Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it -- George Satayana.
Well and good. But becoming a prisoner of the past presents dangers, too. Stay tuned for an example of how reliance on a corollary of Satayana's rule went horribly wrong for the U.S.
Maureen Dowd's column of this morning "W.M.D. in Iran? Q.E.D." is the latest example of what passes for MSM wisdom on Iran. The argument, in a nutshell: we attacked Iraq over ill-founded concerns about WMD and got bogged down. So perish the thought of using force to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Dowd dishes her variation on this line in the form of an apocryphal "Meet the Press" interview by Tim Russert of Maureen's Veep Noire, Dick Cheney. Excerpt:
RUSSERT: First you threatened to take action if Iran built a nuclear weapon. Now you’re threatening to take action if Iran knows how to build a nuclear weapon. What’s next? You threaten to take action if Ahmadinejad dresses up as a nuclear weapon for Halloween?
CHENEY: Well, the difficulty here is, each time he has rejected what he was called upon to do by the international community. I’m not sure now, no matter what he says, that anyone would believe him. He’s pretending he doesn’t have W.M.D., just like Saddam.
RUSSERT: But Saddam didn’t have W.M.D.
CHENEY: He did, Tim.
RUSSERT: He did?
CHENEY: Ever wonder what happened to them?
RUSSERT: What happened to them?
CHENEY: Think about it, Tim.
Ha-ha. We get it. Except . . .
Whereas Saddam's possession of WMDs was a matter of reasonable but ultimately erroneous surmise, Iran is unquestionably going about developing nuclear capability. Ahmadinejad proclaims it to the world weekly. Earlier this year, a leading security think-tank estimated Tehran was two to three years away from acquiring a weapon. Even U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moo, while preaching negotiation, says he's "very worried" about Iran's nuclear program.
That corollary to the Satayana rule I was talking about? It's the notion that each presidential election is an attempt to cure the ills of the preceding presidency. In the post-Watergate world of 1976, reliance on that rule brought us President Jimmy Carter. Let's see -- how did his Iran policy turn out?
Note: The Dowd crowd urges diplomacy with Iran. But as Ed Morrisey has noted at Captain's Quarters, an Iranian dissident discourages negotiations on the grounds that "it establishes [the Iranian regime] even more as legitimate and it damages the morale of those who work to rid Iran of oppression."
—Mark Finkelstein is a NewsBusters contributing editor and host of Right Angle. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net.





Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it -- 















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You know, I read this
October 28, 2007 - 12:07 ET by motherbeltYou know, I read this earlier this AM, and I thought...I didn't read her junk all that time that she was firewalled; and now I read her and nothing has changed.
Dowd can't even do her column any more without some kind of schtick. At least she has graduated to imagined interviews with Tim Russert. Her earlier dramatizations of Bush and Cheney were usually variations on "Pinky and the Brain."
It's getting old.
Pathetic.
carter
October 28, 2007 - 10:55 ET by DontabHorrible like every thing else he touched,he has what most liberals have, DEFECTIVE LOGIC!
liberalism is perpetual childhood
October 28, 2007 - 11:36 ET by bulbasaurUnfortunately for America, even though our enemies brazenly flaunt their plans to develop WMD, reckless liberals have decided to redefine the expression WMD as a non-existing thing that won't hurt you and is never to be worried about, ever again.
Liberals are unfit to lead during these conseqential times.
bulbasaur
October 28, 2007 - 11:57 ET by easygoerWell said.
Iraq and its WMD
October 28, 2007 - 11:27 ET by PShannonhttp://www.freedomsenemies.com/_more/bushliedWMD.htm
I believe several questions need to be answered to blunt the false charges repeatedly made by the Political Left.
1. Did Saddam ever possess WMD? (Yes)
2. Did Saddam have an active WMD program? (Yes)
3. Were WMD's the reason for the invasion? (No)
4. Were WMD's found in Iraq? (Yes)
5. Where did the WMD's that weren't found in Iraq go? (Syria and Lebanon with maps and satellite images)
liberal mindset
October 28, 2007 - 12:18 ET by iveseenitallDowd exemplifies the "liberal" mindset. Complain, complain, complain, but never take action. Let the other guy do it and then complain about what he did. Otherwise, just sit back and do nothing. This attitude allowed Hitler's madness to flourish, and now , if the "liberals" have their way, worldwide destruction will reign again, possibly on American soil. The U.N. is nothing but a corrupt organization, the Russians and others surely don't have our best interests in mind, but the "liberals" only answer to imminent danger is to stick their heads in the sand, as was done during the (first?) Clinton administration, or to "negotiate", a la Neville Chamberlain. Moreover, liberals are outright liars. Modern "liberals" have caused harm to every facet of American life. Give them an inch to your own detriment.
P.S. Cheney is a man of common sense who is demonized by the left for telling the truth. "Liberals" can't handle the truth!
NEVER,NEVER trust a "liberal"
And with that sage assessment...
October 28, 2007 - 18:00 ET by heldmyw...You have just summarized the Liberal Democrat Congress, their action (or inaction), their mindset, and, thankfully, their effectiveness.
Weapons
October 28, 2007 - 13:02 ET by allanfMark wrote:
Saddam had an inventory of chemical weapons. The only question is where they went. Were they destroyed years before the invasion or hidden shortly before the invasion? There are two possibilites
Iran has nuclear weapons
October 28, 2007 - 13:08 ET by Lame CherryFrom my sources, piecing information together and other leaked intelligence, Iran has nuclear weapons so Dowd is once again New York Times WRONG.
