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 Bush Breaks Neocon TabooPosted on May 30, 2007By Joe Conason For most Americans, who now wish we had never invaded Iraq, the notion of expanding that extraordinarily lethal mistake into neighboring Iran and Syria must seem insane. Yet those same brilliant neoconservative strategists who brought us the war in Iraq and constantly urge its escalation exist in their own special reality. They speak of military hostilities against Iran and Syria with anticipation rather than apprehension. As we should have learned over the past four years, their dreams often turn out to be our nightmares. For four brief hours on Memorial Day, however, the neoconservative drive toward a wider conflagration in the Middle East stalled, when ambassadors from the United States and Iran met in Baghdad. That meeting’s historic significance should not be underestimated, even though U.S. officials emphasized that no further meetings would necessarily occur. Convened under the auspices of the Iraqi government, the Monday encounter represented the first substantive bilateral discussion between American and Iranian officials in three decades. Relations with Iran have been poor ever since the mullahs seized power from the U.S.-sponsored shah in 1979, but in recent months the increasing strains between us and them have brought armed conflict closer. Longstanding grievances against Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism in the region have been exacerbated by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear arsenal and allegations about Iranian agents supplying weapons to the insurgents in Iraq. Advertisement What we have not tried, until now, was talking with the Iranian leaders. By breaking that taboo, the Memorial Day meeting pointed toward a saner policy—just as the Iraq Study Group urged six months ago, when its report highlighted the need for regional talks including Iran and Syria. Naturally, such signs of sanity were immediately met with furious denunciations that echoed the shrill attacks on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who dared to visit the Syrian leadership in Damascus. When the Pelosi trip was followed by overtures from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to both the Syrians and the Iranians, it signaled that U.S. policy-makers were considering a sensible shift. Rice’s exploratory gestures provoked angry editorials in The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal, which accused the State Department of undermining the White House “strategy for victory” in the Middle East. The real danger is that whenever we start talking with our enemies, we may discover potential areas of compromise or even agreement. Progress would undermine the arguments of politicians and pundits who prefer permanent war. But we already know that both Syria and Iran have cooperated with us in the past when they believed that their interests coincided with ours. In the aftermath of 9/11, the Syrians were obliging enough to accept a Canadian citizen whom we deported, and to torture and interrogate him on our behalf. (Unfortunately, he was innocent.) Meanwhile, the Iranians helped in western Afghanistan when the U.S. and its allies overthrew the Taliban. There is no reason to exaggerate those exceptions—or to pretend that the Iranian and Syrian regimes are anything but deplorable. Yet it is also true that those governments and the societies they control are more complex than our warmongers would tell us. Close observers of Iran, for instance, believe that our threatening attitude actually weakens the democratic forces in their struggle with the mullahs—and that improved relations would strengthen reformers. Would negotiations with the Iranians or the Syrians today lead to any worthwhile result? Our friends and allies in the Iraqi government—whose survival we have ensured with American lives and dollars—certainly think so. The Iraqi diplomats talk with their counterparts in Damascus and Tehran every day. Those facts won’t dissuade the neoconservatives from maligning any gestures toward realism. They continuously seek to stir hysteria about Iran and to discredit any diplomatic and political alternatives to military action. We are still living with the terrible consequences of the last great neoconservative triumph—namely the war in Iraq—and the enhanced power that their errors have bestowed so ironically on Iran. In coping with that reality, it is long since time that we learned to ignore their bad advice. Joe Conason writes for the New York Observer. © 2007 Creators Syndicate Inc. Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig. Add Your Comment
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By Tom Doff, June 1, 2007 at 6:11 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Speaking of ‘Breaking Neocon Taboos’, B*sh’s on-mike, sotto-voice remark at the Houston Country Club about Wolfowitz and Perle being ‘JewBoys’, was not exactly kosher.
