Republicans Call for War

[babylonsister]

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=republicans_call_for_war

Republicans Call for War

Emboldened by midterm gains, Republicans return to Bush's hawkish approach to dealing with Iran.


Matthew Yglesias | November 11, 2010 | web only


The release this week of former President George W. Bush's memoirs is a welcome reminder of how American foreign policy has changed for the better since the good old days of launching wars for no reason. Unfortunately, Sen. Lindsey Graham of North Carolina doesn't seem to have caught up on his reading. Instead, at a Nov. 6 conclave in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he came out swinging in favor of a new war. The target: Iran. The goal: to "neuter the regime."

snip//

Growing awareness of the problems with military options is presumably what's driving Graham's talk of "neutering." Up until now, the primary issue under discussion was bombing Iranian nuclear facilities. This, however, won't stop Iran from getting a bomb and may make it go nuclear sooner. Hence Graham's proposal "not to just neutralize their nuclear program, but to sink their navy, destroy their air force, and deliver a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guard -- in other words neuter that regime."

This entire proposal, however, is one part wishful thinking and one part hand-waving with a dash of madness thrown in to boot. A regime is not a dog. The idea of neutering one is either meaningless or else a call for yet another invasion and occupation of a medium-sized Muslim country. Even if such a plan in some sense "worked," it would only reinforce the message Iran learned from the invasion of Iraq -- that the United States is an insanely aggressive country, undeterred by standard military accoutrements. Nuclear weapons start to look more appealing.

So far, though, nobody seems quite prepared to push for invasion. Instead, Washington is buzzing with morally hideous speculation over the possible political benefits to the Obama administration of starting a war. The hope, it seems, is that the administration will want to avoid a political fight on this topic and can be nudged into an ever more hawkish posture. One can only hope, however, that the White House learned during the Bush years not only the perils of hawkish delusions but also that there is little political profit for Democrats in signing up for foreign-policy disasters. Barack Obama is president today in no small part because he stood against the Iraq War at a time when most of the Democrats' leading lights went along with it. Now that Obama's running the show, he needs to reconnect with that moment and start pushing back before it's too late.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. How are they going to pay for it?

[Sherman A1]

2. by cutting Social Security, Medicare and repealing HCR

along with borrowing the bulk of it from China.

The GOP really doesn't plan on paying for anything, they just borrow more to put the next generation into further debt.

[Tesha]

3. Hell with "pay for it"; with *WHAT* army are they going to fight it?

Our military is already kind'a tied-up in two useless
wars already!

Tesha

[dgibby]

4. Not the army.

Graham wants to use the Navy to bombard them.

[Tesha]

7. And Iran will just sit back and allow that, right?

Acts of War tend to be met with Acts of war in return.

Tesha

[dgibby]

12. No kidding!

Sure glad I'm retired. I have a serious lead allergy!

[gkhouston]

5. Sigh. We need to institute a math test as a requirement for running for Congress.

NO exceptions.

[grilled onions]

6. War Is THEIR Business

Unfortunately they don't fret over paying for it. They don't actually have to have a reason either. All they need is a few well worn ideas that they have tossed around decade after decade whenever a country,person,place or thing does not set well with them. A person who would not fit into their country club membership, a place they have little use for or a place they would like to take over(i.e. a place that has something THEY want like oil)or a thing which could be ANYTHING they want it to be. Like fuzzy math their reasons for war are fuzzy. We no longer have the backing of a majority so they never call them wars anymore. They are conflicts,police actions or have clever names created in the Pentagon war room--the same place where they think of how other big money projects in this country(like NASA) can be used more for them and THEIR projects,like spy satellites then exploring space as it was first intended. Or was it? In the early sixties it appeared to be more of a race with Russia for our reasoning to constantly have these missions but now as more sneaky laws,ideas are in place you have to wonder if spying and destroying wasn't their plan all along. If we got to vote on such money pits there wouldn't be HALF the impromptu wars of theirs nor the mega hotel complexes they call embassies. Why are they there? What are they good for? Absolutely nothing.

[Supersedeas]

8. Republican Employment Program -- send the Poor and Middle Class off to fight for oil profits

[Exilednight]

9. Haliburton and whatever they call Blackwater these days, must be running low on cash. n/t

[Arugula Latte]

10. How can there be this many completely insane and nefarious people in this country?

Seriously, I could understand if it were a fringe group, but this entire Republican party seems to be composed of millions of heartless, evil, batshit-crazy Voldemorts.

[rug]

11. Who wants to argue for compromising with this?

[butterfly77]

13. K&R..

[tanyev]

14. Interesting. I got polled this week about Republican candidates

in 2012 and there were a couple of questions about Iran policy.