One Iranian defector even have hinted in World Tribune they have more nuclear warheads than I even was willing to credit them.
The simply fact is Iran purchased during the bin Laden buying spree a number of heavy warheads from the former Soviet Union. The SS warheads of the Satan class are large and fitted for the Shahab 2 and 3.......this is why France out of the blue a year ago was telling the world they would nuke Iran.
Iran has been busy refining yellow cake, but because of Israeli and American assassinations and flawed equipment the Iranians have been slowed down. The problem is they are not slowed enough and are in the process with North Korea building nuclear bombs now.
Syria was being evolved into this axis to which the Judeans bombed them several weeks ago.
Iran needs the additional bombs to bring about the ring of fire policy for the Middle East and as I projected 2 years ago in commentary a Cuban, Venezuelan, Columbian nuclear front against America with an absolute attack by "terrorists" on American cities.
While many conclude that bin Laden has his American Hiroshima, it will be Zawahiri with his Soviet Iranian warheads which will be the problem in the Islamocommunist axis.
I will go on record that when a nuclear attack does occur on America, it will either be weapons brought in on Iranian diplomatic transports or "terrorists" launching seaborn Scuds on New York City or DC. (The Iranians already perfected this in the downing of Flight TWA 800 by a missile which Richard Clarke covered up for Bill Clinton so an Iranian war would not have to be fought.)
Consider that point if Bill Clinton had done his job, there would never have been a 9 11. Iran would have been toppled and now an ally. Iraq would have been forced into a stable government of change and none of Dowd's or Carter's idiocy would be even discussed.
This entire Iranian scenario of war is a done deal. Putin and the communists have staged this to pollute the Middle East oil supply with nuclear fallout so Russia will be world sole supplier of oil and gas. Iran is more than willing to absorb the blow as these rather lunatic magic carpet fantasy Muslims in power do not understand that nuclear fallout stays around for 50 years and kills the entire time.
In that sense, the Philistine Neo Syrians (Palestinians) have been told by Condi Rice that a war or massive strike is coming on Iraq sometime around February of 2008. As an Arab Muslim buy off the Bush people have sold out the Judean state for a Palestinian state for a short period of time and the net result will be these rolling strikes.
I will not reveal the intimate details communicated, but I will say I have been pushing more secondary and third level operations to make Iran an ally after this and not just a dust pile.
The Iranian operation can be done successfully and I have indications that certain things are in place. I will state in public that in the next month I really urge the White House and Congress to "start meeting" with Kurd, Azerbijiani and Persian liberty sects in exile and with contact inside Iran to put a public government face on a new Iran which can be helped to rule as in all honesty the United States is going to have to terminate in death the entire Qod's forces, terrorist training camps of about 2 dozen, the Iranian leadership including the Supreme Council and a goodly portion of the Iranian military.
That can all be easily done and I will not explain how as I believe this operation is now close to 80% good to go.
My backing of the Iran policy is simple. A dust pile of Iran even if nuclear and America withdrawn is safer for America in not loosing multiple US cities to nuclear blasts and when the Eurasian World War III comes within the next years, America will be much better off with England and Japan as our fronts with our borders strong from invasion than if we were on the front loosing almost 350,000 troops in the first waves from Korea, Iraq to the Rhine.
Sometimes in life one must take the less worse when the greater worst is the only alternative.
*HIC IACET ARTORIVS REX QVONDAM REXQVE FVTVRVS
Skock and Awe ,was successful in destorying most WMD,s
October 28, 2007 - 15:49 ET by upcountrywater25,000 targets destroyed in 36 hours..
Oh by the way why is Iran making uranium, without a RUSSIAN power reactor to put it in??
Entitlement over infrastructure every SINGLE time.
Crying Wolf
October 28, 2007 - 16:28 ET by momodoThe problem with using the same rational over and over, in this case imminent WMD acquistion, is that someday a real threat will appear and nobody will believe you. Dowd's fake interview could have been real five years ago, but now it rings as farce because Cheney has lost all credibility.
http://dowdreport.bl...
Dowd Report: All MoDo, All The Time
When did it happen?
October 28, 2007 - 17:06 ET by celatorDowd used to be a fair journalist with more or less good intentions. When did she become a vapid agit-prop for the socialist movement?
You're wrong, Mark...
October 28, 2007 - 18:52 ET by m4ster chief...but I say that respectfully. You wrote:
"...Whereas Saddam's possession of WMDs was a matter of reasonable but ultimately erroneous surmise..."
Unless poison gas, which he used on the Kurds, doesn't count. Gas is indeed a WMD, and you can verify that by checking casualty figures from World War One, and Zyklon B in the gas chambers of WWII. If what reports say is true, Saddam himself was a human WMD. But I realize that most people think, "If it doesn't produce a mushroom cloud, it ain't a WMD." The blistered, grimacing, and contorted dead would disagree.
}}---> WMD
October 28, 2007 - 22:13 ET by Cool ArrowLet's get real
Would we use WMD as a last resort? Yes!
How do we know that? We have them.
Manhattan Project
October 29, 2007 - 04:34 ET by UnsaneIndeed, we even invented one of them.
:-)
Res tantum valet quantum vendi potest.