Kristol: Hersh Scaring People Away From ‘Limited and Credible Military Opt

[sabra]

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/04/10/kristol-hersh/

Kristol: Hersh Scaring People Away From ‘Limited and Credible Military Option Against Iran’

This morning on Fox News, Bill Kristol slammed Seymour Hersh’s article about plans being developed by the Bush administration to bomb Iran, possibly with nuclear weapons. Kristol called the article “bad reporting” that was intended to “scare people away from a much more limited and credible military option against Iran.” Kristol also suggested that the only alternative to a nuclear Iran was “military strikes.” Watch it:




Transcript:

KRISTOL: I think 60 percent of Americans are right. It’s not the UN’s fault Iran wants nuclear weapons. The current regime in Iran wants nuclear weapons. It’s not going to be deterred by little slaps on the wrist by the IAEA or probably even by sanctions by the UN Security Council which we probably will not get because of Russia and China. And therefore we’ll go and try to have sanctions with our allies against Iran. I’m not sure that will work either. I think we may, the only alternative may be a nuclear Iran or military strikes to take out their nuclear facilities

HOST: There’s a report you probably saw that Iran might try to launch terror attacks against US civilians on American soil if we were to take any military action. With that in mind, take a look at this new Fox News/Opinions Dynamics poll. It’s really quite stunning. If Iran backs terrorist attacks right here in the US, only 32 percent think we should respond with large aggressive military action. 30 percent think we should negotiate. What do you make of that after two wars, are Americans simply war weary and does that limit our options?

KRISTOL: No, Greg. I mean a third of Americans who are against, certainly, the war in Iraq, even before it began and probably are again - think war doesn’t solve problems and they’re going to be pretty consistently against military action. What’s striking there is that two-thirds of Americans basically say military action may be necessary. We should not be deterred by the threat of terrorist attacks. I mean, one thing people haven’t thought about is that if we have limited military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, they could threaten terrorist attacks, but we would still have leverage on them. It’s not as if we, it’s not their turn. This isn’t a checkers game, you know. We would still have leverage in terms of really going after the regime itself. And I don’t know that it would be that easy for them to simply unleash terror against us to the degree they’re not already unleashing it against us.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. What a total ass!

This isn’t a checkers game, you know

[baby_mouse]

2. ???

"And I don’t know that it would be that easy for them to simply unleash terror against us to the degree they’re not already unleashing it against us."

???

[pagam]

3. Here we go again

does this asshole beleive that we are stupid? I mean this is the same crap and rhetoric he used to get support for the bush clan fiasco in Iraq.

[etherealtruth]

13. Yes , this ass hole does

"this is the same crap and rhetoric he used to get support for the bush clan fiasco in Iraq."

Sadly it worked. My hope is that the tragedy that is the Iraq "mess" will prevent "us" from being that stupid again.

[Nickster]

4. Wow, such great insight Mr. PNAC'r. Please may I have some more War?? n/t

[ChairmanAgnostic]

18. and pass the salt, while you are at it.

[Canuckistanian]

24. Tell people he was responsible for Iraq

He and all his other PNAC buddies.

Wolfowitz. Perle. Khalizad. Cheney. Hadley. Rumsfeld. Abrams. Libby. Bolton. Armitage. Krauthammer. Woolsey. Bennett. Gaffney.

Their names should be carved in stone on a wall of shame as the Americans who tried to end democracy in the USA and replace it with a corporate oligarchy.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

32. Feith, Gonzales, Ashcroft, Perle, Rice, and others provided cover or worse

and don't forget the guy who let all this crap happen.
George W. Bush, the worst president in the history of our country.

[Beelzebud]

5. What is "limited" about nuclear war?

What a fucking douche bag Kristol is.

[Totally Committed]

10. Exactly.... it's sort of like

a half pregnancy. Kristol is a faithful administration mouthpiece, always has been.

TC

[Totally Committed]

6. It's deja vu all over again....

Is this not the same "lead up" that Iraq got?

Hersh is always right about these things.

