What is wrong with some of these Dems?

What is mainly wrong with them is just what Rieff suggests. Where foreign policy is concerned, the Democratic Party as a whole is just not that different at the elite level from the Republican Party. Some Democratic poobahs and office-seekers have fastened tenuously onto the Iraq issue because they know the war has gone badly, and that most of their constituents are sick of it. But that is just an opportunistic tactic of the moment. Nothing really significant about US foreign policy is going to change with the Democrats in charge, other than some of the diplomatic atmospherics. Democrats like to put a bit more emphasis on the attractive power of being liked. Republicans are a bit more enamored of the coercive power of being feared. But ultimately both parties are committed to the very same geostrategic ends.

Another thing that is wrong with them is that the only thing most office-holders and top operatives really know how to do is run for office. Where the world outside America is concerned, they have no ideas, no guts and no clue. They are good at reading polls, and identifying the sources of campaign contributions, but that's it. In the case of Iran, they have calculated that supporting a tough policy on Iran is lower-cost than rejecting it. The handful of people who really matter in the party support tough anti-Iran posture. If candidates oppose that posture, they will hurt themselves with the power-brokers. They will take a lot of flack from their constituents, but in the end those constituents will vote for them anyway because they have nowhere else to go. And if Bush goes to war with Iran and it goes poorly, he will get the lion's share of the blame anyway - not the Democrats who supported him. After all, have any Democrats yet paid a real political price - other than having to endure a certain amount of grief from people like me - for their support of the Iraq war?

We need a 12 step program for Progressives to cure them of their addiction to voting for a party that doesn't represent them.

Here's a start. If the party is voting to fund the war, the party is voting to fund the war. Got that? If your brain is still programmed to believe that a candidate who votes to fund the war is against the war, then sign up for another support meeting. You still need deprogramming.

With all due respect, I found the article shallow. If one wants America to forego war, then say so. If we want to forego war on selected countries, then name the countries and the reasons war should never be an option.

I don't mind taking war off the table for, say, Britain. But what compelling reason do we have for taking it off the table for Iran?

David Rieff (born September 28, 1952, in Boston) is a nonfiction writer and policy analyst. His books have focused on issues of immigration, international conflict, and humanitarianism. He has published numerous articles in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, El Pais, The New Republic, Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, The Nation, and other publications.

Rieff is the only child of Susan Sontag. His father, whom Sontag married in her teens and divorced in her 20s, is Philip Rieff, author of Freud: The Mind of A Moralist.

Rieff graduated from Princeton University in 1978, and was a Senior Editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux from 1978 to 1989, working with such authors as Joseph Brodsky, Elias Canetti, Carlos Fuentes, Alberto Moravia, Les Murray, Philip Roth, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Marguerite Yourcenar.

He is a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute at the New School for Social Research, a Fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a board member of the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch and a board member of the Central Eurasia Project of the Open Society Institute.

Rieff has expressed strong disapproval of the American policies and actions that both informed and followed the invasion of Iraq [1].

[edit] Books

* Texas Boots (with Sharon Delano) (Studio/Penguin, 1981)
* Going to Miami: Tourists, Exiles and Refugees in the New America (Little, Brown, 1987)
* The Exile: Cuba in the Heart of Miami (Simon & Schuster, 1993)
* Los Angeles: Capital of the Third World (Simon & Schuster, 1991)
* Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West (Simon & Schuster, 1995)
* Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know (Co-editor, with Roy Gutman) (W. W. Norton, 1999)
* A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis (Simon & Schuster, 2003)
* At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention (Simon & Schuster, 2005)

[edit] Commentary

* Carnegie Council's resources by David Rieff
* PBS Frontline interview with Rieff (online only) (March 25, 2003)
* Curtis Bowman commentary on Rieff opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal (April 7, 2005)
* Foreign Affairs review of At the Point of a Gun (March/April 2005)
* Archive of writings by David Rieff for The Nation.

Let's hope the second part of the following proves to be untrue - "Dumb Republican leadership leads us into Iraq war of choice with many Democrats going along in 2002-2003. Dumb Democratic leadership leads us into Iran war of choice with many Republicans going along in 2009".

I don't know how long we can survive with this level of stupidity in power.

Tom

According to my observations, this business about what is on our table is never offered as a response to a question; rather it is offered as any bully would dare someone to knock a chip off of his shoulder. Declaring (or needing to declare)that war is "on the table" is the problem in the first place.

In fact, as everyone on this planet knows, war is a menu item for anyone who attacks us. EVERYONE knows that.

