Neocon Militarist Joshua Muravchik: Stoking the Conflagration in the Middle East

Nov 26, 2006

By Walter C. Uhler


Viewers of the November 15, 2006 airing of Democracy Now were given the treat of seeing Amy Goodman's interview with former Senator George McGovern, current Congressman Dennis Kucinich and the American Enterprise Institute's Joshua Muravchik. The subject under discussion was titled: "Out of Iraq or More Troops?" A "treat?" Yes, viewers (or readers of the transcript) were able to see Mr. Muravchik, an acerbic-tongued neoconservative militarist, in action.

Mr. McGovern started the debate by recommending a gradual withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, commencing in December and ending in June 2007. Congressman Kucinich supported Mr. McGovern's gradual withdrawal, but proposed to give it teeth by having Congress cut off all future funding for the war. Mr. Muravchik advocated sending "a lot more troops" "until we can bring some order to Iraq."

Muravchik seemed oblivious to a few well-known facts on the ground: (1) The very presence of American occupiers fuels the insurgency (2) the United States is unable to commit "a lot more troops," except in the short run, (3) such troops would become sitting ducks in the escalating civil war, and (4) the American public would not long tolerate an escalation that didn't bring immediate results.

But, beyond allowing his neocon ideology to blind him to such facts on the ground, Mr. Muravchik cannot yet admit to how "catastrophically wrong" (like his neocon brethren) he was to recommend regime change in Iraq in the first place. Listen to his limited hang-out mea culpa: "Things that we did in Iraq may have been mistaken, may have been misguided, and so on." And so on? How about criminal and immoral? And why are you appearing on television and writing Op-Eds when you should be rotting from within, conscience stricken, and in well-deserved ignominious isolation for you egregious error?

Instead, Muravchik appeared on Democracy Now and despicably slandered McGovern, a World War II hero: "Listening to Congressman Kucinich sounds like listening to a broken record from the '60s or the people who wanted to follow Senator McGovern's advice and give up and surrender in the Cold War."

Senator McGovern not only rebutted the slander, but also noted: "a lot of these so-called hawks, who sound so belligerent vocally, never have been near a battle scene. They know nothing of war from firsthand experience."

Yet, skeptical readers of Commentary magazine would have been familiar with Mr. Muravchik's decades of slander, militarism and error.

Consider that, in June 1988, Muravchik gratuitously attacked The Nation when he wrote: "Thus has the Nation progressed from its long and dishonorable history as an apologist for Soviet tyranny to the still bolder and more dishonorable role of accomplice." Or consider that, in October 1990, he complained about Nelson Mandela's "unrelievedly triumphal" tour of the United States.

Writing in May 1991, Muravchik expressed the hope that the U.S. victory in Iraq had destroyed "some very wrong ideas [concerning reluctance to use American military force] from our Vietnam debacle. And, in July 1992, he wrote in defense to the 1992 Defense Policy Guidance, penned by fellow neocon Paul Wolfowitz, which aimed at nothing less than America's military dominance of the world.

Given his expressed enthusiasm for the use and efficacy of U.S. military power, one can see how Muravchik committed his catastrophic blunder of recommending regime change in Iraq. One also can understand why he recommends sending more troops to die for his initial blunder there.

Finally, given his militarism, one can understand why this armchair chickenhawk urges the United States to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. Witness his recent Op-Ed, "Bomb Iran," written for the Los Angeles Times. There, Muravchik accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, an accusation that currently has as much validity as the Bush/Cheney lies about Iraq's WMD. Perhaps, like Cheney, he has his own one percent doctrine, when it comes to evidence.

He also claims that Iran "is a country on a mission," as if Iran's goal of regional leadership hasn't' been abetted by the neocons' own failed mission of regime change in Iraq. Finally, Muravchik provides his real reason for wanting to bomb Iran: "An Iranian bomb would constitute a dire threat to Israel's 6 million-plus citizens." But, beyond falsely assuming an Iranian bomb, Muravchik fails to mention the threat posed to Iran by both Israel's and America's nuclear arsenals.

