I just heard a tiny bit of Ali Gharib talking on Majority Report Monday morning. And he made a great point. He said that for years, conservatives have claimed that the Iranian regime can’t be dealt with. According to them, the government is totally ideological and will never make deals. The same thing was said about the Soviet Union, of course; as a result, I’ve never bought into that idea. It is just another way for people to dehumanize their enemies. But while there has never been any proof that the Iranian leaders were anything but rational actors, the recent negotiations with the P5+1 should eliminate doubt on the part of the most ossified critics.
But Gharib noted that conservatives have met new information about Iran with exactly the same arguments that they made before. So it would seem that there really are unmovable ideologues — and they are not the Iranians; they are our own conservatives. This is, interestingly, a point I often try to make to my atheist friends: religion is not the greatest motivator of extreme evil; power is. Now religion is very often pernicious in its own way, and it is a great tool for the power hungry. But it isn’t necessary at all. The neocon position on Iran is a great example.
Similarly, Monday morning, Jonathan Chait wrote, Netanyahu: Don’t Listen to That Incredibly Explicit Thing I Promised About a Palestinian State. He noted a similar dynamic going on with Benjamin Netanyahu, “He currently opposes [a Palestinian] state on the grounds that it would be run by Hamas, but he opposed a Palestinian state in the 1990s on the grounds that it would be run by Fatah.” That gets to the core of my problem with the Israeli government the last couple of decades: they always have an excuse for continuing to allow illegal settlements and block any kind of deal. Yet in America, Israel is always and forever the good and open-minded actor. (I often wonder what Americans would think if Israeli settlers just started annexing American land. I think there would be violence. But the situation in Palestine is never presented that way.)
What we have in this country is a narrative that we are addicted to. In it, Israel is always right and Iran is always wrong. It is part of a broader narrative that claims that whichever country our government likes can do no wrong and whichever country our government doesn’t like can do no right. See my article, American Double Standard Regarding Democracy, where I discuss the way that the truly horrible government of Saudi Arabia is treated as a great defender of freedom, and the struggling democracy of Venezuela is treated as an evil autocracy that represents an existential threat to the United States.
But as we’ve seen with Cuba, over time, liberals can finally be made to see the light. But among conservatives, it is the same thing as it always was. Being consistently wrong is far better than ever changing your opinion to reflect a new reality. It seems that slowly liberals are waking up to the reality in the middle east. From a foreign policy standpoint, we should do what is in our interest. Making a deal with Iran is clearly in our interest. And increasingly, backup up Israel at all times is not. The conservatives — in as much as they are moving anywhere — are moving in the opposite direction. Fundamentally, I think that the racism that has always been so important to conservative domestic policy is now what is controlling its foreign policy. And so there will be no reevaluation of their position on Iran, because the conservatives are the true ideologues who — at least right now — cannot be reasoned with.
I used to actually read Tom Clancy novels, before they were all ghostwritten. Not read so much as skim. Clancy was sort of a Republican super-conservative mouthpiece before they came out of the closet, as it were.
It was funny how the Implacable Enemy constantly changed. There’d always be one Super Bad Country, whose agents/generals/politicians were hell-bent on all kinds of evil. Usually one Medium Bad Country, whose people were conned by Super Bad into going along with the kill-America plan. And some Formerly Bad country, whose wary, sly, but ultimately helpful people joined the CIA in foiling the plan.
The nations would change, in every book! Russia, of course, went from Super Bad to Formerly Bad overnight (and would be Medium Bad today if Clancy were still writing.) No doubt this reflected what a lot of politicians and people in security services/the military were thinking. It’s very “Five Minute Hate.”
Incidentally on Democracy Now yesterday they had a quote from your old buddy Petraeus, saying Iran isn’t the major threat in the region, nor ISIS — it’s rogue militia groups in Iraq. The panel agreed. Not that it matters to us, we’ll always do the worst, dumbest thing. But it matters to the locals.
“Five Minute Hate” is exactly write. The Hunt for Red October is so stupid. It depends upon the idea that these military guys would simply commit the worst act of treason I could ever imagine. Yeah, military people are so known for that. And it is all because the USSR wants a first strike platform. But almost immediately, the US is able to detect the new sub engine, making the entire plot pointless. Unless, of course, the point of the plot was “US yay! USSR boo!”
That’s all fine for a spy novel, I suppose. But it is generally the way our politics works. Which just shows how ridiculous the plot of the book is. Just turn it around: would we find such a story credible if American soldiers did such a thing? I don’t think so.
Petraeus was on Democracy Now!? Oh, a quote. I’m sure. I find it fascinating the conservatives always talk about listening to the military facts “on the ground.” But then, just like Hitler before them, they ignore them. I’m not saying we should always listen to the military — not at all. But conservatives claim we should, and then when they don’t hear what they want to hear, they ignore them. And note: being less aggressive than the military wants to be is more much reasonable than being more aggressive. God! I’m in a constant state of anger these days!
It is something else — I don’t know if it’s comic or tragic or both, but it’s definitely something — that we pay a small nation’s worth of analysts and experts and spies and God knows else to determine “what’s happening” and then ignore anything half of them say if it’s not expedient. You could pay twenty interpreters to read/watch the news from around the world and get better intel than what our Small Nation of spooks provide. If political correctness rather than intel is what’s wanted, you could pay a small publicity firm to draft spooky-sounding security briefs. There you go, I’ve just shaved our intelligence budget by 99.999%. Not that hard!
You know, if we lived in an honest country, I wouldn’t mind being an intelligence analyst. Learn things about different places, learn some new languages, travel, meet interesting people, it’d be fun. And even an honest country, if there were such a thing, would need to know what’s going on outside its borders. If Finland ever wants a spy, they should call me . . .
This is exactly right. Most of intelligence gathering is simply paying attention to what is going on publicly. I think we’ve romanticized it way too much. The real “spy” stuff we’ve done has generally not worked well and has been done contrary to our stated values. Gore Vidal used to be big on getting rid of the CIA. I’m for that.
I also agree with you that it would be a fun job if done properly. It would be perfect for both of us. I think we have the right kind of personalities. I’ll be waiting for the call. I am definitely interested in spying on Russia! And by “spying” I mean hanging out in bars and drinking.