Failure is an orphan. Success has a thousand fathers.
And if the Iraq situation continues to improve, you’re going to see a party full of deadbeat parents rushing back.
Or so says Giuliani:
“I think they’re going to change their minds. I think the verdict of history is going to be that it was the right decision,” Giuliani said.
He argued that had the U.S. not invaded Iraq, it would now be facing two dangerous countries trying to become nuclear powers – Iraq and Iran.
“Suppose Hillary Clinton and John Edwards’ new position was their position back then, that it was a mistake to take him out,” Giuliani said, referring to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. “Wouldn’t we be dealing with Saddam Hussein becoming nuclear right now? If Iran was becoming nuclear what would he be doing? Sitting there letting his arch enemy gain nuclear power over him? Or would we now be dealing with two countries seeking to become nuclear powers.”
“Honest, Junior, the support check really did get in the mail.”
Rudy also does the unthinkable; point out that the Dems are simply not ready for prime time not serious about the world’s real situation:
On Iran, Giuliani criticized Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., also a candidate for president, for saying they would engage in diplomatic relations with Iran. Obama has said he would be willing to meet with Iran’s leader in the first year of his presidency without conditions; Clinton has said envoys below the presidential level should begin diplomatic work.
“This is the world we live in. It’s not this happy, romantic-like world where we’ll negotiate with this one, or we’ll negotiate with that one and there will be no preconditions, and we’ll invite (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad to the White House, we’ll invite Osama (bin Laden) to the White House,” Giuliani said.
The Dems’ response? “Stop talking mean to us”.
Well, close:
The Democrats’ campaigns quickly challenged Giuliani.
Edwards spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield said Giuliani was spinning “convoluted foreign policy theories” and that Edwards “believes we have to take action to end the war quickly and responsibly and bring our troops home.”
Reid Cherlin, Obama’s spokesman, said Giuliani’s “cheap applause lines, unfounded political smears, and shoot-first-think-later politics are irresponsible in a campaign, and would be catastrophic in a presidency.”
They remind me of the Samoan lawyer from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
The left has invested a lot in failure in Iraq. I’d be a dissappointment to them if things turn out okay there.
Oops, except Saddam posed no imminent threat of developing nuclear weapons and taking him out was the bestest present the Iran regime could have hoped for.
Rudy was probably all giddy from watching his beloved Red Sox win the Series when he said that.
Angryclown is waiting for Osama to get invited to the opening of the Bush Residential Li-bary. Gotta figure Shrub’s foreign policy impotence will ensure Osama’s safety for the rest of the administration.
Rudy also does the unthinkable; point out that the Dems are simply not ready for prime time not serious about the world’s real situation:–
So apparently, Ahmadinejad is the equivilant of Bin Laden? One orchestrated the greatest mass murder on our soil in history, the other, uses rhetoric we don’t like, and backs what he sees as freedom fighters against Israel.. yep, they’re the same.
Considering how up in arms you all got about Desmond Tutu using Israel and Nazi Germany in the same sentence, this comment from Guliani is astounding. First, it insults (a kook) but the leader of a large, and moderate (mostly) muslim nation – a nation which offsets the influence of Wahabism, not enhances it.
Second, and more importantly, considering Bush failed miserably with this same approach with North Korea, maybe a lesson needs to be learned, not by OBama, but by the neo-cons, negotiation OFTEN works – refusing to try it is stupid, and cuts your nose off to spite your face.
Third – what precondition shall we set that we haven’t willingly ignored with other leaders in the past? Adhere to nuclear non-proliferation? No, we let Isreal and South Africa skate on that one. Stop sponsoring terrorism, well, we certainly let Pervez Musharaff and for that matter any number of Saudi royals come here to meet with us. So then it appears the rule isn’t: stop making nukes (which we can’t prove and the UN refutes is verifiable) nor is it – don’t sponsor terrorism – nope, it’s “Stop saying mean things about us, and stop sponsoring attacks on Israel” – more the latter than the former.
A question, if we NEVER will talk with Iran until they stop sponsoring terrorism – an approach we didn’t take with Libya FYI – what do you suppose will be the result (as we ratchet up war rhetoric)?
