David Kenner posted an interesting list this week at FP.com: “Who Wants to Bomb Iran?” Kenner cites the views of Pipes, Bolton, Podhoretz, Muravchik, McInerney, and Boot. I like Kenner’s use of “Perch,” “Justification,” and “Money Quote” to set-up and frame the piece. But, given that this is a standard cast of hawks that we’ve known for thirty years or so, where’s the “Track Record” category?
Seriously, when have these guys been right? Remember, this was the crowd that blasted Reagan for giving away the store when he negotiated the INF Treaty with Gorbachev. Throughout the 1990s and in the run-up to the war in Iraq, this crowd constantly peddled the argument that Saddam Hussein constituted an existential threat to the United States, that his regime had significant ties to Al Qaeda, and that regime change in Iraq would be a cakewalk. Bolton was also the one who claimed Cuba was developing and transferring biological weapons technologies to rogue states. The list is endless….
Since I’m off to New Orleans next week and I still have the Super Bowl on my mind, I’m struck by one thing: Over the past week, sports analysts have done a pretty good job revisiting their predictions of the game — and most acknowledge they were wrong. I gotta say, it’s really a bizarre world when US sports analysts hold themselves (and are held) more accountable than advocates for war.
For the record, I had the Colts….
Jon Western has spent the last fifteen years teaching IR in liberal arts colleges at Mount Holyoke College and the Five Colleges in western Massachusetts. He has an eclectic range of intellectual interests but often writes on international security, U.S. foreign policy, military intervention, and human rights. He occasionally shares his thoughts about professional life in liberal arts colleges. In his spare time he coaches middle school soccer, mentors the local high school robotics team, skis, and sails.
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