Israel gets to it before Soros’ puppet is sworn in. When (not if) a mushroom cloud rises over a western city, idiots like you will say, “Why do they hate us?”.

    You “sir” are a jackass.

    Sorry Neo.

  20. Drew.
    I disagree. Bogey will only ask for the sake of effect. He thinks he knows, and he’ll think we got what was coming to us.
    If he’s upwind from the fallout pattern, he might even smile.

  21. “In March of 1936, a military riposte to the entry of German troops might have at least slowed down the course of evenys or even brought about the fall of Hitlerism.”
    Raymond Aron, The Dawn Of Universal History

    True, diplomacy is cheap until it becomes very, very expensive. Appeasing Hitler with diplomacy was extremely expensive.

    I don’t call myself a neocon or even a neo-neocon, but I’m unaware that those who supported the Iraq War opposed diplomacy. There was more than ten years of diplomacy, negotiations, and UN resolutions, after countless, almost daily. treaty violations by Saddam Hussein before the coalition invaded Iraq in 2003.

    At what point do you pull the plug on diplomacy and pull the trigger on military action? There are no easy answers. But if you convey to your enemy that you will do almost anything to keep negotiating, they will rightly perceive that they can proceed with their plans under the cover of negotiations. Which is what Iran is doing.

  22. Drew, there is no need for name-calling. It might feel good, but it doesn’t do anything to change minds–certainly it will not change Bogey’s. Richard Aubrey, I’m not sure we know exactly what would make Bogey smile. Perhaps he doesn’t know; except that I suspect he enjoys irritating Neo’s readers.

    Bogey, your post is a mess. You start out with an undefined but emotional term (“militarism”), which you then use to try to steal a base with respect to the Iraq debate. I do not think that word means what you think it does.

    The heart of your post is a false choice between diplomacy and war. There is pre-war diplomacy, post-war diplomacy, and even diplomacy during wartime. (“War is the continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.”) There might be a little bit of war and then a little diplomacy, or the other way around. Huxley correctly points to diplomacy as a tactic in preparing for war, and the high potential cost of not going to war. Niall Ferguson, author of The Pity of War, calls it “The Pity of Peace.”

    The core of the debate on this thread is about how to figure out when merely talking is not enough. It is a serious question.

  23. Oblio — You are refreshing!

    The Haass article is better than I expected. He is aware that the odds for successful negotiation are not high. He mentions the only factor–cheap oil that hurts the already damaged Iranian economy–that suggests that negotiations might now be different than before.

    Most importantly though, Haass frames another attempt at negotiation as “one last chance” after which we either accept that Iran gets the bomb or we attack.

    If the Obama administration were firm on negotiation as “one last chance”, I say, sure, give it a shot. But I doubt they will be, any more than the Europeans have been. That being the case, I don’t see any reason for Iran to cease their course towards nuclear weapons.

  24. Militarism
    1 a: predominance of the military class or its ideals b: exaltation of military virtues and ideals
    2: a policy of aggressive military preparedness

    Oblio: Militarism isn’t “undefined.” I don’t know what would give you the idea that it is. I’ve provided the above from Merriam Websters for the sake of demonstration. Nor is the term emotional. I use it precisely because it is not. The mainstream media relies more on terms like “hard” and “soft,” or “tough” which are far more vague and emotional and have vast connotative meanings that obscure the point.
    But if you have a better term to describe neo-conservatism’s preference for military action over diplomacy bring it on. Meanwhile, I’ll rely on Webster’s for my definitions.

    Before we can even discuss a bombing of invasion of Iran, we have to ask who would pay for it. Where would the money come from? Would the U.S. ask the Chinese and Japanese to lend it to us? Would we take it out of the Medicare budget? Raise taxes?

    Presumably there would be a need for ground troops at some point, to control the post-bombing chaos and to prevent the kind of looting, etc. that paved the way for Al Qaeda to establish itself in Iraq. Who could think the same would not happen in Iran? Where would those troops come from? A draft?

