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Joshua Muravchik who we most often see in Commentary or it’s blog Contentions, was in the WSJ with concerns Iran is making the mistake many authoritarian regimes make when they are toe to toe with the US. They see us as weak and irresolute.
… Democracies, it is now well established, do not go to war with each other. But they often get into wars with non-democracies. Overwhelmingly the non-democracy starts the war; nonetheless, in the vast majority of cases, it is the democratic side that wins. In other words, dictators consistently underestimate the strength of democracies, and democracies provoke war through their love of peace, which the dictators mistake for weakness.
Today, this same dynamic is creating a moment of great danger. The radicals are becoming reckless, asserting themselves for little reason beyond the conviction that they can. They are very likely to overreach. It is not hard to imagine scenarios in which a single match–say a terrible terror attack from Gaza–could ignite a chain reaction. Israel could handle Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria, albeit with painful losses all around, but if Iran intervened rather than see its regional assets eliminated, could the U.S. stay out?
With the Bush administration’s policies having failed to pacify Iraq, it is natural that the public has lost patience and that the opposition party is hurling brickbats. But the demands of congressional Democrats that we throw in the towel in Iraq, their attempts to constrain the president’s freedom to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the proposal of the Baker-Hamilton commission that we appeal to Iran to help extricate us from Iraq–all of these may be read by the radicals as signs of our imminent collapse. In the name of peace, they are hastening the advent of the next war.
Michael Ledeen’s Corner post – same subject.
Peter Schweizer of the Hoover Institution has interesting Iran proposals.
First, the Bush administration should cut off Iranian access to gasoline. That may sound strange, but it could be done. Iran is a major producer of oil, but it has limited refinery capacity and imports almost half of the gasoline it needs. These imports arrive by tanker, so a blockade enforced by the U.S. Navy Sixth Fleet would have a devastating and immediate effect on Iran’s economy, which is already plagued by high unemployment. It is hard to imagine the hard-line government surviving such an economic catastrophe.
Iran would no doubt see such a blockade as a provocative act. But that is precisely what Iran needs to see from the West in the light of its provocations toward us. Its military options against the U.S. Navy would be limited. And with the economy reeling under the weight of an embargo, Iran would hardly be in a position to engage the United States in a protracted war.
Second, the Bush administration should consider counterfeiting Iranian currency to further undermine the economy. This is not a weapon that should be used lightly, but in this case it is simply a tit-for-tat: Iran and its ally, Hezbollah, have been fingered for counterfeiting $100 bills. Counterfeiting Iranian currency would also provide a stern warning to other countries fond of counterfeiting U.S. currency.
The Bush administration has chosen to take a soft line toward Iran despite its critics calls for military action. This attractive middle course would allow the United States to avoid war but also to bring down one of the most dangerous governments in the world today.
Claudia Rosett was last in Pickings when she suggested the head of the World Bank should be John Bolton or Don Rumsfeld. Now she has a title for Tony Blair’s Mid-East venture – “War Envoy.”
As Tony Blair leaves the post of Prime Minister, the rumor is that he may be appointed “Peace Envoy†to the Middle East.
“Peace†— ? We are talking about the region that has been saturated for years in “peace talks†“land for peace†“seeds of peace†the “roadmap to peace†and especially the mother of all peace labels, the “peace process.†Hamas and Hezbollah snatch Israeli soldiers and attack Israeli civilians, Syria and Iran infiltrate weapons and terrorists into Iraq, the Saudis continue to funnel millions into their global network of kill-the-infidel madrassas. And in the midst of this we are invited to ponder along with the UN’s IAEA whether terrorist-spawning Iran — where terror trainees routinely chant “Death to America! Death to Israel!†— simply wants nuclear energy for “peaceful uses.â€
Ben Stein sends a mash note to WFB, Jr.
What would the world be like if there had been no William F. Buckley?
I can well recall even as a high schooler that Republicans were considered Midwestern stolid reactionaries with no ideas except to oppose generosity and kindness. I can well recall when being a conservative meant being without ideas and simply in opposition to those who had ideas. Or if conservatives had any ideas, they were just that them who had should continue to have and those who had not should rot.
Then came William F. Buckley, seemingly out of the forehead of Zeus.
Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune has criticisms for the anti-trust policies of W’s administration.
Thomas Sowell writes on the mistakes made when children are not taught our common culture.
Among the interesting people encountered by my wife and me, during some recent vacation travel, were a small group of adolescent boys from a Navajo reservation. They were being led on a bicycle tour by a couple of white men, one of whom was apparently their teacher on the reservation.
The Navajo youngsters were bright and cheerful lads, so I was surprised when someone asked them in what state Pittsburgh was located and none of them knew. Then they were offered a clue that it was in the same state as Philadelphia but they didn’t know where Philadelphia was either.
These Navajo boys seemed too bright not to have learned such things if they had been taught the basics. They also seemed too positive to be the kinds of kids who refused to learn.
The most likely explanation was that they were being taught other things, things considered “relevant” to their life and culture on the reservation. …
WSJ editorial notes last Saturday as the second anniversary of the infamous Kelo decision.
Melanie Phillips posts on global warming.
You know how we’re told sixty times per minute that man-made global warming is no longer just a theory but it’s now demonstrable fact, and that anyone who contradicts this is clinically insane because there’s a consensus of all scientists that it’s happening and only about 2.5 scientists on the entire planet disagree and they’re in the pay of Big Oil anyway so we can forget about them; and so the debate is TOTALLY OVER, says the BBC, which has been told that it is authoritatively by Very Important Scientists, so that the ‘impartial’ and ‘objective’ BBC says that it no longer needs to give us a balanced argument about climate change because there just isn’t any reputable scientific opposition to the proven facts about seas rising and ice melting and hurricanes happening, all because of the human race and its foul and filthy habits of combustibles, cars and capitalism?
Well, read this remarkable article in Canada’s National Post …
Carpe Diem likes the idea of Hernando de Soto as chief economist at the World Bank.
The New Yorker writes on the new 9/11 monument in NJ.
France gave us the Statue of Liberty. Now Russia has given us “To the Struggle Against World Terrorism,†another XXL, in-a-class-of-its-own monument. If you have not seen it, that may be because you haven’t recently approached New York City by ship. For those coming in from the Atlantic, through the Narrows, the Russian gift now heaves into view well before Lady Liberty. That is intentional, according to Zurab Tsereteli, the Moscow-based sculptor who created the monument. “To the Struggle Against World Terrorism†stands at the end of a long, man-made peninsula in Bayonne, New Jersey, and it looks from a distance like a giant tea biscuit. As you get closer, however, you will begin to make out an immense, stainless-steel teardrop—the Tear of Grief—hanging in a jagged crack that runs down the middle of the main slab. That’s when you’ll know that you’re not looking at some ordinary bronze-sheathed, hundred-and-seventy-five-ton afternoon snack. …
Club for Growth shows up with another cool picture from the shuttle