Answer: War with Iran – and since Bush is no fool – you can bet that’s the goal. We’re not looking to avoid it, we’re looking to force it.
If that’s the reality that we should embrace, that we should not look to avoid war, but instead should assert our world view by force, then count me among the people you’d call lambs. Iraq has proven conclusively that our ability to exert our will is limited. Iraq, to the extent it is improving, is improving because the IRAQIS, not us, are sorting things out. They have balkanized, and, through our use of our brains, not the surge, not braun, we have convinced them that foriegn agents are bad for their future – how long until you think they figure out we’re a foriegn agent? More importantly, how long until you think the Shiaa figure out that they have NO need to let US companies control, or even profit from, Iraqi oil operations? Will we re-invade if they shut us out? Bush would, but we, the US, won’t. So other than getting rid of Hussien, and being in part responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, our invasion will result in a pro-Iranian, militant Shiaa state – and one which is reasonably hostile to our presence, and may, in the not too distant future, seek to sponsor Hezbollah in Iran. And THAT’s the short-sighted, narrow, unrealistic worldview you think we’ve missed.
sorry, second to last sentence should read ‘sponsor Hezzbolah in Lebanon’.
Actually Saddamns program was suspended at the time, not killed like Libya’s was after we liberated Iraq.
AC, Osama is living in a dank dark cave. A place so dreary it makes your effeciency apartment look like John Edwards house.
angryclown thinks removing Saddam The Harmless was a present to Iran? I see a hole in this logic…
“Oops, except Saddam posed no imminent threat of developing nuclear weapons and taking him out was the bestest present the Iran regime could have hoped for.”
The Duelfer Report says otherwise. The sanctions regime was near collapse, and Hussein had every intention of reconstituting his nuclear program the second he had the chance.
If we hadn’t taken out Saddam, it’s not likely that Qadafi would have voluntarily removed his nuclear program. If Qadafi hadn’t fully disclosed his nuclear program it’s far less likely that we would have gotten the A.Q. Khan proliferation network shut down. Achieving that was a major counterproliferation coup for the US.
More importantly, if Bush had not crushed the saucer people they would right now be teaming up with the reverse vampires to eliminate the meal of dinner.
Bush had not crushed the saucer …
Which, to be fair, makes a lot more sense than Hillary’s actual foreign policy proposal.
Getting ready for SecState John Stewart.
We have the “verdict of history will prove us right” and the old favorite “Democrats want America to fail” chestnuts all in one! As John Cleese once bellowed, “Ah yes, the song of the truly desperate!”
“Ah yes, the song of the truly desperate!”
Then stop singing.
“The Duelfer Report says otherwise”
Actually here is what the Duelfer said:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12115-2004Oct6.html
“Duelfer said Hussein hoped someday to resume a chemical weapons effort after U.N. sanctions ended, but had no stocks and had not researched making the weapons for a dozen years.”
“The former regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions. Neither was there an identifiable group of WMD policy makers or planners separate from Saddam” tasked to take this up once sanctions ended.
So “Hussein had every intention of reconstituting his nuclear program the second he had the chance” in exactly the same way Jay Reding had every intention of seducing Angelina Jolie the second he had the chance.
So “Hussein had every intention of reconstituting his nuclear program the second he had the chance” in exactly the same way Jay Reding had every intention of seducing Angelina Jolie the second he had the chance.
Yeah, they were exactly analogous.
That’s the keen analysis we rely on you for, Rick.
Maybe there’s a Wikipedia entry about Jay Reding/Angelina Jolie.
It helps to read the source material first:
“Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability—which was essentially destroyed in 1991—after sanctions were removed and Iraq’s economy stabilized, but probably with a different mix of capabilities to that which previously existed. Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks—but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities.”
The fact that his traditional enemy, the Iranians, were developing nuclear technology would have undoubtedly pushed Saddam into following suit. Given that nuclear proliferation had already occurred through the A.Q. Khan network, he may not have even needed to do all that much development work. It’s just as easy to buy nuclear technologies from the black market.