    Where are all the neo-conservatives signing up to fight in such a war or, better yet, raising the money to pay for it?

    In reality, diplomacy is the only realistic means we have a dealing with Iran at the moment. War is only credible as a desperate response to an imminent, existential threat.

    The idea that we can simply bomb countries and/or invade them as an instrument of geopolicy is dead and buried in Iraq.

  25. I apologized to Neo, and I’ll apologize to all, Oblio especially. My words expressed my opinion, and I agree the words sound harsh, sorry. I retract the idiot and the jackass comments.

    Bogey whatever…

    Do you really think Iran will participate in any real dialogue? Do I have to quote the Quran, Sira and the Hadith?

    Ignorant is a better word.

    ABS

  26. Bogey, your definition of “militarism” isn’t as bad as some I have seen. At least you aren’t endorsing the New Oxford American Dictionary definition of 2007:

    “the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests.” This one is getting pretty close to being the antonym of pacifism (the distinction being that some anti-militarists are not against violence per se, only against violence between states). I think when anti-war activists use the word “militarism,” they tend to emphasize the word “aggressively” and define it pretty broadly, and minimize the notion of “defending” national interests.

    Or there is the Maoist International Movement’s definition http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/faq/milit.html

    “Militarism is war-mongering or the advocacy of war or actual carrying out of war or its preparations.

    “While true pacifists condemn all violence as equally repugnant, we Maoists do not consider self-defense or the violence of oppressed nations against imperialism to be militarism. Militarism is mostly caused by imperialism at this time. Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism–seen in countries like the United $tates, England and France.”

    So there ARE multiple definitions of “militarism,” and militarism WAS undefined as a starting point for your argument. In addition, the definition you looked up is also inadequate because it is vague about the kind of “predominance” and “exaltation” it means.

    The traditional definition of Militarism is closer to the American Heritage Dictionary definition:

    “Glorification of the ideas of a professional military class and Predominance of the armed forces in the administration or policy of the state.” Here you are really getting close to the idea of the policy and government of a state being subordinated to the institutional and class interests of military leaders. That is manifestly not the case of US policy in Iraq or anywhere else.

    I contest your assertion that “militarism” in common use is a precise description without emotional overtones. Any search will find “militarism” primarily employed as a term of abuse and associated with words like “jackboot.”. From my college days, I only remember “militarist” used as a descriptor by Leftists; I suspect the ideological obsession with militarism (which goes back to 19th century Germany) is an artifact of Leftist thought.

    If you don’t believe me that there are strong negative connotations, you ought to try an experiment with some returning Iraq vets: call them militarists or agents of militarism and gauge their emotional reaction. Please try this with officers only so you won’t get beat up.

    I also contest your assertion that the neo-conservatives are militaristic. By your own definitions, the extensive multi-lateral negotiations with North Korea, extended intermediary discussions involving allies and the UN with Iran and Syria, and the exhaustive diplomatic maneuvering in the run-up to the campaign to overturn the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq are not evidence of an ideological predisposition to shoot first and ask questions later.

    So I am sticking with my previous assessment: you started off badly and went downhill from there.

  27. Drew,

    I understand your irritation with Bogey. My comment was about tactics. I don’t think there is any need to apologize to anyone other than Neo (done) and perhaps Bogey, depending on how you want him to feel.

  28. Neo-conservative militarism, for lack of a better term, isn’t the opposite of pacifism. In fact, neo-conservatives embrace pacifism, but only for states or groups opposed to the U.S.

    Take the subject at hand, Iran.

    The neo-conservative position implies that Iran needs to renounce violence as a pre-condition for negotiations. The country’s willingness to support violent movements in pursuit of its own geo-strategy is, in the neo-conservative view, a priori unacceptable.

    More important, neo-conservatives advocate regime change as the goal of any “negotiations,” with Iran, foreclosing any response from Iran other than pacifistic surrender.

