More on the neocon reunion tour
by digby
Yes, they’re back. Even the “dumbest fucking guy on the planet” Doug Feith. I wrote about it at Salon today starting off with a review of the ascent of the GOP’s new leader on foreign policy, Tom Cotton. Then this:
Other Republicans seem to just be confused. As Steve Benen pointed out, presumed presidential candidate, Senator Marco Rubio recently said, “the reason Obama hasn’t put in place a military strategy to defeat ISIS is because he doesn’t want to upset Iran,” seeming to be under the misimpression that Iran and ISIS are on the same side. Dr Ben Carson similarly commented that the U.S. needed to be just as militant toward “the Shia” who are based in Iran as we are of ISIS, apparently not realizing that the American Iraqi allies are mostly Shia Muslim.
But there’s another group of Republicans getting back in the saddle and supporting Tom Cotton and company, the Neocons. (I wrote about them here.) And none are as notorious as former Bush pentagon official Douglas Feith, known far and wide by General Tommy Franks’ famous quote that he is the “dumbest f**king guy on the planet.” From Abu Ghraib to the poor post-war planning to the stovepiped intelligence and everything else, Feith’s fingerprints can be found on each detail of the disaster that was the Iraq war. And yet the Wall Street Journal doesn’t see any of that as an impediment to publishing his “critiques” of the Obama foreign policy as if he actually maintains some credibility. For instance, his latest on the Iran negotiations from just this week:
The Obama administration has wedded itself to a cooperative policy toward Iran. The White House rejects the coercive approach as not viable. But if Iran violates its deal with us, won’t our response have to be coercive? President Obama insists that his policy is the only realistic one. In doing so, he is showing either that he is naive and uninformed about the relevant history or that he no longer considers an Iranian nuclear weapon “unacceptable.”
So Feith, sounding almost as thick as Rubio there, informs us that even though one enters into an agreement it’s possible that one of the parties might not fulfill its side of the bargain. Yes, that’s true. But he apparently thinks that since coercion might someday be necessary if Iran violates its agreement not to build a nuclear weapon, the agreement is useless. So we must use coercion. That’s so circular it gives you a headache. In any case, since it’s Feith saying it, perhaps we should ask how that “coercive policy” toward Iraq worked out for us? After all, it turned out that invading that country on the basis of its non-existent nuclear program was instrumental in the creation of ISIS — last week’s boogeyman.
Someone pointed out on twitter last night that Cotton is really something more than a neocon. He hasn’t said a thing about “promoting democracy” which was always the big inspirational, aspirational cover story. He’s pretty much just coming right out and saying “let’s kill ’em all and let God sort it out.” His honesty is refreshing. Also too: psycho.
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