By bringing up the "table" every time a country disagrees with us, it is just demonstrates the weakness of our leadership. Does a policeman have to remind people lined up in a bank that he has a gun and isn't afraid to use it to keep a potential bank robber in line?

The only reason it is off (the table) for Britain or Canada is because we can safely assume they are not currently antagonistic to us. By trotting out this childish and obvious threat it makes us look weak rather than strong.

Jan Knaus

Rieff might as well have been talking about the split between America Abroad posters and TPMCafe commenters.

Eliot Engel and Gary Ackerman doing Aipac's bidding? Is it possible? Rahm Emanuel actually led the effort and he served in the Israeli army but Engel and Ackerman are loyal foot soldiers.

what compelling reason do we have for taking war off the table for Iran?

Well, everyone credible says attacking Iran is a terrible idea with no chance of success. I think that's compelling.

The "on the table"/"off the table" talk is just sound bite stuff. I think we all know that the United States does not maintain a global military presence for no reason, and that the threat of military action against uncooperative states is always in some sense "on the table." That discussion is at the superficial level of tactics, but skirts debate of the underlying strategy, and of any issues that fly beneath the crude cable news radar systems.

The United States could have detente with Iran whenever it wants. It could have a resolution of the nuclear issue on terms providing perfectly adequate assurances of Iranian behavior. It could have a Middle East political arrangement based on a balance of power among independent states, and evenhanded US relations with all those states. It could have a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict along lines established by UN 242.

But there are two many powerful foreign and domestic interests who do not want these outcomes, interests that have a great deal of leverage over the US government and are able to guide its foreign policies.

This has nothing to do with "containing" the dastardly and ridiculously over-hyped Iranian Satantic Mullahcracy.

It's about the future of Iraq's oil reserves, the future of Iran's oil reserves and the future of OPEC.

It's about destroying Hizbollah, destroying Hamas, and clearing the way for permanent Israeli hegemony over all of Palestine.

It's about preserving local Saudi dominance of the oil-producing regions, and the highly profitable security-for-oil racket that has bound the US to the Saudi Kingdom for decades - a racket in which the Bush family has played a key part.

It's about achieving the dominance of US interests on both sides of the Shatt-al-Arab and the Persian Gulf.

It's about punishing any states that seek to practice a form of national independence and self-determination based on the pursuit of national interest, and rewarding only those who incorporate themselves into the tri-partite US imperial system of finance, commerce and military control.

It is about punishing defiance of any kind, refusing to negotiate with "lesser" powers on an equal footing, and enforcing a posture of abject submission in the Middle East and around the globe.

It is about destroying the only regime in the region with substantial democratic institutions, and crushing any form of Islamic democracy that might serve as a model for its neighbors.

It is about eliminating a regime that makes some major business deals with China and Russia, and replacing it with another subsidiary of USA Inc.

It is probably also to some degree about Saudi oil blackmail, administered directly to VP Cheney when he visited that country last year. It was after that visit, and a subsequent and more public Saudi threats to flood Iraq with disgruntled Saudi jihadists conveyed in newspaper editorials, that the propaganda campaign against Iran was kicked into high gear, including the melodramas about the Great Shia Conversion Threat and the Great Iraq Meddling Threat.

Their lips were moving.

Bottom line: Americans love war! We think it's like football. Americans took the old football cliche (Winning isn't everything--it's the ONLY thing)to heart. That's why we want "macho" presidents who strut around and act tough.
What a bunch of doofusses!

Because resort to military force in cases other than self-defense constitutes a war crime for which people have been hanged in the past. How's that a reason to declare war off the table?

But not only have we threatened Iran with war repeatedly, we've explicitly threatened to nuke them - in violation of all sorts of international laws. How would you like it if the Iranians declared nuking the US to be "on the table"? Wouldn't we call that "terrorism"?

“During an impromptu April 18 press conference,President George W. Bush was asked if his assertion that “all options are on the table” regarding Iran included the possibility of a nuclear strike. Bush reiterated, “All options are on the table. We want to solve this issue diplomatically, and we’re working hard to do so.” In no uncertain words, the president of the United States directly threatened Iran with a preemptive nuclear strike. It is hard to read his reply in any other way.”

And you wonder why the rest of the world considers the US and Israel to the greatest threat to peace?

Most of those who are now holding the door open to attack Iran were also in favor of attacking Iraq. This group includes most Republicans and HRC.

Who now speaks carefully at selected forums of leaving open the door to attack Iran after having had the smarts to oppose the Iraq adventure from the beginning? Only a presidential candidate trying to cover his right flank domestically, pandering to AIPAC, or both.