    This was the scenario under which the U.S. “negotiated” with Saddam in the run up to the invasion. The final offer was: leave the country and take your sons with you, or we invade.

    Prior offers included: surrender your WMD (which didn’t exist) or let the U.S. dictate terms under which inspections will take place.

    At the same time, neo-conservatives openly urged Saddam’s assassination.

    Meanwhile, neo-conservatives argued for pacifism as the only acceptable response by Saddam’s regime.

    Survival was never an option for Saddam, once the U.S. turned against him. The only option was pacifistic surrender.

    The core of neo-conservatism is the embrace of double standards. One standard of morality and law applies to the U.S. and its allies and another to “enemy” states or groups. It is self-evident that such an approach precludes sincere diplomacy.

  29. So, Bogey, let’s hear it: what should the U.S. offer Iran as an inducement to give up its nuclear program? What should Iran offer the U.S.? And why do you believe that the Iranians would negotiate in good faith? No tap dancing, no parrying the question with another question. Let’s find out what our resident liberal actually thinks would do the trick. Or are you comfortable with a nuclear-armed Iran?

    In the interest of fairness, here’s what I think: I do not believe that, absent a clear military threat, the Iranians would ever negotiate in good faith to give up their nuclear program. Even if they agreed on paper, you could use the agreement in place of Charmin because they would lie and continue doing whatever it was they believed was necessary until they had a stockpile (pick your number) of nuclear weapons.

    Regarding militarism, Frederick the Great’s Prussia was militaristic. Napoleon’s France was militaristic. Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany was militaristic. Imperial Japan 70 years ago was militaristic. Early-21st Century America is not, not by any stretch of the imagination. We have no “levee en masse”, no part of the government outside of the armed forces where the military controls civilians, no military governors or martial law. Members of the armed forces are subject to civilian jurisdiction when off military installations and are required to pay taxes unless specifically exempted by civil authority (i.e., some state legislatures exclude income taxes on military pay, while others tax it at the normal rate). The military does not control its own deployments, and is always ordered into action by civil authority. If this is militarism, then the civilians are sure doing a good job of hiding it.

  30. Walt: Let me address the last part of your argument first. Indeed, America is not militaristic. We have a long history of military restraint. The neo-conservatives, however, are against that. They have argued against such restraint, just as you are doing now as regards decades of diplomacy with Iran. Fortunately, the neo-conservatives and their ilk have only triumphed episodically, as with the invasion of Iraq — a legacy that is surely their undoing. The country has, just as I expected, begun to right itself from that debacle and the current diplomatic approach to Iran partly reflects that.

    As for bargaining chips with Iran, a rather obvious one is a parallel nuclear disarmament agreement and/or non-aggression pact with Israel.

    How can we expect Iran to agree to unilateral disarmament when its sworn enemy, the most powerful military in the region, openly foments for bombing and/or invasion? Here again, the neo-conservative position is to call on Iran to embrace pacifism in the face of clear and present threats from Israel. How can anyone expect Iran to consider sincere diplomacy when the only outcome acceptable to their counterparts is regime change or unilateral disarmament as a stepping stone to regime removal?

    It’s telling that neo-conservatives conceive of negotiations as a process in which the U.S. would offer “concessions” in exchange for Iran compliance with U.S. policy.

    In reality, though, offers such as a non-aggression pact with Israel aren’t “concessions.” And there are dozens of other ideas along the same line, the theme being building Iranian confidence that it doesn’t need nuclear weapons to secure its future.

    The invasion of Iraq was a clarion call to governments in the region that the U.S. will reserve the right to unilaterally destroy nations that oppose it but do not possess weapons of mass destruction. Thus the decision to invade Iraq, but not Pakistan or North Korea.

    Walt asks:
    “Are you comfortable with a nuclear-armed Iran?”