Were he a serious scholar, rather than an advocate for Israel, Mr. Muravchik would read the chapter by Dan Reiter ("Preventive Attacks against Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons Programs: The Track Record") found in the recent book, Hitting First: Preventive Force in U.S. Security Strategy.

Reiter reaches two basic conclusions about such attacks: "First, limited attacks such as air strikes almost never work, in that they rarely delay NBC [Nuclear, Biological, Chemical] programs significantly. Further, any minor successes in the past are not likely to be repeated in the future, as in anticipation of such attacks regimes are concealing and dispersing their NBC facilities. Second, attacks that change regimes might help remove NBC threats, though even when successful, war does not always change regimes durably. Moreover, the uncertain benefits of such wars must be weighed against the very high costs. Resources might be more efficiently spent on counterproliferation and counterterrorism priorities other than preventive attacks against NBC programs." [p. 28]

Thus, Mr. Muravchik should reconsider his numerous errors and eat some humble pie before recommending military escalations that will only deepen the hole that the Bush administration has dug in the Middle East. Either that or put his own smacked-ass on the front lines.


Walter C. Uhler is an independent scholar and freelance writer whose work has been published in numerous publications, including The Nation, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Journal of Military History, the Moscow Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. He also is President of the Russian-American International Studies Association (RAISA).

waltuhler@aol.com

http://www.walter-c-uhler.com/Reviews/muravchik.html

We Must Do What? Armageddonite Hogwash.

by Karen Kwiatkowski


The neoconservative moment in American politics has not passed, and it won’t for some time. It is a fundamental part of our modern American empire, and most people seem to like the idea of being in the upper echelons of a great empire, even if it is an illusion. There is also something utterly and basely human about the whole neoconservative political outlook that tells me we won’t be rid of it easily.

Neoconservatism encourages our natural reluctance to believe that other countries might be populated with mothers and daughters just like us, sons and fathers like our own, caring friends and neighbors who look out for us, and happy children filled with dreams. While advocating democracy and "freedom" for these other people for whom we "care" so much, neoconservatism demands that we simultaneously see them as subordinate to our wishes. We are happy to meet them, subject to our economic and military boot – or else we are happy to meet them in a hell of our own creation.

Neoconservatism – indeed American foreign policy – is unscathed and unthreatened by Democratic success in recent elections. We might have known that any foreign policy that celebrates our natural reluctance to deal with the mote in our own eye before we obsess about the speck in our neighbor’s eye would be secure in populism.

Our sordid tendencies toward rage and bloodlust are fed and nurtured by neoconservative prescriptions in foreign policy. Knowing this, I was still shocked to see Joshua Muravchik’s November 19th opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times.

I was surprised that an essay of such ignorance, such hatred, and such embarrassing lack of credibility was published at all in a major newspaper. I was surprised that Joshua Muravchik has an audience; that he apparently does is frightening.

I get a lot of email from people who seem to enthusiastically hate other people for their ethnicities, their religions and even their politics. They often prescribe solutions for their problems that are entirely about changing or punishing those they hate. Their energies are often spent justifying their hatred and dreaming of ways to get governmental institutions to "enforce" their proud contempt.

My reaction to these emails is to delete them. After all, this type of thinking and acting is wrong, unethical, un-Christian, and evil.

So when I read Joshua explain why we must bomb Iran as soon as possible, I was surprised that the LA Times hadn’t also hit the delete button.

Sure, Muravchik hails from the American Enterprise Institute and we do expect this type of stupidity from the folks who insisted the same thing five years ago regarding Iraq. Yes, the AEI still informs key players in the White House and in Congress. And we do understand the real role of Washington think tanks these days.

But in "Bomb Iran," one wonders what it is really all about. The official neoconservative view, as produced by the AEI and AIPAC too, is that Iran must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. That they do not have one is irrelevant. They must never ever have a nuclear weapon – under no imaginable government, under no imaginable regional or global arrangement. Islamic countries and bombs are a bad mix, according to neoconservatives.