Rieff specifically mentions the Iranian nuclear program, not invading Iranian hordes in Minnesota. Is nuclear containment dead as an American policy?

What "America" and "American interests" are you referring to? (Perhaps you meant to type 'Israel' and 'Israeli interests' and something happened?)

Imaginary foes created by paranoid ideation don't qualify.

Americans have liked the Republican kind of war: against trivial opponents for trivial colonial stakes, using a colonial era mercenary army. Real wars, where everyone loses family members and your country gets invaded, your female relatives get raped, where children get shot and their bodies lie on the street, where cities are destroyed and civilians massacred...probably not so much.

Geez.

* Well, it would have been dead when Bush cut the funding for the Russian 'loose nukes' program.

* It certainly wasn't alive when Bush signed a nuclear deal with India to share technology it could use to upgrade its nuclear fleet, in violation fo the terms of the Non-Proliferation treaty.

* And it would have probably been dead when the CIA as part of an elaborate scam handed key nuclear weapons information over to Iran.

* It would have been dead when the Bush administration posted IRAQ'S WMD AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS FILES on the internet, resulting in every Arabic or Islamic country on the world suddenly announcing a nuclear program.

* Nuclear containment probably died as a policy when Bush mucked up Korea.

* I think Bush rammed a steel girder through the chest of nuclear containment when A.Q. Khan and Pakistan got caught red handed, Khan got a pardon for being a national hero, and Bush went 'fine with me.'

So yeah, I think the policy is dead.

Next question.

Does this only apply to Bush? Or, as Rieff suggests, to every Democratic candidate?

Well, for the record, Iraq was a war crime, not a preventative war.

Afghanistan... you do recall a little thing called 9/11. Al Quaeda's high command being quartered in Afghanistan? Situation of Attack on America there.

Korea was a situation where the U.S. announced that it would not defend South Korea. The North and South got into it. The South was losing. America changed its mind. The United Nations authorized intervention.

Vietnam was an escalation based on a fabrication - the Gulf of Tonkin incident. A fraud was perpetrated, to claim that American forces had been attacked. The whole thing didn't turn out so well. So yeah, that was a situation of an alleged Attack on America.

What if the Islamic extremists, let's say led by Osama, in Pakistan take over the Paki nuclear facilities?

And... this justifies attacking Iran how? Conceivably, it might justify an attack on Pakistan. But such an attack might do more harm than good. For instance, triggering a Pakistani nuclear weapon in Pakistan, or causing a radioactive dispersal that kills thousands. Such an attack, uninvited might well invoke a defensive response from Pakistan that would involve major fire or potential use of nuclear weapons against Americans. Such an attack might not be viable at all. Osama and pals might be long gone by the time we got around to organizing a response.

SeeDee

In the final analysis, stlounick, WHAT was the Iraq war supposed to prevent?

And, speaking of bin Laden, if Bush and mis-guided neo-cons had concentrated on elimination of Osama and Zawahiri instead of the grab for the oil resources of Iraq, we probably would not have the worry of 'what if' relevant to Pakistan's nukes.

And, certainly, it is far-fetched to believe that Shi'a dominated Iran is going to surrender authority of ITS nukes to Sunni bin Laden.

Are you are refering to the candidate who met with Bibi Nitanyahu at Dulles airport then later used Bibi's talking points about Iran sanctions at his AIPAC reception?

Well, the damned question is always hypothetical when "all options are on the table" is the answer, now isn't it? Something that Rieff does not allow for.

And Bush is not the one leading the negotiations with Iran. Europe took the lead. And I also understand the outright threat is years away. That, again, is not the issue. Rieff says our Democratic candidates want to redeploy troops from Iraq to Iran. I don't buy it.

Maybe needed. But then again, what are we talking about here. I know of no case where the United States used military force or justified the use of military force to prevent a country from developing its nuclear program.

I know that India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, South Africa, Argentina and Brazil acquired or pursued nuclear weapons in violation of non-proliferation. In none of these cases did the United States use force to prevent same. Only in the case of North Korea during the Clinton administration was force contemplated. That was clearly a non-starter.

So the notion that we should be prepared to go to war and potentially use nuclear weapons to prevent a country from someday hypothetically being able to develop nuclear weapons strikes me as somewhat over the top.

But to tell you the truth, a Democratic policy with a Bush implementation is a nightmare.

We're going to spend the next couple of decades trying to fix the disasters Bush has created on every front.

Supporting Captain Psycho-Bananas quest for peace through world domination is a non-starter.

