The American Spectator

Roy| 6.13.09 @ 8:00PM

"No matter our politics"? Are there any kind of politics that would cause you NOT to do this?

Although the whole thing does make me think something not even I think that often: if only, if only, GW Bush were back in office. And the first term GW Bush, not the second term Bush of endless caving to the media. He'd smack Ahmaddamagourd with this at every possible opportunity. What will the One do?

Red Phillips| 6.13.09 @ 8:42PM

Roy, what exactly do you think he should do? Commence bombing right away?

Rdman| 6.13.09 @ 9:25PM

Red,

What did Reagan do??? Better stated, what did Iran do upon Reagan's election to the Presidency??

Roy| 6.13.09 @ 9:50PM

"Commence bombing"?

No - I think there isn't going to be a better chance to AVOID having to bomb. I had written a post but Steven Hayes says it better than I can.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/mr_president_another_speech_pl.asp

Roy| 6.13.09 @ 9:51PM

Sigh. Wrapping doesn't work here..

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/mr_
president_another_speech_pl.asp

Mike Lee| 6.13.09 @ 10:21PM

Pssst. Listen. Come here you Hollywood morons and Daily Kos lefties and Geroge Soros puppets. Those videos represent people actually speaking truth to power. Not some over-priviliged Hollywood dink or some over-educated left wing know-it-all speaking out about Bush or Cheney who knows there is no fear of reprisal. Please don't ever count yourselves brave. You cheapen the word.

Red Phillips| 6.13.09 @ 10:46PM

Rdman, when Reagan came to office Iran had our hostages. The situations are not comparable.

I hear a lot of "Obama is weak." "We need to do something." etc. But I really don't know exactly what the be tough on Iran crowd is suggesting other than there is an implied threat of force. What specific policies are you suggesting?

Nikolay| 6.14.09 @ 6:04AM

"Come here you Hollywood morons and Daily Kos lefties and Geroge Soros puppets"
Actually, the similar protests and revolutions in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ukraine and Georgia all had a lot of support from Soros, and there are all the reasons to believe that he's involved in this as well. Google Gene Sharp.

GeronL| 6.14.09 @ 12:06PM

Take out that Guardian Council, thats all we would really need to do.

Fionnagh| 6.14.09 @ 12:48PM

Obama's administration dithered for four or five days just to take out less than a handful fo Somali pirates. Why would anyone think he would prove more effective or decisive with regard to an Iranian coup?

Red Phillips| 6.14.09 @ 1:09PM

"Why would anyone think he would prove more effective or decisive with regard to an Iranian coup?"

Fionnagh, advise the President and help me out at the same time. What precisely do you think he should do? What specific policy are you proposing?

Roy| 6.14.09 @ 3:30PM

Some ideas:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/kristol_wheres_the_soft_power.asp

That's the kind of thing I mean. There really could not be a better test of whether "smart power" really means pseudosophisticated weakness.

Red - if you really want to avoid war with Iran, there's not going to be a much better chance than this.

Fionnagh - "coup" is not exactly the word here. This could be Iran's 1989 - a genuine democratic revolution.

rdman| 6.14.09 @ 4:01PM

Red,

Whether Iran held hostages is beside the point. One thing tin-horn dicators recognize is strength and resolve... that's the pertinent point. Iran and others sense weakness in the Obami Administration, just like they sensed during the Carter Adminisration.

Red Phillips| 6.14.09 @ 5:38PM

"Red - if you really want to avoid war with Iran, there's not going to be a much better chance than this."

See Roy, that is exactly what I mean by the ingrained assumptions being internationalist and interventionist and the default posture being the threat of force. The way to avoid war with Iran is simply not to go to war with Iran. It is that simple.

The Kristol post is the same. That we ought to "do something." Well we shouldn't do something. We should do NOTHING. And we should immediately start getting our troops out of the region so we won't be drawn into a war if Israel decides to attack them.

It is unfortunate that MA stole the election, but it is not our business. It is our business in the eyes of the interventionists because they chose to make it our business. They want it to be our business.

Check your assumptions. They are globalist. Globalism may be many things, but conservative it most certainly ain't.

rdman| 6.14.09 @ 10:25PM

Red,

Excuse my last typos... trying to get used to a new keyboard.

Your position of doing NOTHING would work wonderfully if we had a President like Ronald Reagan. He didn't do NOTHING to free our hostages being held by Iran. He walked away from the Iceland Summit and didn't look back... Gorby was cooked. Reagan simply stated, "Tear down this wall!!" and the wall came done. And Reagan brought the evil empire to its knees without firing a single shot (or missile). I agree with you... we should do NOTHING if we had a President like Ronald Reagan. But we don't and that is the essence of the problem.

Roy| 6.15.09 @ 9:14AM

The question is whether you want war to actually not happen, or whether you want to preen and posture about how opposed you are to it.

With Ahmadamagourd in charge, and especially with the kind of dictatorial power that comes from having successfully said "screw you" to the people, war is exponentially more likely.

But you are right - it does come down to fundamental assumptions. Yours are isolationist. Isolationism may be many things, but head-in-the-sand fantasy it certainly is.