    Comfortability isn’t an option. The world is uncomfortable place. Of course we are better off if Iran chooses other ways to repel aggression and secure its national interests, but the region is already going nuclear, even if that development is prevented in Iran. Partly because of the Reagan administration’s embrace of the then-radical Islamic regime of Pakistan, nuclear technology has spread from North Korea to Pakistan, Algeria and possibly Saudi Arabia and beyond.

    This should be “uncomfortable” to everyone and a cause to re-examine how catastrophic the Reaganite’s “blank check” mentality was as regards opposing the Soviet Union.

    The question isn’t whether it’s okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon but what is the best way to stop them. We’ve seen where “blank check” thinking leads. We have to weigh the costs and benefits toward any action against Iran, in other words.

    Maybe a more meaningful question is: What actions can we take off the table as regards preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon?

    When answer that honestly, we can start asking Iran to take actions off the table and get serious about negotiating.

    Neither Iran nor the U.S. are at their strongest. Both face formidable problems economically and geopolitically — especially since a resurgent Russia is now firmly behind Iran’s nuclear development.

    It will take more than wishful thinking to successful reduce the prospects for nuclear accidents or, indeed, attacks by any of the related parties, including Iran.

  31. Bogey stupidly wrote, “The core of neo-conservatism is the embrace of double standards.”

    Yep. We hold double-standards for criminals. They can’t own weapons. There are countries all over the world who have the nuclear bomb and do not threaten their neighbors.

    Iran threatens it’s neighbors. It’s basically a criminal regime until unless it repents and changes for (and for a long period of time) and joins the rest of the world…. none of us should see any reason to ‘worry’ that we hold a different standard for Iran….

    …. except for none clear thinkers like Bogey.

  32. The core of being a conservative is a strong national security where we don’t make apologies to criminals and worry about ‘legal’ actions like wiretapping foreign terrorists making calls into this country.

    Did anybody see Newsweek’s leftist hit piece this week against ‘warrantless wiretapping’? On your grocery stores newseditorial stands now!

  33. Baklava: are you suggesting the Israel doesn’t threaten its neighbors?

    The facts show clearly that Israel not only threatens its neighbors, but acts on those threats both covertly and overtly.

    Israel has every right to pursue its national security interests, and any attempt to ignore, deny or negate that principle is highly unlikely to succeed.

    Yet, since we can agree that “threatening neighbors” doesn’t bar Israel from self-defense, why should it bar Iran?

  34. Are you not aware that about 200 rockets per day are coming from Gaza to Israel.

    Are you not ‘for’ Israel having the right to self defense.

    Are you for criminals having weapons and good citizens being disarmed?

    If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above – you may be a liberal… with no clarity whatsoever.

    The facts show that Israel has not proclaimed that any nation should be wiped off the face of the planet.

    The facts show that you Bogey are unaware of the basic facts about Israel. You show every day and with every post that you lack a basic understanding of almost every topic.

    I don’t think that Israel has the right to do anything it wants (as liberals think conservatives think – putting up their strawmen lie arguments). But in 99% of cases Israel is dealt a situation that is very very difficult and the Bogey’s of the world want to be ‘unclear’…

  37. Yet, since we can agree that “threatening neighbors” doesn’t bar Israel from self-defense, why should it bar Iran?

    Because Iran needs nukes for offensive uses, not for “self-defense” unless self-defense is only a euphemism for “killing enemies”. And if all else fails, Iran is a problem because the US considers them a problem and Iran considers the US to be the same.

    This should seem obvious to people that if Israelis don’t get international or American sanction for the intentional killing of civilians that Iran should not get intentional support for acquiring weapons designed to kill civilians intentionally. The deterrence value of nukes for Iran’s self-defense is not that it would affect US military operations all that much. They could wipe out a US base, but it would not cripple logistics or punitive expeditions. The self-defense component for Iran rests in the power of the nuke to obliterate civilians in the millions, something which will force the US to take a passive stance, ala Pakistan. Since the United States cares about other people’s civilians far more than the national government of Iran or the media propaganda organs of Europe and Arabia, this allows Iran to boost their “self-defense” capabilities. Not from nukes, oh no, but from conventional invasions, trade limitations, sieges, blockades, and various other inconveniences.