As a first principle of nuclear non-proliferation, I'd say "Stop threatening to use nuclear weapons against non-nuke states."

As a second principle, use diplomacy and economics, not war.

Shorter version: Rieff was one of the major liberal journalists in Sarajevo in the early '90s, and has for 15 years been one of the more significant figures in the development of the "liberal internationalist" debate over the use of US force for humanitarian purposes abroad. His voice on these issues is as significant as those of people like David Ignatieff, George Packer, etc.

"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone

The notion of redeploying troops from Iraq to Iran is simply lunatic. It is lunatic in so many ways that I don't know where to start.

A military option can be a bombing raid (non-nuclear unless you are the current Prez, apparently).

We certainly did those pre-Bush...no fly zones in the pre-war Iraq come to mind.

I'm not operating from a war or nothing perspective. When someone says "all options are on the table" that, to me, means that bombing raids are on the table. If someone says "all options are off the table" that, to me, means that bombing raids are off the table. At least, that's what it has meant pre-Bush.

The same.

The missile crisis wasn't about Cuban proliferation; it was about the USSR stationing missiles there. But it's a fair enough point; it's pretty indistinguishable from threatening war over proliferation.

But the list of the rest of your examples kind of answers itself. We bombed Al-Qaeda sites in retaliation for actual attacks. We hit a Chinese building as a literal accident; we thought it was a Serbian government building, and we were engaged in an air war against Serbia along with every other country in NATO in retaliation for ongoing Serbian ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. We were enforcing "no-fly" zones in Iraq in accordance with a very clear and undisputed UN mandate. These are all either retaliation for acts of war by the other side, or international efforts carried out with the explicit aid or assent of the regional (Europe) or world (UN) community. Saying we arrogate the right to attack you on our own if you try to develop nukes has never been "on the table" before.

"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone

My understanding is that he now opposes intervention for humanitarian reasons.

On March 25, 2007 - 11:36pm Hmmm said:

Bottom line: Americans love war! We think it's like football. Americans took the old football cliche (Winning isn't everything--it's the ONLY thing)to heart.

I agree but with one qualifier; "Americans who never fought in a war love war."

The phrase "war is on the table" should not even exist because its saying we have no real reason for war, at least not in an historic sense.

There was no "war is on the table" after Pearl Harbor, or 9/11 when be went into Afghanistan.

Saying "War is on the table" suggests another pre emptive attack on someone who may not have attacked us, but simply because they won't bend to our will.

Haven't we had enough of that shi*?

By the way, five more troops died in Iraq yesterday.

It is impossible to know what the major Democratic candidates think about all this, since they are very cautious in addressing US Middle East strategy beyond the most superficial levels. Whatever they really think, it is clear that they have made a political calculation not to rock the boat too much.

I don't mean to suggest that Iran has not itself played a major role in bringing us to this point. Their current president is a fool: a loose-tounged populist bumpkin who has grossly miscalculated Iran's position in the world. Actions like his moronic little holocaust revisionism conference, to which were invited intellectual luminaries such as David Duke, effectively placed gags in the mouths of critics of US policy around the globe, and eased the way for full-out exercise in US imperial domination and Security Council strong-arming.

Much of the rest of Iran's political establishment appears to recognize this problem, but curiously enough Iran actually has a form of constitutional republicanism with a complex system of internal checks and balances and some democratic institutions, so their president cannot simply be deposed. In this way, Iran's predicament is similar to the US predicament.

I don't see the Cuban Missile Crisis as a proliferation issue, or even close to a proliferation issue.

It was one of a series of cold war flash point incidents, along with the Berlin Blockade.

The notion that Cuba would have nuclear missiles strikes me as a misconstruction. By the same argument, Turkey possessed nuclear weapons when the United States installed them in that country as part of its deployment of forces. Japan and Australia have nuclear weapons when American nuclear ships visit their ports.

The United States has a history of warfare and military intervention over the last century that is justified on various grounds at various times. Sometimes, as with Grenada and Panama, the exercise seems to be little more than public relations exercises used to improve standings at home.

I think we can all agree that militarily attacking other countries for domestic political advantage is wrong.

As far as coherent policy goes, I think the only coherence is that when the option is available for use of force without significant consequence, it comes to be used arbitrarily and recklessly.

I think that the 'all options are on the table' rhetoric, which clearly includes military action and war, and by implication includes deployment of nuclear weapons, is little more than a sign of political and moral weakness.

Democratic candidates wish to inoculate themselves against the charge of being 'soft on terrorism' or 'soft on Iran' or the suggestion that the two are one and the same. It also allows them to evade the charge that they're undermining American foreign policy.