Please forget that the nice Pakistanis have the bomb, and please forget that we have been told Pakistan nearly succeeded in giving it to the Libyans, just before the Libyans turned into nice people, too.

In "Bomb Iran," Joshua says that we cannot deter Iran’s use of a nuclear weapon – once they have one – by telling Iran that if anything in the whole wide world happens, we will nuke Iran. This, by the way, is Dick Cheney’s foreign policy – we will assume Iran is behind anything bad that happens, and first use of the great American nuclear arsenal against Iran is our present security doctrine.

Joshua worries that if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, "[c]oming on top of North Korea's nuclear test, ... would spell finis to the entire nonproliferation system." Apparently, AEI’s ivory tower is an actual tower made of ivory. A tower with no windows, no internet, no television, no radio, no intelligent life. It was clear to me and a few billion other people back in the 1970s that finis for non-proliferation had already been spelt.

Joshua worries that Iran is an archenemy of the United States and Israel, and he worries that it is led by a messianic leader, and that Tehran seeks regional dominance. If only we could get at that damn mote in our own eye. But alas, we aren’t even looking.

Thus, Joshua – Alfred Prufrock style – recalls Churchill and World War I, and the Cold War, choices not made, actions not taken, the painful anonymity of timidly sitting on ones’ hands. He says if we do not bomb, we will not "forestall" Iran’s regional dominance and its global war, and Ahmadinejad the next Lenin. If we do bomb, Joshua says… well, it would be better. Trust him.
What, indeed, is it really all about?

First, it is about guys like Joshua Muravchik doing their workaday job. Advocating positive solutions to real American security challenges does not earn them a paycheck. Instead, feeding the ongoing Washington and Tel Aviv obsession with whether Israel or Iran will be the regional military and economic hegemon does. Hence, Joshua is just doing his job.

Secondly, it is about the Washington establishmentarian desire to lay the psychological-linguistic groundwork for what is going to happen soon – and for those with connections in this White House, to come out on the "right" side early and often. "Bomb Iran" becomes legitimate to say, and thus to think and do, even as the Muravchik arguments, and those of a hundred others in key media outlets, remain illegitimate, illogical, and empty.

And lastly, it is practically important, as four American carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf patiently await the 2006 rendition of a Tonkin incident, as the Air Force and Navy polishes those target lists, as the Army and Marines send more troops into the region. We hear that more troops are going to Iraq because of its complete political and security breakdown, but the Pentagon knows our troops cannot save Iraq, and if they enter into the fray, they will be killed. Instead, it seems more likely that these troops will stay on the major U.S. bases in central and southern Iraq, and elsewhere in the region, until needed for the next big thing. The news that more American troops may be required in Afghanistan also fits nicely with what must be done. As Cheney visited our men in Saudi Arabia this past weekend, and as the Secretary of State sees our man in Jordan, it’s all on track.

Telling us this is the only reason the LA Times would publish the type of racist, evil, Armageddonite hogwash as found in "Bomb Iran!" Consider yourself told.
November 27, 2006


Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. [send her mail], a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, has written on defense issues with a libertarian perspective for MilitaryWeek.com, hosted the call-in radio show American Forum, and blogs occasionally for Huffingtonpost.com and Liberty and Power. Archives of her American Forum radio program can be accessed here and here. To receive automatic announcements of new articles, click here. A version of this article originally appeared on MilitaryWeek.com.
Copyright © 2006 Karen Kwiatkowski

http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski167.html

Wave washes over border; Canadian PM in trouble

Harper is a rigid neocon. He likely will be swept out of power soon. One problem. His "opposition" replacement is Michael Ignatief, a neocon extraordinaire.
---

US Vote Spells Trouble for Harper: With Bush a lame duck, PM’s plans look passé.
Posted by dispatch under newswire , canadian politics , us/imperial politics

By Murray Dobbin
November 13, 2006
TheTyee.ca


For millions of Americans and Canadians, it was a huge sense of relief to see the most corrupt, amoral and incompetent Congress, possibly in American history, go down to defeat. Those days, we can hope, are over, as the political agenda is now in the hands of a Democratic Congress.