    The inability to see other people’s viewpoints is a notorious defect of Leftist and pacifist tendencies. It tends to produce quaint cycles of violence that never really end except with major bloodbaths.

  38. The facts show that you Bogey are unaware of the basic facts about Israel. You show every day and with every post that you lack a basic understanding of almost every topic.

    Bogey doesn’t have to make decisions with the lives of untold millions of civilians at stake. Nor does he have to deal with rocket attacks or bombs or being bombed.

    Why do you think he should know such “topics” and “facts”, Baklava? Why do you think he should even care?

  40. Propaganda is more nuanced, complex, and requiring of more brain power and empathy abilities than is present for most journalists or their subscribers.

    It is never as simple as matching numbers.

    It is also an interesting sign of the times. The purported argument here is that Haaretz is such an unimpeachable source of journalistic ethics and professional efficiency that if they report the same numbers as other news agencies, this would in turn confer upon those news agencies moral and professional support.

    This seems like an updated and adapted version of the old favoritism and cronyism that exists in tribal societies. Of course, professional ethics was supposed to jump across petty human vulnerabilities like the need to play favorites but no solution is ever immune to the basic problems of human actions. It would also help if newspapers and reporters actually upheld their particular brand of journalistic ethics, but I suppose that would be asking a little too much out of some people. Even if Greta Van Susteren can meet the standards, she is only one reporter.

    I say it is an interesting sign of the times because we have already seen (weak) attempts at criticizing Iraq by using Dick Cheney and General Petraeus’ comments, all of them out of context, in order to copper plate an argument completely contrary to their intentions or meaning.

    Propaganda is effective precisely because there is no one “box” you can place it in. A bomb strike is a bomb strike. A nuclear demonstration strike is a nuclear demonstration strike. You can argue about its efficiency, its target selection, or its strategic consequences but what you can’t ignore about is what it is. Propaganda, however, can disguise itself as many things. It can be disguised as reasoned discourse, as ethical challenges and disagreement, as the loyal opposition needing to obstruct things “for the good of the country”, or any number of other covers that provide legitimacy. And the fact that it sounds reasonable and credible is precisely why propaganda is used more often than all the examples of military attacks in human history. You can only make so many bombs, after all, before money runs out. And there are consequences to using those bombs. There are almost no consequences to propaganda and the money required to sustain propaganda operations is measured by the ink bucket not by the worth of gold bars.

    Still, the efforts to defend journalism from the evil arch conservatives would go much smoother if journalistic defenders had at least pretended some kind of shame and outrage at Dan Rather and the long line of abuses by New York Times editors and their fellows. But, I suppose that can be excused on the basis that words don’t kill people, while bombs do. People can be far more blase about how they use words than the military commanders charged with surgical strikes using bombs given their intense desire to avoid civilian casualties.

  41. Who could think the same would not happen in Iran? Where would those troops come from? A draft?

    It has been historically proven that if you don’t care what happens along a bordering nation, so long as that nation is destabilized and weakened, then enough funds funneled towards domestic rebels in that nation will provide all the troops you need.

    The Ayatollahs themselves came to power through violent purges and thus legitimatized that path to power. What has been stopping home grown problems has been partially due to the Iranian revolutionary guards and the effect Islam has had on the initiative and weapons training of individual Iranians. Take both of those obstacles out and the way to a new revolution would be open.

    As for domestic opposition… Most of the Left wouldn’t care how many people were killed in Iran, so long as it no longer bothers America or threatens America to get involved into another war. They demonstrated it in Vietnam. All of the isolationists definitely wouldn’t care. Many Republicans would care primarily for US national security over whatever happens to the Iranians themselves. Only a small subset of the American population would care what happened to the Iranians, and some of them only because of the long term detrimental outcome for Iraqi and American national security.