So, in order not to undermine American foreign policy, they refuse to express principles. In order to avoid being accused of softness and weakness, they get on their knees and throw away their moral center.

To demonstrate their wisdom and convictions, to be taken seriously, they posture for short term political gain, ignoring the potential consequences of their words.

And so we link arm in arm, marching into the abyss.

This is the Children's crusade.

I disagree with you analysis, Hass.  Yes, it is important to identify/correct how AIPAC/Israelis are corrupting our Congress and getting in the way of what the American public wants in ME foreign policy.  But AIPAC is only the thin edge of the wedge.  Our gov't hasn't been responsive to what the American public wants for quite a long time and on quite a number of issues, both domestic and foreign.

I think it's important to try to get the pro-Israel lobby out of its overly influential position in American politics, but the reason for undertaking to do this is because this is part of taking back our government generally.

Reiff argues that the top three Democratic candidates want exactly the same thing as Bush. Since these three want troops redeployed from Iraq, the argument is that these troops will be redeployed to the real target....Iran.

I say that "all options are ON the table" and none have been removed. I merely pointed out that a bombing raid is an option, just as the use of ground troops, or the use of covert operatives are options. So are diplomacy, economic sanctions, blockades and a whole slew of other items.

I am not advocating any sort of military or "warlike" response to Iran. I simply believe that Reiff has failed to prove his point and his logic is weak.

Address that.

No democratic candidate has advocated war with Iran. There is no evidence that the rhetoric "no options off the table" means that war is inevitable or even contemplated.

Rieff is mind-reading.

I don't think Sloutnik is stating that the position is "war or nothing", Rieff is. Not one candidate has promoted the agenda of moving or freeing troops in Iraq for war with Iran and yet Rieff states as if it is a given.

Iraq was a preventative war

What exactly did it PREVENT? I mean, in comparison to the havoc it has actually caused? Do you honestly think Saddam was going to attack us? Did you ever listen to the weapons inspectors who said that all the stuff that he had was so old and degraded it would barely be an effective rat poison?

The only thing this war prevented was the hierarchy of Halliburton and Blackwater from ever having to do an honest day's work. Oh, and also it prevented us from spending the billions blown away and stolen on our own infrastructure and national defense.

I could go on, but you get my drift.

Jan Knaus

Wasn't it "sold" here in America at least partially as a preventative war? What exactly is your argument with how it was sold here?

Could it be sold again? That is what Reiff is suggesting in this article. In fact, he downright says our top three Democratic candidates are sold on using ground troops in Iran.

Are you supporting Reiff's position or not? I don't support it and find it very shallow. Do you?

Interesting and fresh, perhaps. I would also submit completely illogical.

Now, John, you would have to admit that some WWII vets who actually saw combat can be the most pro-war Americans. Or, maybe you haven't been in too many VFW halls in America. Believe me, not all who have been up close and personal with war become haters of it. Sad, but true.

On March 25, 2007 - 7:23pm DanielGree said:

Despite the pacificism of many at TPMCafe...

I don't wish to be seen as a nitpicker, but it isn't pacifism; its not wanting to get involved in bullshit wars like, Vietnam, Granada, Panama, Desert Storm, Iraq, and now quite possibly Iran.

Bush's previous pronouncements clearly implied that when he said 'all options are on the table' or similar language, then first strike use of nuclear weapons was contemplated, as well as a succession of less genocidal military options, all the way down to missile strikes or bombings.

Bush has therefore set the table. Democrats were obliged to either repudiate that table setting or accept it.

Their comments cannot be looked at in isolation from the debate or from what has gone before.

So.... your argument is that they meant something completely different when they said the same thing as Bush?

To be completelyl fair, I think this latest display of political cowardice is understandable as a 'latest display of politlical cowardice.'

Iraq is a major failure, its a continuing liability for Bush. So of course, its now fair game to attack it.

On the other hand, the Bush narrative of Iran as a potential threat is still live. So they continue to play to that narrative.

Its safe to attack Bush on Iraq and to differ from him on Iraq.

On Iran, there is still risk of being attacked. It is not an obvious wall to wall disaster. Ergo... Keep tongue to rump.

What we aren't seeing with respect to Democratic politicans quoted and Iran is anything like either political courage or deep thinking.

See my reply below in this thread with quotes from Clinton and Obama.

No, my own personal opinion is that they don't want to be locked into ANY position on Iran at this point because none of them can predict the future. It just isn't realistic or practical to state a position on a situation that is changing day by day and not allow room for them to maneuver two years from now. The press would crucify them if the situation changed either way in the next six years.