Duelfer states that by 2001 the sanctions regime had essentially collapsed, and that Saddam did want to restart his WMD program — including nuclear weapons — as soon as he could. With the North Koreans and the Pakistanis being nuclear proliferators, he wouldn’t even need to develop his own home-grown expertise to pull it off.
“So “Hussein had every intention of reconstituting his nuclear program the second he had the chance” in exactly the same way Jay Reding had every intention of seducing Angelina Jolie the second he had the chance.”
Damn it, now you know too much!
Then again, I think Saddam would have had better odds…
Given that nuclear proliferation had already occurred through the A.Q. Khan network, he may not have even needed to do all that much development work. It’s just as easy to buy nuclear technologies from the black market.
“The first time you build an atomic bomb, it’s Nobel-Prize-winning physics. The second time, it’s blue-collar craftsmanship”
Chuck blathered: “AC, Osama is living in a dank dark cave. A place so dreary it makes your effeciency apartment look like John Edwards house.”
Bush can be proud because he’s forced the man behind history’s worst terrorist attack to, uh, move to a less desirable neighborhood.
Yossarian:
“It helps to read the source material first.”
Well it did not help you find any evidence that Saddam had any practical or workable plan to acquire a nuclear weapon even if sanctions were dropped. Duelfer found it did not.
“I think Saddam would have had better odds”
Don’t sell yourself short. After all, your attempt would be legal, no one would impose economic sanctions on you if you tried, and if you got anywhere near success no one would bomb or invade you.
Mitch:
You got a source for that quote?
whoops that should be Jay not yossarian
Actually, he found that starting in 1999 Saddam was actively working to keep his nuclear scientists on the payrolls and at their jobs. And again, you don’t need a large nuclear program if you have rogue states like North Korea willing to sell you all the technology you need. The regime’s intent was clear: once the sanctions regime had collapsed, they’d begin restarting WMD programs including nuclear programs. Had Saddam been around and in power today, he’d definitely be doing whatever it took to develop his own nuclear deterrent against the Iranians, and it’s likely that the A.Q. Khan network would still be around to give him all the help he could need.
I don’t know, does a restraining order qualify as an economic sanction? (I keed…)
“Actually, he found that starting in 1999 Saddam was actively working to keep his nuclear scientists on the payrolls and at their jobs”
Their jobs did not involve building nuclear weapons or even planing to build weapons in the event sanctions were lifted.
“if you have rogue states like North Korea willing to sell you all the technology you need”
North Korea is a buyer of nuclear weapons technology, not a seller.
For people who claim to be “serious” about foreign policy, you all seem dangerously ignorant of the difficulty in acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Again, from the Duelfer Report:
“Saddam’s increased interest in the IAEC and publicity of IAEC achievements, increased funding, and infrastructure improvements prompted Dr. Huwaysh to speculate that Saddam was interested in restarting a nuclear weapons program.”
And:
“Starting around 1992, in a bid to retain the intellectual core of the former weapons program, Baghdad transferred many nuclear scientists to related jobs in the Military Industrial Commission (MIC). The work undertaken by these scientists at the MIC helped them maintain their weapons knowledge base.”
Oh really? Then how do you explain this? And apparently The New York Times didn’t get the message either.
So a “serious” person would blithely assume that nuclear proliferation is so hard that we shouldn’t worry about rogue states getting their hands on nuclear weapons. When Pakistan has them. And almost certainly North Korea. And within a few years Iran will. And Libya had a much more advanced program than previously thought.
If that’s your definition of “serious” I shudder to think about what your conception of “irresponsible” would be…
“”taking him (Sadaam) out was the bestest present the Iran regime could have hoped for.””
This is a very valid statement!
“”A question, if we NEVER will talk with Iran until they stop sponsoring terrorism – an approach we didn’t take with Libya FYI – what do you suppose will be the result (as we ratchet up war rhetoric)?””
I’m rusty on this, but wasn’t our approach to North Korea similar, a battle between uni lateral and multi lateral talks. Now, though, it is talk that is working . . .