For a few weeks, at least, we can enjoy that relief and not dwell on the fact that things may not get a whole lot better. Given the general state of American duh-mocracy (poisoned by money, gerrymandered seats, defective voting machines and dirty tricks), we have to keep our expectations in check. A lot of the new Democrats look a lot like Republicans. We can focus on the fact that for the first time, a woman — and one with smarts and heart — will be the Speaker of the House, and that for the first time, both a socialist, Bernie Saunders, and a Muslim were elected. These are not small things. And Americans — despite being shamelessly lied to by the Republicans and abandoned by their media — came through in the end. They said enough is enough. Bless them.

Lessons for Harper

Canadians are apparently not going to give Stephen Harper six years before they say enough. A poll released by Environics for the CBC on the day after the U.S. election showed the Harper Conservatives and the Liberals virtually tied (33 per cent versus 32 per cent), with the NDP up to 19 per cent and the Greens, notwithstanding their shiny new leader, at five per cent — barely more than their showing in the last election.

Bush’s humiliation will make things more difficult for Stephen Harper. For his core supporters, Harper’s apparently “good” relationship with Bush was a positive. It gave him the aura of a winner — a player on the world stage. But Bush and his party will now be totally preoccupied with how to salvage something in the 2008 election. To them, Canada and Mr. Harper will be even more irrelevant than they are now. Harper has received nothing from Bush for all his sycophantic pandering. If you can get less than nothing — and in Canada-U.S. relations you can — then this is what Harper can expect.

Harper will have to deal with a lame-duck president and one who might even have to compromise with the evil U.S. liberals to devise anything resembling a saving strategy. In other words, Harper’s soulmate will be found straying from the path of the true believer and Harper will look like the anachronism he is. He can’t deal with the Democrats because they believe (or say they do) in all the things Harper hates. For the months leading up to a possible spring election, the America Harper loves will be in change mode.

Americans said no to ideology

Harper’s fatal weakness is his inability to detach himself from his hardline, neo-con ideology. Preston Manning knew that Canadians wouldn’t buy an ideological package, which is why he dressed it up in a populism he didn’t believe in. Harper is constitutionally incapable of such a compromise, which is why he parted ways with Manning. The war he supports will be increasingly tarnished and Bush will be trying desperately to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. In short, Harper could well be totally alone in his counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan — at odds with Europeans and jilted by the U.S.

Government is back in the U.S., after six years of rule by those who were, like Harper, contemptuous of government. The Democrats will be pushing for an increase in the minimum wage, progressive changes to their prescription drug plan, less draconian immigration laws, improvements to their disastrous health care system and a more multilateral approach to the world. And the inheritance tax will stay in place. If it were any other country, it wouldn’t matter. But Canadians are preoccupied with what happens in the Empire next door and what they see will make Harper and his politics look out of synch with the world.

Polls released immediately following the U.S. elections show Canadians increasingly preoccupied with the very issues that hurt Harper’s government.

Medicare continues to be the most important issue, as it was leading up to the 2006 election. But the war in Afghanistan and the environment are now close behind. Medicare was identified as the most important issue facing the country by 16 per cent (compared with 22 per cent at election time), but the environment was picked by 13 per cent (compared to four per cent during the election), while Afghanistan was chosen by 10 per cent (it was at zero in the spring). This spells political disaster for Harper.

Fewer guns, more butter

The rationale for turning Canada’s peacekeeping armed forces into a sheriff’s deputy for America’s permanent war is now in trouble, too.

There will be no invasion of Iran, which was clearly on the Bushites’ agenda last week. The policy of pre-emptive war is, if not dead and buried, certainly on life support. It was this American policy — the spreading of U.S.-style democracy at the point of a gun — that was driving Canadian Armed Forces chief General Hillier’s transformation of the military and the outrageous increases in military spending. With no one to invade, the billions of dollars for war-fighting machinery to give Canadian forces “interoperability” with the U.S. will now look increasingly like an unconscionable waste of money.