Report thisBy THOMAS BILLIS, June 1, 2007 at 5:28 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
The moron finally made the step he should have made all along.he should feel at home talking to Iran one religious fanatic to another.When the moron forgets all that good and evil Dick and Jane stuff maybe he will be able to enter on the world stage as an actually leader until then as a previous commenter noted this is just windowdressing.The amazing thing is that the neo cons who have been absolutely wrong about everything keep offering advice on world affairs.Is anybody listening?
Report thisBy Skruff, June 1, 2007 at 1:55 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
74171 by Douglas Chalmers on 5/31 at 5:29 am
“Choose oil at $40 per barrel”
There is no more $40 a barrel oil. If the U.S. cut the import of off-shore oil in half, PERHAPS we could keep the price in the $50 to $60 range, but unless China, India, and other emerging economies stopp bidding up the price, we’ll never see gas below $2.25 again. China is just begining to use private automobiles, but they use an enormous amount of petro-chem to produce all the plastic garbage they sell in Walmarts. India fuels it’s emerging indrustrial base with #5 bunker fuel (they make a shit-load of Fords over there)
I suggest buying energy stock as the production of energy seems to be a, even larger, growth indrustry.
Report thisBy Freedem, June 1, 2007 at 11:52 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Expat-
Given the Chimp rant- “I am going to make is so that no matter who is president after me, he will not be able to ignore America’s Destiny” Your observations are quite chilling.
His megalomaniacal hallucinations that a future that some sort of win could be defined, or worse some sort of Armageddon could not be avoided by a future person in ways he can only force, perhaps the old Pope was right and he really sees himself as the Antichrist.
Report thisBy Greg Bacon, June 1, 2007 at 11:02 am #
AUDITIONING FOR THE NEXT “HITLER”
The Case for Bombing Iran
I hope and pray that President Bush will do it.
BY NORMAN PODHORETZ
Wednesday, May 30, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
The Case for Bombing Iran
I hope and pray that President Bush will do it.
BY NORMAN PODHORETZ
Wednesday, May 30, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Although many persist in denying it, I continue to believe that what Sept 11, 2001, did was to plunge us headlong into nothing less than another world war. I call this new war World War IV, because I also believe that what is generally known as the Cold War was actually World War III, and that this one bears a closer resemblance to that great conflict than it does to World War II. Like the Cold War, as the military historian Eliot Cohen was the first to recognize, the one we are now in has ideological roots, pitting us against Islamofascism, yet another mutation of the totalitarian disease we defeated first in the shape of Nazism and fascism and then in the shape of communism; it is global in scope; it is being fought with a variety of weapons, not all of them military; and it is likely to go on for decades.
Not so George W. Bush, a man who knows evil when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly courageous willingness to endure vilification and contumely in setting his face against it. It now remains to be seen whether this president, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/? id=110010139
Yet another yowl emanating from the lunatic war mongers who use war like some people use Viagra; it give them a “surge” between their legs.
And after Iran is turned into glass, then what country is next on Israel’s hit list?
Let me guess??? Saudi Arabia. Bingo. The American MSM will be ordered to start running pieces on how 14 of the 19 “alleged” hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.
After whipping the gullible American public into a frenzy, including branding whoever the leader of that country is as “another Hitler”, Israel will again yet to use her favorite mercenaries, the US Military.
Podohertz, if you and Israel want to bomb Iran, go ahead. Just leave the US out of your land and water resource wars.
Report thisBy Greg Bacon, June 1, 2007 at 11:01 am #
AUDITIONING FOR THE NEXT “HITLER”
The Case for Bombing Iran
I hope and pray that President Bush will do it.
BY NORMAN PODHORETZ
Wednesday, May 30, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
The Case for Bombing Iran
I hope and pray that President Bush will do it.
BY NORMAN PODHORETZ
Wednesday, May 30, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Although many persist in denying it, I continue to believe that what Sept 11, 2001, did was to plunge us headlong into nothing less than another world war. I call this new war World War IV, because I also believe that what is generally known as the Cold War was actually World War III, and that this one bears a closer resemblance to that great conflict than it does to World War II. Like the Cold War, as the military historian Eliot Cohen was the first to recognize, the one we are now in has ideological roots, pitting us against Islamofascism, yet another mutation of the totalitarian disease we defeated first in the shape of Nazism and fascism and then in the shape of communism; it is global in scope; it is being fought with a variety of weapons, not all of them military; and it is likely to go on for decades.
