Soccer Dad

Bully for bush

The New York Times is seeking sympathy for a devil. In its editorial Bullying Iran the editors write

Given America’s bitter experience in Iraq, one would think that President Bush could finally figure out that threats and brute force aren’t a substitute for a reasoned strategy. But Mr. Bush is at it again, this time trying to bully Iran into stopping its meddling inside Iraq.

The American Future observes that though the editorial calls for negotiations with Iran and Syria but provides no benchmarks for what would make such negotiations successful. He concludes that the Times's words are empty.

Because the editorial falls well short of meeting this requirement, it is nothing more than a rant against the Bush administration. But that is what I have come to expect of the New York Times.

Q and O notes a reversal

So let's see if I've got this straight. We go into Iraq, remove a murderous dictator, remove at least the threat of WMD, allow 18 million people to take a stab at an open self-government, rebuild their infrastructure, get their oil flowing again, build schools, train police...

Iran meddles by training and arming terrorists to kill totally innocent people and attempting to destabilize Iraq and move them towards Islamic theocratic dictatorship.

And we're the bullies.

Part of the reason for Iran's ascendancy is that its puppets Hezbollah and Hamas. How did they get their power? Well in 2000 Israel withdrew from Lebanon. That was supposed to weaken Hezbollah as it would take away its pretext for attacking Israel.

In 2005 Israel withdrew from Gaza and that was supposed to strengthen moderate Palestinians and give them a chance to govern themselves. Instead it brought Hamas to power and invited terrorists to shoot rockets at Israel with even greater frequency than before.

When dealing with extremists, the "reasoned approach" only encourages them. Sure they'll fight back if you attack them. But that's the only hope of degrading their abilities.

more at memeorandum

Blogdigger tags: Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Israel, War on Terror.