Do I think force should be removed from the table? Yes, the only way people can negotiate fairly and both believe that the other person is sincere is to take the threat of force off the table. Why would Iran believe that we are sincere in negotiating a settlement when they think that we can force them to do what we want anyway? There is simply no good faith in that kind of deal negotiation.

Right, and we know that Kennedy first ignored the ratcheted up, hyperbolic rhetoric of Khrushchev in his first few replies, answered the more conciliatory reply from Khrushchev and then had the sense to compromise on Turkey.

Disregarding Reiff's article for the moment, your position is simply one I will never support. I supported our war with Afghanistan completely and I have seen ZERO reason to change my mind about that decision.

If you need to add qualifiers to your statements, please do so.

I don't see a lot of backbone among the Dems either. They seem just as beholden to the pro-Israeli agents.

Again, if you have a reason to go to war, you go to war, you don't 'put the option on the table'. Putting the option on the table means you have no good reason for war.

Edwards apparently doesn't earn a retort from you so this alone disproves Reiff's position that all three share a gusto for using troops against Iran.

All it proves is that I didn't have time to pull up Edwards's positions on Iran during my lunch break. Edwards, we all recall, gave an extremely hawkish speech on Iran at the Herzliya conference, but has toned it down since then.

I wouldn't call Rieff's essay a tirade at all.

Well, would you call it bull-shit?  From below:

How does this:

Earlier this year, Vice President Cheney insisted that the administration had not “taken any options off the table” as Iran continued to defy United Nations calls for it to abandon its nuclear ambitions. The response from Democrats was not long in coming. Senator Clinton helped lead the charge, reminding the president that he did not have the authority to go to war with Iran on the basis of the Senate’s authorization of the use of force in Iraq in 2002.

Square with this:

Members of the Bush administration can surely be excused for wondering why, when he uses such language, Cheney is accused of saber-rattling, whereas when the leading Democratic presidential candidates use the same language, there are virtually no complaints within the Beltway or on the major editorial pages...

Jan Knaus

Jan.

Shmuel Rosner made some very similiar points to Reiff's last month in Slate in an article titled "The Tehran Option:Democrats criticize Bush's Iran policy, but theirs is almost identical":

"Can you do that without going to war? Maybe you can, but only if the Iranians eventually cave to international pressure. All these warnings about the possibility of President Bush dragging America into war with Iran run contrary to the repeatedly stated position that "no option [is] off the table." Keeping "all options" available is intended as a threat: If you do not comply with U.N. resolutions, if you're not impressed with sanctions, we might have to use other tools. This is a threat the Democrats are making, not Bush.

They might not want voters to know this—or perhaps they will never actually reach the point of execution; maybe they'll back out at the last minute. Still, the fact of the matter is that the Democrats' desired outcome of the conflict with Iran is no different from the one Bush reiterates day in and day out, and the tools they have on their menu of options is not much different, either.

Will Democrats be willing to use these tools? Do they believe that a nuclear Iran is as grave a danger as Bush does? The answer to this question was given by the most unlikely of Democratic candidates. It was a long time ago, before he was contemplating a run for the presidency and before he became the darling of the Democratic left. 'In light of the fact that we're now in Iraq, with all the problems in terms of perceptions about America that have been created, us launching some missile strikes into Iran is not the optimal position for us to be in,' Barack Obama told the Chicago Tribune back in 2004. 'On the other hand,' he added, 'having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons is worse. So I guess my instinct would be to err on not having those weapons in the possession of the ruling clerics of Iran'

That wasn't Dick Cheney speaking."
http://www.slate.com/id/2160745/pagenum/all/%23page_start

I dunno about that. I supported the war in Afghanistan, with some serious misgivings.

Since then, subsequent events have brought almost all those misgivings to fruition.

We are now five years into a problem for which increasingly, there are no good solutions, or perhaps no solutions at all.

More of the "dems are just like the repubs" bullshit.

Many of the leaders -- warlords if you prefer -- in Afghanistan and the autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, FATA largely defining the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, expect "incentives". I'm not sure of the most culturally appropriate term; "bribery" really has a Western connotation that does not fit. Nevertheless, it can be a wise expenditure with the traditional chiefs of Afghanistan and Waziristan (see below), in fighting what may be the jihadist stronghold.