TC

[donsu]

7. Kristol is a professional trouble maker and traitor

nt

[DBoon]

9. and a war criminal

nt

[flyarm]

22. war criminal is right..that prick belongs in the hague in prison for

murder!

i hate that sob!

go the fuck away mr. pnac! and shut your blow hole!

fly

[BlooInBloo]

8. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Those are the war drums-a-beatin...

[MrModerate]

11. Yes, he thinks we're that stupid . . .

. . . and yes, he IS that stupid himself.

Or perhaps just blinded by overweening arrogance to the extent that he can't imagine the rich banquet of disasters that could follow on a military strike (not to mention NUCLEAR strike) on Iran.

That's one of the things that got us to where we are today in Iraq -- impoverished imaginations among the neocon zealots, unable to see alternatives to their tidy, macho scenarios of how things would actually play out.

And if he thinks Iran is "unleashing terrorists" on us already -- i.e., there's no escalation possible -- then he's beyond stupid and into ancephalic territory.

[The_Casual_Observer]

12. He speaks with such authority, since he and his buddies did such

a great job in Iraq. Who gave this louse a role as opinion shaper?

[SeattleRob]

14. Why doesn't he sign up!

I am sick of these chickenhawk warmongers!

[Crankie Avalon]

17. He dodged Vietnam when he was the right age for it...

...so why would he sign up for Iraq now?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

15. Limited? Credible? An invasion is just that. An invasion.

We have long known that Kristol has no shame. But an active dissembler and outrageous liar? That is news to me.
The way he morphs from his mistaken analysis of what percentages of deluded americans would support this invasion to claiming that they are already "unleashing terror against us" show clear signs of mental instability.

I suppose part of it stems from his recognition that Iraq is a mess and getting worse. Being a chief cheerleader in the run-up to the war, only to see that every justification he proposed and cheered on turned out to be a lie, well, that must be unpleasant. Good. It is a lot more unpleasant for the survivors whose boys and girls are now burried underground.

[no_hypocrisy]

16. Geez, Kristol didn't just drink the Kool-Aid. He's got it hooked up

to an IV in his arm!!

[GreenArrow]

19. "everybody wants to go to Baghdad...

but real men want to go to Tehran".

[DancingBear]

20. "This isn’t a checkers game, you know"

No, it isn't Billy.

And you know how we know?

Because if it was, you'd VOLUNTEER.

But since people can, you know, actually get hurt or (gasp!) DIE over there you'll keep your chickenhawk chickenshit ass as far away from it as humanly possible.

[flyarm]

21. kristol is a murdering PNAC king!..that ...

fucking murderer!!

Kristol..go fuck yourself! since you have done your damnest to fuck my nation/country you neo con murdering filth!



fly

[Warren Stupidity]

23. So after our 'limited air attack' does nothing...

We bomb Iran using conventional weapons and we do little or no damage to their nuclear facilities. What next?

Meanwhile Iran will retaliate, after all we have committed an act of unjustified belligerence against them. They appear to have two cards to play in this game:
1) they close the straits of hormuz, and if successful this results in a huge oil panic.
2) they play the Iraq card and Iraq, currently a mess, becomes a mess to the nth order.

They might also lob a rocket or two at the Israeli Nuclear facilities, the ones we pretend don't exist that put Israel as number 5 or 3 on the nuke list. That effort will probably be as ineffective as our bombing of their sites.

So what is our next move? Note that (2) above could conceivably lead to an untenable military situation on the ground in Iraq. I say the Bushistas are going to go straight to Plan N. It is that whole shock and awe thing they love so much.

Isn't Plan N when the rest of the world formally choose sides and we get on with armageddon?

[Strelnikov_]

26. Third Card, As If We Need To Add More To Their Asymmetric Capabilities

3) Mount attacks, either overt or through guerrilla operations, against Saudi and Kuwaiti oil facilities.

At this point, I see MAD as the only option, as the risk of doing something militarily now far outweighs any possible future risk.

[Just Me]

25. Kristol,...how many times do you have to be proven wrong before you STFU!!

:mad: He is so fucking dense and narrow-minded. He was proven wrong on his "predictions" of the Iraq debacle. He's a throw-away, to say the least.

