Unbelievably, those who dragged us into Iraq now want to bomb Iran, writes matthew carr |
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Slowly, but inexorably, public opinion in the United States is being prepared for war with Iran, urged on by the neo-con warrior-scholars at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Weekly Standard.
In a democracy that was not suffering from attention deficit disorder, the intellectual cheerleaders of the Iraq debacle would have been held up to ridicule and contempt and then ignored for the rest of their lives. After all, it takes a special kind of intellectual to use the 9/11 atrocities as a justification for war against a country that had nothing to do with the attack.
But this is what William Kristol, Robert Kagan and the crazy gang did before the smoke from the Twin Towers began to clear.
It also takes a special kind of dysfunctional political intelligence to get virtually every prediction about Iraq's 'liberation' wrong. As thousands of Iraqis die in a vicious |
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Michael Ledeen, believes that the Iraq insurgency can be beaten
by sponsoring ‘democratic revolution’ in Syria and Iraq |
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sectarian war - and US troops are killed on a daily basis - at least AEI stalwart Joshua Muravchik recently described himself as 'chastened'.
But other neo-cons continue to see the positive side. Take Daniel Pipes, who saw Iraq as a 'strategic victory' because Iraqis were too busy killing each other to kill Americans. Or AEI's 'freedom scholar' Michael Ledeen (left), who believes the Iraq insurgency can be beaten by sponsoring further 'democratic revolutions' in Syria and Iran.
Even 'chastened' hawks such as Muravchik are still calling on the US to open a new front in Iran. Options range from covert operations to bombing attacks with nuclear-tipped bunker-busting bombs.
The next time we see the grinning William Kristol on Newsnight, serenely explaining why the 'international community' may have to take military action against Iran, we should remember we've been here before, and - to paraphrase John McEnroe - remind ourselves such men should not be taken seriously. 
FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 11, 2007
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