However, :
“”If we hadn’t taken out Saddam, it’s not likely that Qadafi would have voluntarily removed his nuclear program. If Qadafi hadn’t fully disclosed his nuclear program it’s far less likely that we would have gotten the A.Q. Khan proliferation network shut down. Achieving that was a major counterproliferation coup for the US.””
SPOT ON!
There certainly has been some failures and frustration in this war, but there also has been some key successes that can not go ignored. Libya folding like a chair was one of the biggest bonuses.
Flash
“For people who claim to be “serious” about foreign policy, you all seem dangerously ignorant of the difficulty in acquiring a nuclear weapon.”
RickDFL, all it takes to build an H-Bomb is a few dozen motivated physicists and engineers, a supply of uranium ore, a few hundred billion dollars, and the freedom of a sovereign state. How many countries does this describe? How many of those are hostile to the interests of the United States?
In the past 60 years we’ve seen nuclear weapons developed by some of the poorest, brutish, fanatical nations on the planet.
Yet you think that it is beyond belief that Saddam could have produced a nuke.
Jay:
You seem to think repeating different versions of the same evidence over and over will somehow negate Duelfer’s conclusion that Iraq had not working or practical plan to start making a nuclear weapon if sanctions had been lifted. Yes, Saddam kept scientists working. Would you have been happier if he shot them? But they were not working on how to build a bomb. That were not ever working on putting together a plan to build a bomb. Your average junior college probably has a more advanced nuclear weapons program.
The Bush administration has leaked rumors that North Korea supplied nuclear technology to Syria. If you choose to believe them without scepticism, Judy Miller has a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Passing off the most speculative rumors as solid factual evidence, does not add to your credibility on this issue.
Nuclear weapons are a matter of prudent concern for serious people but we should leave hysterical rumor mongers out of the discussion.
Terry:
“Yet you think that it is beyond belief that Saddam could have produced a nuke”
No. Anything is possible. But there are tremendous technical, political, legal, and military barriers for a country to get over. An Iraq with Saddam Hussein in charge would have ranked way down on the list of countries likely to get a nuclear weapon. To make policy without a full appreciation of those hurdles is to succumb to panic and hysteria.
RickDFL provoked: “The Bush administration has leaked rumors that North Korea supplied nuclear technology to Syria. If you choose to believe them without scepticism, Judy Miller has a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. ”
Ix-nay on the Oooklyn-bray, RickDFL. Cheney’d jump on any excuse to bomb a place with a million registered Democrats.
An Iraq with Saddam Hussein in charge would have ranked way down on the list of countries likely to get a nuclear weapon. To make policy without a full appreciation of those hurdles is to succumb to panic and hysteria.
Rick,
While I normally throw brickbats at you when the topic comes to this sort of thing – because you tend to regurg talking points and really seem to have generally little idea of your own about what you’re talking about – I have to ask you a serious question: Since you’re listing nations that rank “way down on the list of countries likely to get a nuclear weapon”, riddle me this; Pakistan would seem to have ranked even further down that mythical list; Iraq was (within the limits of Ba’athism) a fairly advanced nation with boundless oil revenue under Hussein; Pakistan had enormous (and different) hurdles of its own.
So what was it that made Hussein’s hurdles so much more drastic, in your opinion, than Pakistan’s? And if your answer is “the nation that helped them get the technology” – well, as we’ve seen, many of those same nations (I’m talking France, which famously parntered pretty intimately with Hussein until the eighties, among others) were queueing up to help Hussein as well.
What distinction – beyond one of degrees – do you see?
Mitch:
First – still waiting for a source on that quote.
“So what was it that made Hussein’s hurdles so much more drastic, in your opinion, than Pakistan’s”
Iraq is a signatory to the Nuclear NPT treaty and no signatory to the NPT has ever successfully tested a nuclear bomb. NoKo withdrew from the NPT once without testing a weapon, then withdrew again and unsuccessfuly tested a weapon. Pakistan never signed the NPT. The NPT does not assure that a country will not get a bomb, but it has worked very well in preventing countries from getting a bomb.