It is interesting to note how Pakistan settled the fighting in North and South Waziristan, adding, to the fiercely independent Waziri tribes a Islamic Emirate of Waziristan. The Emirate may either be Wazari sympathizers of the Taliban, or a euphemism for the Taliban itself. It is possible that this accord also establishes a framework for NATO hot pursuit from Afghanistan, yet leaving wiggle room for Musharraf and Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), which Musharraf may not completely control.

In any event, I see this as a much more important theater of operations than Iraq, certainly in dealing with al-Qaeda and perhaps 5 other jihadist groups that act internationally. At least one group has raided not just into Kashmir, but into India proper, so India may look favorably on this development. Can the US focus on it, without tangents about Iran?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

On March 26, 2007 - 12:19pm stlounick said:

Now, John, you would have to admit that some WWII vets who actually saw combat can be the most pro-war Americans.

I'm a WWll vet, 82nd Airborne; Normandy, Holland, the Bulge, and crossed the Rhine at Cologne. I was there at the end when our Commanding General, Slim Jim Gavin, took the surrender of the German 21st Army at Bleckede.

I'm a member of a group of WWll vets who meet once a month for lunch and bullshitting sessions. We started out at 11 and we're now reduced to four (we're dying at the rate of 1100 per
day); 2 Army, a Marine, and a Sailor.

I'm sure you can find WWll combat vets who are pro war, (or perhaps more pro Bush than pro war) but I know of none, at least not the kind of wars we've been fighting since V-E and V-J Days.

You are right. Why shouldn't Iran want to have a "mutually assured destruction" system in place? It worked for the US and the Soviet Union. Who are we anyway to decide that Israel and Pakistan (and we, for that matter) can have nukes, but Iran can't. Bush has ruined out stature in the world, and one consequence is that we have no business telling other countries that we are the last arbitors of what is the right thing to do.

Jan Knaus

From the estimates I have read, Iran is about a decade away from nuclear weapons capability and that's assuming they are working hard right now. The efforts of the United States at forcing countries to not develop nuclear capability and nuclear weapons has been certainly spotty.

Libya comes to mind. Didn't they rat out the Pakistani who was selling nuclear technology on the black market? Libya turning over materials and foreswearing nuclear weapons development is a success.

Is the successs 100%? No. India, Pakistan, China, North Korea, and even Israel are not success stories.

Europe is certainly treating Iran's aspirations as quite serious, so this certainly isn't a "solo American" policy. We are certainly not facing any immediate decision about Iran. The sanctions are just beginning.

On March 26, 2007 - 6:55pm hcberkowitz said:

Many of the leaders -- warlords if you prefer -- in Afghanistan and the autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, FATA largely defining the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, expect "incentives". I'm not sure of the most culturally appropriate term; "bribery" really has a Western connotation that does not fit. Nevertheless, it can be a wise expenditure with the traditional chiefs of Afghanistan and Waziristan (see below), in fighting what may be the jihadist stronghold.

Howard, agreed, it would be a wise expenditure as I think that's the way business is done there. I think its the tactic we should have kept using to get Osama rather than go to war with the Taliban. But Howard, do you think this is workable long term, 10, 20, years in that region?

I have a hard time taking Libya seriously as an attempted nuclear power.

The country has only three million people, not the trace of an industrial infrastructure. They were notorious for buying high tech toys like fighter jets and then beaching them for lack of pilots to fly them or mechanics to keep them in repair.

This was a country that couldn't even keep its elevators in repair. They imported their skilled technicians from Italy.

Libya simply lacked the technical or industrial base to have any serious nuclear program, or any substantial chemical or biological wmd program.

At the end, what they had was a checkbook, and a leader with a grand sense of theatre. Bush fell for his act hook, line and sinker.

CVille Dem,

I agree that any suggestion that there is little difference between the positions of the leading Dems on Iran and the position of Cheney would be very mistaken. Edwards and Obama have taken positions that are clearly more potentially conciliatory, and have placed much more emphasis on the prospects for direct talks leading to a resolution (although Edwards got off to a bad start with his Herzliya sppech.) And even Clinton, who has staked out a significantly more hawkish position in both her New York Times interview and the Aipac speech, has asserted that Bush lacks the authorization to initiate hostilities against Iran, and must go to Congress to get it. This is clearly very different from Cheney's position.

But you are taking Rieff's comment out of context. When Rieff refers to the "exact same language", he is refering specifically to Cheney's remark that the administration had "not taken any actions off the table". This comment itself, as Rieff notes, sparked a firestorm of protest from the Democratic side. Yet, as Rieff directly cites in his article, all three Democratic candidates have used the "no options off the table language" in describing their own positions.

