Jonathan, so far it seems that Republican officials are doing precisely as you recommend. Sen. John McCain and many others have expressed support for the president”s decision to deploy at least 30,00 troops and praised his rejection of the advice of those in his own party who would have us retreat from the president’s self-described critical war. But with the responsibility to support an Afghanistan surge, which is in our national interest, comes the obligation to be both intellectually honest and politically candid. The roles for those in elected office and for those who observe from the sidelines may in this regard be different.
For those in elected office, the task at hand is to provide funding and oversight for the war effort. It appears there is overwhelming support among Republicans to fund the surge. But there is also the obligation on the part of lawmakers to provide oversight. How quickly can troops be deployed? How are we providing support for the Afghan government? And yes, what is this 2011 date all about?
And the loyal opposition, because it does believe in the mission, has a particular obligation to provide candid observation and advice as to the reasons why a transition date, however postured, is counterproductive. The loyal opposition is not there to cheerlead or to jeer, nor to obscure or avert its eyes. It is there to provide a voice of warning and, yes, of experience. Deadlines and withdrawal dates are, as Max pointed out, generally counterproductive. It will undermine the impact of the surge — with both foes and allies. It is the loyal opposition’s duty to explain why and to encourage and cajole the president to rethink and restate what he has in mind. We have already seen the damage-control efforts by Secretary Robert Gates and others to put that date in “perspective” — and frankly, we hope, eradicate it. Gates should be supported and encouraged in his efforts.
In sum, the loyal opposition, if it is to be loyal to the country’s national interests and to those who are willing to sacrifice their lives on the battlefield, must be candid with the president and the voters. Where the president is right, he deserves praise. Where is is badly misguided, he deserves constructive criticism.
“This is not to say that Iranians cannot be talked out of their enrichment program. They can—but only when they know they have been defeated. ”
I submit that The New York Times isn’t alone in having it’s head deeply buried in the sand. The Iranians have a virtually unlimited income from sale of a product that the world is not about to embargo. Why would they begin to think they may be defeated?
We should be doing things like air-dropping small arms and ammunition into the parts of Iran that are inhabited by ethnic and religious minorities in direct proportion to their shipments of arms into Iraq. That’s the kind of talk the Mullahs may understand.
you think that minorities with small arms will defeat the mullahs?
oao
http://fallofknowledgeandreason.blogspot.com/
The ultimate test will see if the Administratin has the moxie to flatten key parts of Iran’s installations, before leaving office.
For that it needs two things.
1. A new NIE which shows that Iran’s weapon program has not been abandoned,
2. Evidence that the US tried everything including, sitting down and chancing a new round of negotiations.
“Yet if the Chinese and Russians cannot cooperate on such a basic matter as Iran’s nuclear program when it is on the verge of creating a weapon, then it is pointless to maintain dialogue with them because nothing much else will matter”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts244.html
I sincerely doubt russia nad china are at all worried about what we think of them. They hold all the eocnomic cards here, all we have is spent militarism and political theatre, which is a comedy these days
” we could travel from the best moment in history to the worst.”
this is the best moment in history?
from above link
“With Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea threatened by American hegemonic belligerence, it is not difficult to imagine a scenario that would terminate all pretense of American power: For example, instead of waiting to be attacked, Iran uses its Chinese and Russian anti-ship missiles, against which the US reportedly has poor means of defense, and sinks every ship in the American carrier strike forces that have been foolishly massed in the Persian Gulf, simultaneously taking out the Saudi oil fields and the Green Zone in Baghdad, the headquarters of the US occupation. Shi’ite militias break the US supply lines from Kuwait, and Iranian troops destroy the dispersed US forces in Iraq before they can be concentrated to battle strength.
Simultaneously, North Korea crosses the demilitarized zone and takes South Korea, China seizes Taiwan and dumps a trillion dollars of US Treasury bonds on the market. Russia goes on full nuclear alert and cuts off all natural gas to Europe.
What would the Bush regime do? Wet its pants? Push the button and end the world?
If America really had dangerous enemies, surely the enemies would collude to take advantage of a dramatically over-extended delusional regime that, blinded by its own arrogance and hubris, issues gratuitous threats and lives by Mao’s doctrine that power comes out of the barrel of a gun.
There are other less dramatic scenarios. Why does the US assume that only it can initiate aggression, boycotts, freezes on financial assets of other countries and bans on foreign banks from participation in the international banking system? If the rest of the world were to tire of American aggression or to develop a moral conscience, it would be easy to organize a boycott of America and to ban US banks from participating in the international banking system. Such a boycott would be especially effective at the present time with the balance sheets of US banks impaired by subprime derivatives and the US government dependent on foreign loans in order to finance its day-to-day activities.
Sooner or later it will occur to other countries that putting up with America is a habit that they don’t need to continue.
“
Gordon has correctly identified a watershed here: Iran taking the initiative here means Iran seeking to render its nuclearization a fait accompli. Tehran apparently believes the iron is hot, and it’s time to strike.
It takes a whole lot of moral courage to stand firm against a diplomatic approach, and resist letting it produce the outcome sought by the initiator. We performed very poorly in this regard during the Cold War, until Reagan was willing to be excoriated by the editorial page of the NYT as a cowboy and brinkman.
It would be a lot easier for us if Iran would keep rattling the saber — but very likely any saber-rattling won’t make it to the American public anyway. What our news media will report is Iran’s diplomatic feelers. This will indeed be the toughest challenge for Bush’s presidency yet.
Incidentally, for lester, there is so much wrong with popular ideas about the Van Riper “16 ships sunk” scenario, on which Paul Craig Roberts obviously bases his concept, I could be here for hours debunking them. I will merely observe that the US Navy isn’t going to cram dozens of ships into the Persian Gulf and give Iran the opportunity to go “headhunting” among them, in any attack-on-Iran scenario. With today’s technology, geography favors the expeditionary navy in the Gulf: we don’t have to build up in it, as we did in Desert Storm, in numbers that would be convenient for Iran’s non-traditional attack capabilities. Iran has to have us in close to attack us — we don’t have to be in that close to attack Iran. The hyperventilating of would-be maritime strategists on the web is fun, but not a good guide to reality.
I’ll give you that point as I have no knowledge of those issues, but the larger point remains. people can pre emptively attack us too and we are acting like we need it
OAO – I think that air dropping small arms to anyone in Iran who is likely to shoot a policeman, soldier or Shiite Imam would be a first small statement of the sort that the Mullah regime may understand. We don’t need to overthrow them, we just need to get their full attention.
the mullahs are the spiritual leaders of the country. i don’t think people would shoot their relgious leaders.