Iraq, even if it had escaped some sanctions, like food, would have always been under strict sanctions regarding anything remotely like nuclear technology. Pakistan never faced a similar level of military sanctions. For example, unlike A. Q. Kahn, no Iraqi national would ever be allowed anywhere near a nuclear research center or if they did the CIA would not let them go, like they let Kahn go.
The United States could bomb Iraq at will at the slightest suggestion it was acquiring nuclear weapons. Indeed, the leak of even the slightest evidence of such would put any President under enormous pressure to bomb. Pakistan could count on the tacit OK from the US for much of their nuclear program.
Finally, Pakistan had almost no strategic option other than seeking a bomb. It faced a larger enemy with nuclear weapons and a very live border dispute. Iraq had no nuclear neighbors and a variety of strategic options to deter them short of a nuclear weapon.
“many of those same nations (I’m talking France, which famously parntered pretty intimately with Hussein until the eighties, among others) were queueing up to help Hussein as well”
See this is exactly the kind of silly hysteria I am talking about. Do you think France would give Iraq a nuclear weapon in the 21st century? For what conceivable purpose?
RickDFL-
All rather beside the point. Iran is building a bomb while a member of the nnpt, and it appears that only an act of war will stop them. You also assume that existing UN would have prevented Iraq from making a bomb. That is not byond dispute since Iraq was constantly working to subvert the sanctions regime.
I’ll give you this — successfully toppling Saddam gave the Iranians a greater incentive to build a nuclear arsenal. If Bush and Co. didn’t foresee this in 2003 they were incompetent.
Terry:
Speaking of panic and hysteria –
“Iran is building a bomb while a member of the nnpt, and it appears that only an act of war will stop them.”
No. Go read up on the situation and get back to us. Once you can state the basics of the Iranian nuclear controversy with some accuracy, we can have a discussion.
“You also assume that existing UN would have prevented Iraq from making a bomb.”
Again no. Anything is possible. But the various US and UN safeguards against the Iraqi nuclear program (on top of the NNPT and the IAEA) would have been a significant barrier. I would love to see a discussion of how strong a barrier they would have been, but it is pointless to discuss the situation with shrill hysterics who pretend the barriers were not there.
Lets put in idealogical terms the SITD crowd might understand. There is a perfectly rational debate over the proper safety procedures for nuclear power plants and over whether the risks of nuclear power outweigh the benefits. But there is no point debating with someone who says nuclear power can never be an option because no safety system will ever be perfect.
RickDFL-
You are free to believe whatever you like about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but I hope whoever the next prez is takes the threat of a nuclear Iran more seriously than you do. Your “we have the situation under control” attitude explains the existence of the North Korean nuclear threat.
Terry:
“You are free to believe whatever you like about Iran’s nuclear ambitions”
Again no. You, I, and every other voting American have a responsibility to use the best available evidence and make a careful assessment that protects our nation. Your hysteria and panic threaten the safety of our country.
“Your “we have the situation under control” attitude explains the existence of the North Korean nuclear threat.”
Again no. Using the NNPT/IAEA regime, President Clinton managed to keep NoKo within the NNPT and prevented them from testing a nuclear device. President Bush applied the perfect mixture of hysteria, idle threats, and tail-turning to allow NoKo to escape the NNPT and test a bomb.
RickDFL your instruction to “read up on the situation and get back to us” is an insult. You have demonstrated a tendency to “read up on the situation” and come to whatever conclusion you’ve already reached. You’ve shown this most recently in your touting of a ‘debunking’ of a claimed quote from the Journal of Climate after you review one of the 35 articles in the Journal and did not find the quote:
http://www.shotinthedark.info/wp/?p=1509#comment-18320
Terry:
It was meant as an insult. Anyone who thinks “Iran is building a bomb while a member of the nnpt, and it appears that only an act of war will stop them” is a fair summary of the current state of play is a hysterical fool. Read Cheney carefully, even he does not say Iraq “is building a bomb” he says “Iran is pursuing technology that could be used to develop nuclear weapons”.
As for the JoC
Again no. As I told you then, just pick any one of the articles you think the quote came from and we will take a look.