While global warming and the environment are not as high on the Democrats’ agenda, they are a lot higher than they were under the Republicans. Mandatory emissions standards for the auto industry are a highly likely initiative as are federal subsidies for alternate fuels. Even corporate America is lining up behind taking action on global warming. Harper’s Dirty Oil Act (a.k.a. the Clean Air Act) has already been widely ridiculed. It will look even more farcical in contrast to any new measures in the U.S. — the country Harper had used to justify his own intransigence.

Deeper integration?

While media pundits focus on Americans’ discontent over the Iraq war, a less well-known factor was the economy and in particular so-called “free trade.” Election exit polls done by CNN and the New York Times showed that Americans’ concerns about the economy and job security out-paced Iraq war concerns. The U.S. group Public Citizen, the leading NGO fighting these corporate rights agreements, has claimed major success in its direct interventions in the election. “Incumbents who had voted for the U.S. trade status quo of NAFTA, WTO and Fast Track were replaced by those rejecting these failed policies…with at least six Senate and 27 House seats being won by proponents of fair trade.”

It remains to be seen if these elected representatives actually deliver on their fair trade promises and even if they do, it does not necessarily mean the deep integration agenda will be derailed. But Democrats are generally less enamoured with trade liberalization, and with this core of fair traders in place, the Security and Prosperity Partnership signed by Canada, the U.S. and Mexico in 2005 could come under increasing scrutiny.

Just months ago, Bush and his henchmen seemed almost invulnerable. Their domestic PSYOP campaign — constant bullying, abusing power and lying with impunity, ridiculing, slandering and threatening anyone who disagreed with them — lasted for five years and seemed to have worked.

But the nightmare on Main Street is over. Americans will now feel free to debate the issues without fear of being branded traitors. Even the media will have to adjust to the new reality. That can only be good for Canada. But for Stephen Harper, who has increasingly modelled himself after President Bush, it is decidedly bad news.

http://briarpatchmagazine.com/news/?p=356

Leading US hawk judges ‘war on terror’ a mistake

US hawk judges ‘war on terror’ a mistake

By Guy Dinmore in Washington

Published: November 23 2006 22:02 Last updated: November 23 2006 22:02


Fred Iklé, a Nixon-era arms control veteran and mentor to the current generation of nuclear “hawks”, has an apocalyptic vision of the future.

However, as a contrarian who confounds his neo-conservative admirers, he is also highly critical of the Bush administration’s handling of threats to the US, and calls the “global war on terror” a serious mistake.

Hopefully for mankind, Annihilation from Within: The Ultimate Threat to Nations, his latest book, will not become another classic to follow his 1971 Every War Must End, credited in 1991 by General Colin Powell, then chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, with inspiring him to bring to closure the first Gulf war. What he calls the “sad message” of his latest work is that the accelerating advance of technology far outpaces the zig-zag development of social and political frameworks that act as controls and brakes.

“We are spreading the dark side of technology,” he tells the FT, describing the “curse of dual use” where, in biotechnology and development of superhuman intelligence in particular, scientists may inadvertently be sowing the seeds of future destruction to be wrought by anarchists or revolutionary groups.

Sixty years ago the US contemplated maintaining a monopoly on nuclear technology, he notes as an example. Just this month the Senate approved giving nuclear assistance to India.

“This is a mistake,” he says.

At 82, still a Washington insider sitting on the Pentagon’s defence policy board, Mr Iklé’s apocalyptic fears focus less on radical Islamists or a nuclear-armed North Korea and more on the danger of a would-be tyrant seizing power by annihilating his government from within, possibly through the use of weapons of mass destruction that would be blamed on others.

He does not see the US as vulnerable to such a coup because of the “powerful influence of its body politic and the hallowed position of the constitution” – but there are likely candidates in the semi-dictatorial regimes of central Asia, the Middle East, or even Russia.

Mr Iklé is worried, however, about the danger of a nuclear attack on the US through a device smuggled into the country. He ex-presses frustration with the Bush administration’s lack of commitment to developing a radiation monitoring system.