    Of course, given how the Left has gutted America’s non-military black ops capacity, Bush was only left with war as his option. It would have been nice had he been given other options, but there was too much domestic opposition to such things as assassination or fomenting of revolutionary cadres in foreign nations at the time.

    Of course, today it is no different. People continue to dislike imperialism and war and CIA shenanigans. This is kind of ironic given that if you strip all the tools from a President’s arsenal except the military and nuclear option, the nuclear/military option is the one that tends to get chosen if there is enough determination around to use it. Well, there is sitting around and doing nothing as an alternative but you can only do so much of that before weird things happen.

    We will succeed when we succeed, so shut up and get to cheerleading.

    As a parting shot, the accurate position of Bush and his supporters post 2003 can be summed up as “Lead, follow, or get out of the way”.

    Nothing was required from the opponents of the Iraq war other than to stop obstructing the war effort. People could speak their minds as much as they wanted, so long as it wasn’t to organized obstruction and sabotage of the war effort. But even that was too much to ask for the “loyal opposition” here in America. Such low standards for a mighty nation.

    The Leftist media did us no favors when they cheered the fall of Baghdad. They were not asked to but they did so anyway. After all, if the military was given a choice, and they were not, no reporters would have been allowed on the battlefield. It was only Donald Rumsfeld and others who were accustomed to the lightning strike of Desert Storm that gave the media an unprecedented level of access. Although it didn’t get Rumsfeld off the hook once the MSM smelled blood in the water. He needed better shark bait, like what Saddam was using. Certainly Saddam got better quality coverage and better loyalty out of his CNN propaganda employees than Rumsfeld did over America’s so called “free press”.

  42. The Jenin ‘massacre’ that was reported had “NEWS” agencies all over the world ‘reporting’ that over 500 Palestinians were killed…..

    …. guess what Hyman?

    That was nowhere near accurate.

    When the news media reports:
    1) That Republicans were cutting school lunches when the bill called for 4.5% increases.
    2) That Republicans were cutting Medicare by 270 Billion when they were increasing it by 7% per year.
    3) slandering our Marines in Haditha.

    … these are facts that support my opinion that journalism is dead.

  44. “As for bargaining chips with Iran, a rather obvious one is a parallel nuclear disarmament agreement and/or non-aggression pact with Israel”.

    Ok, Bogey, you made an honest attempt to answer my question. Good on ya, as the Aussies say. Now, as for your comment quoted above, let’s talk about that for a minute. First of all, even making the rather enormous assumption that you could even get Israeli and Iranian diplomats to meet, what makes you think that 1). Israel would agree to disarm. Iran is not the only threat it faces (see today’s news), and 2). the Iranians would honor it? Do you understand the concept of taqiyya? Let me explain it if you don’t. This idea, common to all branches of Islam, but especially favored by the perennially-underdog Shia (i.e., Iran), permits the practitioner to lie if that lie will lead to an advantage in the future. It can be personal, allowing a Shiite to hide his true beliefs when among Sunnis or others who might do him harm, or societal, enabling that society (i.e., Iran again) to put one over on the infidel in order to gain the upper hand. This by itself makes any agreement with the cleric-dominated Iranian regime essentially worthless.

    I do not believe that anyone at this site thinks Iran lacks a right to defend itself. I certainly don’t. But legitimate self-defense does not include sending the “Special Groups” into Iraq to blow up Sunni markets or U.S. forces, or providing EFP mines to its Jaysh al-Mahdi allies. Those are acts of war, and Iran has not as yet paid any price for committing them. Threatening to incinerate Israel, while not in the same league as actually killing our troops, hardly inspires faith in the purity of Iranian motives.

