Nuke 'Em
I'm rather amazed at how quickly the conservative worldview (at least pertaining to foreign policy) has devolved into childish gibberish and incoherent desires to "nuke 'em all and let God sort them out." Here's Michael Ledeen at The Corner:
Victor says we should first stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan, but that's skipping a step. It is impossible so long as the mullahs rule in Tehran and Assad commands in Damascus. It is a regional war. If we continue to misunderstand it, if we remain locked in this fundamental error of strategic vision, we will endlessly respond to our enemies' initiatives, playing defense in one place after another. Today in Iraq and Afghanistan, tomorrow in Lebanon, Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopea and Eritrea (that is the mullahs' game plan), then in Israel and Europe, and finally here at home. We do not need intelligence agencies to know this, all we need to do is listen to our enemies, who announce it at the top of their lungs. (emphasis mine)
Ledeen is a scholar at AEI, whose wisdom I fairly dessicated in this post. If this represents the best of conservative thinking on foreign policy, then why does is sound so similar to the angst of Rush Limbaugh?
LIMBAUGH: All right, well, let's just have them. Let's just have the civil wars and let the crumbs crumble and the cookie crumble where -- because I'm fed up with this. The Palestinian situation -- for 50 years we've had the Palestinian situation, and it's not going to be solved until the Limbaugh Doctrine is imposed or tried. And that is, this is a war, and until somebody loses it, it isn't going to stop. And now, you know, we've done everything we can to make Lebanon a democracy, and it's crumbling because Syria keeps killing the popular leaders there. Meanwhile, the Hezbos [Hezbollah] keep expanding their influence in Lebanon.But what the hell! We're going to bring Syria and Iran in to fix Iraq, why not let them just fix the whole region? If we're heading to civil war -- I mean, everybody comes to us: "You got to fix this and you got to fix that." So we go and try to fix it, and our own people, Democrats and the left in our country do their best to sabotage our efforts, and then we get blamed for trying to clean up the messes that these people start. And then they come on our television show: "[Gibberish] George [gibberish] civil war [gibberish] we gotta do something. Palestinians it's a must, it's a must, we must [gibberish] right now [gibberish] war."
Fine, just blow the place up. Just let these natural forces take place over there instead of trying to stop them, instead of trying to use -- I just -- sometimes natural force is going to happen. You're going to have to let it take place. You can spend all the time you like with diplomacy, and you can spend all the time you want massaging these things with diplomatic -- you're just -- you're just delaying the inevitable.
But let's be fair. Here's how preeminent conservative intellectual Newt Gingrich views the "war on terror:"
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich yesterday said the country will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism.
Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message.
"We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade," said Gingrich, a Republican who helped engineer the GOP's takeover of Congress in 1994.
I've never understood why "new thinking/rules" were needed after 9/11. It was never inconceivable to me that the United States would suffer a terrorist attack at some point. Don't people remember that the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993? Like I've said before, I think some people lost the ability to think rationally after 9/11. And how does one promote freedom and Democracy abroad while "rethinking" these notions at home? According to George Bush, terror and democracy are antithetical. So why should we be adjusting our thinking to accomodate terrorists? Isn't that what Gingrich is saying? I thought that the terrorists were trying to influence us (by making the American people vote for Democrats). Do you see, reader, how incoherent conservative thought on this is? Maybe the 9/11 effect I mentioned was the transference of George Bush's mental abilities to hawkish Americans because I sure as hell don't understand what they're talking about anymore.
NY Times: "Bush Blames Al Qaeda for Wave of Iraq Violence." That about sums it up for me. At TPM, Josh had a similar reaction, so I wrote him an email. I think I've figured out the Bush/Gingrich/Limbaugh/Ledeen/etc. worldview:
Josh,My reaction to today's NY Times article, "Bush Blames Al Qaeda for Wave of Iraq Violence," was similar to yours. The headline itself ought to be put in a time capsule, so when historians of the future write about the Iraq Civil War, they will be forced to deal with the historical figure of George W. Bush. Using my crystal ball, I suspect they will, in their research, determine that the President was channelling the blind patriotism of the 1980s, and sincerely believed the opening words of the GI Joe television cartoon. In particular, GI Joe's raison d'etre:
GI Joe is the codename for America's daring, highly trained
special mission force.
It's purpose, to defend human freedom against Cobra-
a ruthless, terrorist organization determined to rule the world.
Replace "Cobra" with "Al Qaeda" and tell me the difference between the view expressed by the president in the Times article and the above pledge to "fight for freedom where ever there's trouble." I don't see one. And that is both pathetic and tragic.
I'll let Josh have the last word here:
The Times piece does a pretty good job explaining how everyone in the military and intelligence circles now agrees that 'al Qaida' (whatever that means in Iraq exactly) is not the real issue in what's happening. But to the president, it's still us versus al Qaida. Possibly with outside support from Dr. Evil and KAOS. I really never thought this country could be run for a significant period of time by a president who seems captive of dingbat conspiracy theories and the strategic complexity of a children's bedtime story.