In both the Iran and the JoC cases, you exhibit hysterical fear of mere possibilities, while I demonstrate reasonable prudence and judge things according to realistic probabilities.
“As for the JoC
Again no. As I told you then, just pick any one of the articles you think the quote came from and we will take a look.”
It seems you are backing away from your earlier endorsement of Miron’s ‘debunking’ of the quote. Again, I’m not saying that the quote was published (as Taylor wrote), but that you failed to see that Miron’s ‘debunking’ was based on the false notion that a review of a single article in the Journal proved to any reasonable person that the quote did not appear. Your words were “In fact it turns out the author [Taylor] is himself a blatant liar”.
Not ‘may be’, not “could be” but ‘is himself a blatant liar’. when you knew no such thing. Anyone who made such a mistake, and continues to stand by it, has demonstrated his or her own foolishness.
Terry:
I disagree. I think Miron did prove to “any reasonable person” that Taylor made up the quote. The article he cited is exactly on the topic Taylor was discussing. No other article is anywhere near the topic. Your inability after repeated challenges to suggest any plausible grounds for considering another article proves my case. Whether I am a fool, depends on whether you can find the quote somewhere else in the JoC.
RickDFL-
You want to make this about whether the Taylor quote was genuine. No sale.
If Miron — or yourself — were serious you would ask yourself why Taylor would choose to make up a quote based on a specific article in Journal of Climate , and that this article would be the only one that was available online so his source could be easily checked. If there were no articles in the Journal that carried a word that identified the subject as the Indus watershed would this prove that his quote was false?
Here’s what I think — my opinion only. Swiftee cited an article where Taylor presented a quote he claimed was from Journal of Climate. You googled the article, probably with ‘debunk’ as a search term. You scanned Miron’s blog post, it agreed with your position, so you quickly used it in an effort to show that Swiftee’s source was, in your words, “a blatant liar”. You never read the Miron post closely enough to see that his debunking was crap.
So now you find yourself backed into a corner, trying to prove that Miron was correct in his debunking of the Taylor piece when, of course, you you assumed that his debunking was done properly in the first place. The fact that in order to do this you have to resort to measures that Miron himself never bother to do speaks for itself.
Terry:
“why Taylor would choose to make up a quote based on a specific article in Journal of Climate , and that this article would be the only one that was available online so his source could be easily checked.”
Because he recognized that his target audience (people like you) would not check and would not care if somebody else did and caught him. Whatever else, Taylor knew you would not run off to the library to find the truth.
“If there were no articles in the Journal that carried a word that identified the subject as the Indus watershed would this prove that his quote was false?”
Nothing can ‘prove’ the quote was false, if you are willing to keep inventing more and more unlikely scenarios under which it remains true. But the answer to your question is yes, obviously. It is far more likely that a quote about the size of Himalayan glaciers in the Sept. 2006 issue of the JoC has been faked, if in fact the the Sept. 2006 issue of the JoC does not have any articles about Himalayan glaciers.
“You never read the Miron post closely enough to see that his debunking was crap”.
No it is obviously accurate. They article Miron checked is obviously the one to which Taylor refers. Most obviously, if there had been more than one article on Himalayan glaciers in the Sept. 2006 JoC, Taylor would have been specific about which one he meant.
You think saying ‘Taylor is a liar’ requires someone to show there is no possibility that Taylor told the truth. But that is clearly silly.
“The fact that in order to do this you have to resort to measures that Miron himself never bother to do speaks for itself.”
Would you prefer if I just said your nuts?
RickDFL-
Would you prefer if I just said your nuts?
You can say anything anything you want to say.
At this point I think it is obvious that your critical skills are less than knife-sharp. Perhaps you and PB could meet up some time and discuss the various ways that nimble, adaptive rhetoric may be used to crush your opponents?
I eagerly await your next comment. Six feet is all that tradition calls for but you may dig deeper if you like.
Terry:
Right back at you. Trash talk only highlights your inability to find the Taylor quote in the JofC or anywhere else. I am sure if you could find it you would be doing a gleeful victory dance.
Lost is this tangent is your inability to explain why even Dick Cheney won’t say “Iran is building a nuclear bomb”.