    When we attacked Iraq, we did not also attack Iran. Moreover, we backed Iraqi leaders who, for the most part, were Shia. Our support largely went to Shia Arabs who were not Iranian puppets, but who often had no particular quarrel with Iran. But Iran remains determined to meddle in Iraqi affairs, and is not content to simply have a “neutral” Iraq on its western border. And please don’t rehash the canard about Iran believing itself to be “surrounded” by the U.S. We have very few troops in western Afghanistan, and infrastructure hardly sufficient to maintain those we do have, much less launch an invasion. Iran, which is linguistically and culturally similar to western Afghanistan, knows this very well. Far from wanting nuclear weapons to defensively “secure its future”, my view is that Iran seeks them in order to blackmail its Arab neighbors, force them to reject U.S. aid, and make the Persian Gulf more “Persian” than it has been for centuries.

    Having said all that, I would add that none of this should preclude talking with the Iranians. But we should be under no illusions that their “national interests” do not parallel our own, rather, they are diametrically opposed, and that they would almost certainly attempt to cheat on any agreement that they did sign. No, I don’t trust them, and neither should any U.S. diplomat who meets them.

  45. “Far from wanting nuclear weapons to defensively “secure its future”, my view is that Iran seeks them in order to blackmail its Arab neighbors, force them to reject U.S. aid, and make the Persian Gulf more “Persian” than it has been for centuries.”

    The Iranian leadership has indicated no desire to rebuild the Persian empire, though I would assume there a some elements of the country’s elite that envision that, just as there are in every country on the planet.

    As you suggest, the Iranian leadership is more interested in spreading Islam and theocracy, which, in fact, overthrew the Persian monarch.

    They have made some headway of late in Iraq, thanks to the U.S. invasion and the mullahs have also been able to consolidate their position within Iran thanks to Bush’s folly. But these gains are temporary.

    Ultimately, the Iranian people will reject theocracy simply because it sucks. It will probably take many years and there may even be blood spilled, but the model is doomed by its own contradictions, not by any puffed up, now ludicrous, threats of U.S. invasion. Such a move would only extend the mullahs’ reign, as they would surely capitalize on the ensuing depredation and chaos.

    On the question of whether Iran’s leaders could be trusted to adhere to negotiated agreements, we can never completely trust anyone, and certainly not ourselves. The U.S. government has a long history of breaking treaties and agreements and, in Iran’s case of violent overthrow and, then, leaving allies in the lurch.

    There needn’t be any trust in negotiations. The assumption on all sides must be that each will proceed only on the basis of self-interest and if those interests change, so might the willingness to adhere to the agreement.

    That’s a weakness of all diplomacy. But it’s also reality. If you can fully trust the guy across the table, you wouldn’t find yourself in need of diplomatic negotiations in the first place. You’d have already understood each others’ interests and found an accommodation.

    More important, uncertainty features largely in the alternative to diplomacy as well. If we invade Iran, how do we know we’ll destroy the WMD capability? Perhaps the result will be that the WMD infrastructure will actually be delivered into the hands of terrorists, rather than blown to bits in a “surgical” strike. Maybe it will unfold much as Iraq has. After all, the latest intelligence on Iran is that they in fact are NOT pursuing a nuclear weapon. Or maybe a bombing and invasion of Iran would actually go worse than the invasion of Iraq has. That is actually possible, though admittedly the failure would have to be totally devastating to make that grade.

    Indeed there is no sure thing with diplomacy, but it’s a lot more certain than the alternative.

  46. The Iranian leadership has indicated no desire to rebuild the Persian empire

    Given that the Persian Empire was Sassanid and Zoroastrian, not Islamic, that would seem to be obvious. But not to Bogey.

    They have made some headway of late in Iraq, thanks to the U.S. invasion and the mullahs have also been able to consolidate their position within Iran thanks to Bush’s folly. But these gains are temporary.

    I’m sure they will send some thank you cards to you soon enough for that little bit of temporary alliance aid.

    Ultimately, the Iranian people will reject theocracy simply because it sucks.

    It is always nice to see some soup sucker in the Western world talking about starving North Korean peasants rejecting theocracy and autocracy simply because starving “sucks”.

    You have no idea of the realities of power, Bogey. You don’t know how to get it, how to use it, how to maintain it, nor how to fake it.

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