Not so George W. Bush, a man who knows evil when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly courageous willingness to endure vilification and contumely in setting his face against it. It now remains to be seen whether this president, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/? id=110010139
<b>Yet another yowl emanating from the lunatic war mongers who use war like some people use Viagra; it give them a “surge” between their legs.
And after Iran is turned into glass, then what country is next on Israel’s hit list?
Let me guess??? Saudi Arabia. Bingo. The American MSM will be ordered to start running pieces on how 14 of the 19 “alleged” hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.
After whipping the gullible American public into a frenzy, including branding whoever the leader of that country is as “another Hitler”, Israel will again yet to use her favorite mercanaries, the US Military.
Podohertz, if you and Israel want to bomb Iran, go ahead. Just leave the US out of your land and water resource wars.
Report thisBy ocjim, June 1, 2007 at 10:24 am #
Bush was literally forced into talking with Iran. Give him no credit for diplomacy. Iran consistently made him look like the incompetent warmongerer that he is. Their leaders have demonstrated more dimplomacy and more reason than the Bush administration has. But there is still a great danger that the malevolent Cheney will guide Bush into hostilities against Iran. Probably Cheney’s impeachment is more important than Bush’s at this time in that foolhardy advocacies seem to be more in Cheney’s corner than bush’s.
Report thisBy Ozi Joe, June 1, 2007 at 8:22 am #
It is quite incredible for anyone to imagine how these men continue to drive their agendas with reckless abandon towards the consequences for the US and the rest of the world, but then the whole philosophy of neocons and the ultra-conservative Christian right is that these conflicts bring us closer to the ultimate conflagration and the second coming - it is more understandable - but any group that says they are pro-life and pro-death sentence have got to be more thn little screwed up! Lest hope they don’t screw up the rest of us.
Report thisBy 911truthdotorg, June 1, 2007 at 12:40 am #
He’ll just bomb them in mid-sentence during the “talks”. Or in his case, mid-babbling stupidity.
Just more smoke and mirrors before War #3.
Google videos: 9/11 Press for Truth, Loose Change 2nd Edition
Report thisBy DennisD, May 31, 2007 at 11:20 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Bu$h couldn’t break a Neocon taboo if he tried. He’s only bending it slightly in a truly desperate act to save a few Republican jobs in the 08 election. Problem is - he has zero credibility left with anyone for anything.
Report thisBy GDAEman, May 31, 2007 at 10:56 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
It seems a lot of people are calling Dick Cheney “delusional.” Go ahead. Google it.
A quick assessment of the situation indicates that those promoting military action against Iran are also delusional.
Report thisBy Martha, May 31, 2007 at 9:49 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Excellent column from one of our best columnists AND authors.
Report thisBy libby, May 31, 2007 at 6:56 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Perhaps if the United States had less selfish intentions, relations with Iran would not be so rocky. According to the Borgen Project, it would cost $19 billion to end world hunger, and $12 bilion to provide universal education. Meanwhile, the U.S. defense budget for this year is $522 billion. We worry about Iran making nuclear weapons, but perhaps if our country wasn’t so war-oriented, Ahmadinejad would not be so paranoid.
Report thisBy TAO Walker, May 31, 2007 at 4:53 pm #
This old Indian would like to hear what Joe Conason’s reasons are for pretending that the rogue regimes on the Potomac and in Tel Aviv “....are anything but deplorable.” This sure looks like just more of his same old allamerican exceptionalism, with a bow and a scrape in the direction of “Greater Israel” thrown-in for good measure.
If nothing else his establishmentarianist cant has given some more common-sensical commentors here an opening to bring some depth-of-perspective to Mr. Conason’s customarily mono-dimensional word-mongering.
HokaHey!
