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Short but sweet
This about sums it up:
Trouble is, the Bushies don't seem to know how to orchestrate the mix of diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, military threats and -- but only finally -- force. For example, they seem hell-bent on repeating the mistake they made in Iraq of not waiting for the International Atomic Energy Agency to reach a judgment on Iran's nuclear capacities and intentions.
It may be seen as surprising that the voices of reason and restraint in this Iran question, as Hersh reports it, are the generals. But it shouldn't be. After all, it was George Washington who warned against the dangers of a standing peacetime army, and Dwight Eisenhower who alerted us to the danger of the military-industrial complex. Having seen it, they know the horror of war.
And what about the neocons, our home-front heroes -- Cheney, Rumsfeld, the civilians they've recruited like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and Stephen Hadley -- who orchestrated the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war and foreign regime change?
They should never again be allowed anywhere near the instruments and agencies of the American government.
My only quibble would be that it's not that the Bushies don't know how to use diplomatic approaches, simply that they don't feel they should need to. Diplomacy, discussion, concession, is beneath them, they're in charge of the last superpower, dammit, and as far as they're concerned it's all about getting what they want when they want it. Consequences, of course, be damned, they're untouchable...on top of the world, ma, and all that.
Trouble is, the Bushies don't seem to know how to orchestrate the mix of diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, military threats and -- but only finally -- force. For example, they seem hell-bent on repeating the mistake they made in Iraq of not waiting for the International Atomic Energy Agency to reach a judgment on Iran's nuclear capacities and intentions.
It may be seen as surprising that the voices of reason and restraint in this Iran question, as Hersh reports it, are the generals. But it shouldn't be. After all, it was George Washington who warned against the dangers of a standing peacetime army, and Dwight Eisenhower who alerted us to the danger of the military-industrial complex. Having seen it, they know the horror of war.
And what about the neocons, our home-front heroes -- Cheney, Rumsfeld, the civilians they've recruited like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and Stephen Hadley -- who orchestrated the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war and foreign regime change?
They should never again be allowed anywhere near the instruments and agencies of the American government.
My only quibble would be that it's not that the Bushies don't know how to use diplomatic approaches, simply that they don't feel they should need to. Diplomacy, discussion, concession, is beneath them, they're in charge of the last superpower, dammit, and as far as they're concerned it's all about getting what they want when they want it. Consequences, of course, be damned, they're untouchable...on top of the world, ma, and all that.