Despite his hawkish reputation, Mr Iklé is tough on the White House, calling GWOT – the “global war on terror” – a distraction and a rallying cry that unites enemies of the US, not divides them. As for Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, his speeches warning of a generational GWOT are “defeatist and anodyne”.

Rejecting calls to arms by the same neo-conservatives who advocated invading Iraq, he says a pre-emptive attack on Iran “would be a catastrophic failure”.

Asked if he had been opposed to the war on Iraq, he answers somewhat ruefully: “I wish I could say I was. Enormous and incredible mistakes in Iraq may end up driving us out, but if we handle the exit correctly it will not make the US more vulnerable, and can be made worse for our jihadist adversaries who are killing each other.”

“Pulling out of Iraq will lead to feelings of guilt, with some justification. In some ways we have made things worse than under Saddam Hussein,” he concludes.

Annihilation from Within, published by Columbia University Press

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/42f85512-7b23-11db-bf9b-0000779e2340.html

Leading US hawk judges ‘war on terror’ a mistake

US hawk judges ‘war on terror’ a mistake

By Guy Dinmore in Washington

Published: November 23 2006 22:02 Last updated: November 23 2006 22:02


Fred Iklé, a Nixon-era arms control veteran and mentor to the current generation of nuclear “hawks”, has an apocalyptic vision of the future.

However, as a contrarian who confounds his neo-conservative admirers, he is also highly critical of the Bush administration’s handling of threats to the US, and calls the “global war on terror” a serious mistake.

Hopefully for mankind, Annihilation from Within: The Ultimate Threat to Nations, his latest book, will not become another classic to follow his 1971 Every War Must End, credited in 1991 by General Colin Powell, then chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, with inspiring him to bring to closure the first Gulf war. What he calls the “sad message” of his latest work is that the accelerating advance of technology far outpaces the zig-zag development of social and political frameworks that act as controls and brakes.

“We are spreading the dark side of technology,” he tells the FT, describing the “curse of dual use” where, in biotechnology and development of superhuman intelligence in particular, scientists may inadvertently be sowing the seeds of future destruction to be wrought by anarchists or revolutionary groups.

Sixty years ago the US contemplated maintaining a monopoly on nuclear technology, he notes as an example. Just this month the Senate approved giving nuclear assistance to India.

“This is a mistake,” he says.

At 82, still a Washington insider sitting on the Pentagon’s defence policy board, Mr Iklé’s apocalyptic fears focus less on radical Islamists or a nuclear-armed North Korea and more on the danger of a would-be tyrant seizing power by annihilating his government from within, possibly through the use of weapons of mass destruction that would be blamed on others.

He does not see the US as vulnerable to such a coup because of the “powerful influence of its body politic and the hallowed position of the constitution” – but there are likely candidates in the semi-dictatorial regimes of central Asia, the Middle East, or even Russia.

Mr Iklé is worried, however, about the danger of a nuclear attack on the US through a device smuggled into the country. He ex-presses frustration with the Bush administration’s lack of commitment to developing a radiation monitoring system.

Despite his hawkish reputation, Mr Iklé is tough on the White House, calling GWOT – the “global war on terror” – a distraction and a rallying cry that unites enemies of the US, not divides them. As for Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, his speeches warning of a generational GWOT are “defeatist and anodyne”.

Rejecting calls to arms by the same neo-conservatives who advocated invading Iraq, he says a pre-emptive attack on Iran “would be a catastrophic failure”.

Asked if he had been opposed to the war on Iraq, he answers somewhat ruefully: “I wish I could say I was. Enormous and incredible mistakes in Iraq may end up driving us out, but if we handle the exit correctly it will not make the US more vulnerable, and can be made worse for our jihadist adversaries who are killing each other.”

“Pulling out of Iraq will lead to feelings of guilt, with some justification. In some ways we have made things worse than under Saddam Hussein,” he concludes.

Annihilation from Within, published by Columbia University Press

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/42f85512-7b23-11db-bf9b-0000779e2340.html