Report thisBy Paolo, May 31, 2007 at 3:27 pm #
Isn’t it amazing how messed up a country like Iran can get when the USA installs a dictator, who then gets replaced by a religious zealot? Gosh, maybe if we had just left the democratically-elected President Mossadegh alone in 1953, things would be better in Iran now. Ya think?
We should talk, talk, and talk some more with Iran to establish good relations that we have screwed up through our meddling in their affairs. Then, we should walk, walk, walk out of the whole region and let the locals figure things out.
Iran is, after all, on the far side of the globe.
Report thisBy Dale Headley, May 31, 2007 at 2:32 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
When will people realize that “neocons” is a euphemism for fascists? Their aims are not a bit different from those of the Nazis: “Today, Iraq, tomorrow the world!”
Report thisBy FrostedFlakes, May 31, 2007 at 12:44 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Peace as an option: What an obscure concept. As long as America is controlled by corporations run by neo-conic ideologues, and represented by unduly elected buffoons, we as a populace are subjugated to the whims of the intolerant. Iraq is still a mistake, and Iran wil be an even bigger one. But those making life decisions for our Armed Services are the same cowards who fled from their duty when needed.America needs a facelift, and real soon. However, it’s going to take the upheavel of elected, or appointed, politicians to get the ball rolling. Why wait? Let’s start impeachments now,beginning with Dick Cheney!!
Report thisBy KISS, May 31, 2007 at 11:20 am #
There is no dialog with this buffoon, as president. He’s wants to go to war with Iran so badly that the consequences never enter the picture. Does this remind us of Iraq and Afghanistan? This way he can light the fuse and than run, and the blame can be placed on the dimmo taking office. But with a do-nothing dimmo-led congress he wins and we, the people, lose. With this lame-brained supreme court don’t be surprised that being a conscientious Objector is outlawed. He will need to re-institute the draft and all will have to go…unless your a rich bush-type.
Report thisBy Hammo, May 31, 2007 at 10:13 am #
Conason gets right to the point of some serious concerns about expanded war.
Related to this, there are rumors of a split of sorts within the Bush-Cheney administration: Condoleeza Rice and one camp favor dialogue and negotiation, while the Dick Cheney camp and his hard-core neocons favor expanded war.
These rumors further indicate that the Cheney-neocon camp wanta something to happen that will force Bush and others to take the war route.
Something to think about:
“Military Draft Needed for War With Iran and Syria?”
PopulistAmerica.com
Populist Party of America
September 28, 2006
http://www.populistamerica.com/military_draft_needed_for_war_with_iran_and_syria
- - -
“Will Bush, Cheney attack Iran? When and why?”
PopulistAmerica.com
Populist Party of America
February 2, 2007
http://www.populistamerica.com/will_bush_cheney_attack_iran_when_and_why
Report thisBy Douglas Chalmers, May 31, 2007 at 9:29 am #
Choose oil at $40 per barrel by sailing away and abiding by trade instead of threats or oil at $140 a barrel next week if there is shooting around the Straits of Hormuz. Work out the impacts on inflation and cost of living for yourselves.
Sailing the US fleet around to Lebanon might be the better option as Israel is the only country in the region with WMD’s or a nuclear power plant. Again, you can work out the obvious risks for yourselves.
Both the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein were the USA’s puppets in the past. Who is to blame? There is mor opium coming out of Afghanistan than ever. Where does it go? All of these problems will eventually end up on the streets of hometown USA.
Will you recognize them, thoug,h if they appear as war veterans without arms or legs or with twisted minds? Will you recognize them in the declining standard of living and the worn-out infrastructure of cities and highways and power supplies and dams?
Report thisBy Expat, May 31, 2007 at 8:48 am #
Pray that Iran has the patience of the proverbial saint and has a goal more important than face, because; if there is a way to screw this up, Bush will find it.
Given the view from afar, I think we need Iran if we are ever to have a way out of Iraq…include Syria as well.
Nukes? Maybe. Israel is the true spoiler here. They are the third nuclear country to not be a member of the NPT and yet they are our buddy; just like India and Pakistan. What’s with that anyway?
When dialogue fails…bullets fly!
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