It helps that the neocons in both the United States and Israel made emphatically clear how much they wanted Ahmedinejad re-elected. If they had kept their mouths shut — and pretended that they preferred the moderate Moussavi — they would have a bit more credibility now as they shout that Ahmadinejad’s election justifies an end to diplomacy.
But they didn’t prefer Moussavi; they preferred the thug and said so. The internal contradiction in their argument can be seen in these words from Israel’s very neocon deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon today.
“We had no illusions about these elections in Israel,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, “because on the nuclear issue there was no fundamental difference between the candidates.” Nevertheless, he added, Ahmadinejad’s election removes “any glimmer of hope for change in Iran.”
Got that? Even though there was no difference between the candidates, Ahmadinejad’s “victory” removes “any glimmer of hope….”
Here is Elliot Abrams: “Both the apparent victory and the apparent fraud greatly complicate the Obama strategy. My advice is that they had better be thinking about more sanctions….Sanctions that bite might be a powerful tool and might push the regime into a serious negotiation. But it is more likely that the engagement strategy has been dealt a very heavy blow.
So what do these guys want?
They want confrontation with Iran, no matter who runs the government. Above all, they want President Obama to stop thinking about diplomacy and give Israel the green light to attack Iran that George W. Bush refused to give.
It’s not going to happen that way because the argument for diplomacy, and against war, is as strong after the stolen election as it was before.
America’s interests are the same regardless of the state of democracy in Iran. And those interests (the safety of American troops in Iraq, the survival of Israel and our other allies in the region, the supply of oil, eradicating Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and preventing Pakistan’s collapse, etc) all require us to prevent the neocons from leading us into another debacle — a twin pillar of failure to erect next to the Iraq war.
I’ll leave it to the experts to explain exactly why and how to pursue diplomacy. But for now, here’s my rule of thumb. The neocons are always wrong. They were wrong when they led the American cheering for Ahmadinejad and they are wrong when they lead the moaning over his “victory.” In fact, they have not been right any issue in the 30 years or so since Norman Podhoretz invented neoconservativism.
Neocons are a great and true weathervane. They always point in the wrong direction, the very opposite of a moral compass.
Tags: Iran, Israel, neocons, President Obama, United States
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