I think this partisan circle-the-wagons defense of the Democratic candidates against Rieff, and attempts to parse their words to show precisely where Rieff has gotten it right and where he has gotten it wrong, is a way of avoiding Rieff's overarching point. That point comes in his concluding paragraph, where he first speaks of the support by Democratic leaders, and their professional policy mavens, for "continued American hegemony", and then says:

"More broadly, however, the issue that is dividing the Democrats is that their leaders believe a muscular foreign policy is what the age of terrorism demands, while antiwar voters believe such a policy may only breed more disasters. The question is whether the party can seriously hope to regain the White House when it is so seriously divided against itself on what is, in the minds of many Americans, the central issue of our time."

Surely there is a lot of truth in this, no? Democrats are divided on the issue of a "muscular" foreign policy - and related issues.

The current generation of Americans has inherited an empire from the last generation. That empire was mainly laid out during the Second World War, and then solidified, expanded and bolted into place during the Cold War to counter what was perceived as a dangerous and expansionist Soviet challenge. The Soviet Union then disappeared, and we were left with this empire hanging out there, 1000 bases garrisoning the world, born of a hot war and a cold war, and designed mainly to defend the US and its allies and interests against an enemy that no longer exists. This turn of events seems to have produced contrary expectations among the public.

One group is broadly of the opinion that the Cold War is over, we won, and it is time to dismantle much of the military machine that was built to fight it. They want to pursue this course of action to cut our defense costs significantly, to prevent the strains and pains of overstretch, and to try to avoid much of the blowback that the machine generates - including 9/11. Some also want to scale back the nationalist approach based on single power primacy in order to revive the spirit of a truly internationalist approach based on global cooperation and strong institutions of global governance.

The other group seems to be of the opinion that we are now blessed with a wonderful global military empire that we should cherish and use. They are delighted that we have so much power - power which makes them feel so special and important and exceptional! And, of course, with great power comes great responsibility. So we must therefore look around for some awesome new jobs we can tackle with our glorious empire, and seek to maintain and even expand that empire. (They are sometimes squeamish about the scary word "empire", though, and prefer words like "hegemony", "primacy", "predominance" and the like.)

Now, I'm not expecting miracles. I don't expect some viable presidential candidate to stand up and say, "if elected, I am going to dismantle the American empire". That would strike fear through the hearts of most of the imperial elite, and its subserving industries and attendants, and probably doom the candidacy. And until we can get ourselves off the oil habit, we are all (the US and other nations) stuck with the necessity of maintaining some capacity to secure global oil supplies against catastrophic disruptions. But I do wish to hear about some indications of steps in the right direction - some talk perhaps of "consolidation" or "reinforcing the homefront" or "shrinking our footprint" or "reevaluating our commitments" or some such theme suggesting drawing back at least a bit from our global omnipresence. And I want to hear something that suggests a long-term vision, at least, of a cooperative, well-governed and more democratic global future - without empires, hegemons and their ilk.

So far what we have is a very reactive and single issue foreign policy from Democrats. That's what we have had for six years. First some were for the war. But then the war went bad and their constituents turned against it, so now they are against the war. Now they are for dealing toughly with Iran. But if Bush does something in Iran and it goes badly, they will be opposed to that policy then. Our party's politicians seem to bounce from issue to issue without articulating a clear vision along the way, and offering only subtle tactical objections and after-the-fact tactical second-guessing.

I'm afraid that so far we have just three variants on the Holbrook, Albright, Daalder empire maintenance policy favored by the Washington establishment and the various thinkeries and corporate giants that are subsidiaries of, and stake-holders in, the empire. I think this is the policy we get by default, because when candidates go shopping at the think tanks for a foreign policy outlook, this is what they are sold. Now, it is not insignificant that at least two of the Democrats will be inclined to rely more on soft power techniques for retaining and expanding hegemony. When running an empire, some techniques are worse and more brutal than others. But I'd like to hear a debate, at least, on the possibility of going in a different direction entirely.

Those goals and tools Republicans you DON"T ACTUALLY mention are quite different. The unwillingness to work in a collegial way with other nations is what characterizes this adminstration and also explains its many failures.

Did you even read what I said? My point is that you don't have to swagger and threaten if you are truly a super power.

I find it at LEAST as frightening as "ruling clerics of Iran having control of WMD's;" the fact that we have an administration that believes god is whispering in its ear, and that 911 and Katrina were caused by gays.

Dick Cheney speaks for all publicans. How sad. If you don't believe me, he'll shoot you in the face

Jan Knaus

Obviously, I don't have the ability to provide the sort of details that you can. Thanks for sharing your expertise.