[noonwitch]

27. We do need to stop the insane mullahs from getting nukes

Invasion, especially unilateral invasion, is just not going to do it by itself. I really think if we can stir up a rebellion among the Iranians, we can get them to throw off their oppressive government. The average iranian citizen wants free trade with the rest of the world, the women would like to have rights like we do in the west, and most of them would like to be able to drink the products from their secret stills a little more openly.

A free and democratic Iran would be a good thing, and it is something the people there want, and need to be encouraged to fight for.

[Warren Stupidity]

28. Oh bullshit.

They are not "insane mullahs". The vile theocracy in Iran is not insane and has shown no evidence of expansionism or aggression. The only 'insane mullah' here is our own messianic idiot in washington. The only aggressive belligerent military force on the planet is our own. The only serious threat of a nuclear attack is from our own military, and given that we have now repeatedly if not overtly threatened first strike use of nukes against a peaceful Iran, the Iranians are entirely justified in developing a nuclear deterrent to our insanity.

[Strelnikov_]

29. These Hawky Types Don't Think It Is That 'Limited And Credible'

Contemplating The Ifs
W. Patrick Lang & Larry C. Johnson

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/files/lang_johnson_tni_83.pdf (.pdf warning)

. . .

In this atmosphere of building tension, Iran is not going to sit idly by and wait for America to crush it. Tehran has nearly achieved the installation of a friendly government on its western border. While U.S. bases in Iraq could potentially be used to infiltrate Iran with spies and commandos and, more importantly, to support and launch air strikes, those bases are vulnerable politically, not to mention logistically. The supply lines of food, water, fuel and bullets to U.S. bases run from Kuwait to the north and through the Iraqi Shi‘a heartland. Iranian intelligence agencies have given Iraqi Shi‘a massive support since the U.S. invasion. The Shi‘a are well organized and control the country through which U.S. supplies are moved. Islamic militants loyal to the likes of Ali al-Sistani and Moqtada al-Sadr could easily cut vital supply lines.

Iran can also play the oil card. If Iran were attacked, Iran could halt its oil exports and thereby immediately impact the global price. It would be unwise to hope that Iran, as part of its national security plan, is not willing to shut down Persian Gulf oil exports. Iran is well equipped to shower Persian Gulf states and oil fields with missiles, or to shut down exports with a variety of other military, terrorist or political methods. At a minimum, a U.S. military air campaign, even if successful in wrecking the Iranian nuclear program, would severely disrupt oil markets for at least six months. Such a disruption would hurt the world economy, not just that of the United States. In addition, there are countries sympatheticto Iran, such as Venezuela, that have indicated they are more than willing to cut off their oil supply to the United States. The United States could find itself facing a 20–30 percent shortfall in oil imports (and that estimate assumes that the Saudi fields are untouched and that oil imports continue to flow unimpeded).

. . .

With nuclear weapons in hand, Iran will become the dominant local power in the Persian Gulf. They will have no pressing need to use these weapons, because their mere possession will ensure that everyone in the region, including Israel, will have to deal with them as a major power. We, too, would probably have to learn to deal with them on this basis.

. . .

What would be the posture of the United States if the Iranians gain nuclear weapons? Would we maintain forces in the Persian Gulf and in Iraq? How safe would Europe feel, given the ranges of ballistic missiles Iran is developing, plus those that the Chinese have previously sold to Middle Eastern countries (Saudi Arabia for example)? In the end, it may become necessary to confront Iran militarily over its emergent nuclear power status, but the costs would be so high that all diplomatic resources should be exhausted before such measures are adopted.

[warrens]

30. Yeah, billy, your military expertise was so stunning pre-Iraq

Why don't you neocons just STFU?

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. They got the message

loud and clear... I wonder how many of us SENT letters to congress critters who are now screaming behind closed doors... and if this is the case... we just might prevent the deployment of nukes

[npincus]

33. let's hope America is shit-scared, and has an epiphany

about the raving, fucking luntatic in the WH. That may stop this end-of-the-world plan in its tracks.