Rice's Offer to Iran Spurs Unease From Right

[sabra]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-rice12jun12,1,6848235.story?coll=la-news-a_section

Rice's Offer to Iran Spurs Unease From Right
The move to hold talks on nuclear activities worsens fears that the secretary of State

WASHINGTON — While the Bush administration's offer to negotiate with Iran was winning praise from many quarters, conservative commentator Michael Ledeen sat down last week to write a column with a far different point of view.

Under the title "Is Bill Clinton Still President?" Ledeen compared President Bush's conditional offer to Iran to the Clinton administration's "appeasement" of North Korea in the 1990s. Then, he wrote, it won't be long before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice borrows one of former Secretary Madeleine Albright's trademark big hats "and goes to Tehran to dance with the dictator" — an allusion to Albright's controversial trip to Pyongyang in 2000.

As Ledeen's column for National Review Online suggests, the Bush administration's Iran move has compounded many conservatives' concerns about the direction of U.S. foreign policy under the leadership of Rice's State Department. Many fear the administration has lost some of its forcefulness. They are unhappy with the normalization of ties with Libya, the proposed nuclear deal with India, the seeming slowdown in U.S. efforts to democratize the Middle East — which was a cornerstone of Bush's second inaugural address — as well as the handling of the Iraq war.

Bush's slide among foreign policy conservatives came as he was completing a round of attention to domestic base-voter issues such as same-sex marriage, flag burning and estate tax repeal. However, disaffection among his conservative foreign policy critics may not be as easy for Bush to address.

[saigon68]

1. The Princess of Evil drools again

[0007]

3. The plan is to stun Iran into submission. Much like a stun gun!

Passivity is an art like playing the piano.

[saigon68]

10. I'm Stunned

That's one Nasty Photo

[0007]

14. That photo would throw the dampers on a woody in New York second.

[saigon68]

15. Its worse than that

[bemildred]

2. Ah, "faith based" foreign policy.

It would be most amusing to see Ledeen and Kissinger or Zbig argue this one out. The soon to be failed policies now being pursued, which Ledeen rails about, are feeble attempts to correct the damage done by following Ledeen's prescription for unrestricted aggression against anyone who does not instantly obey whatever dicta the empire might choose to issue. Only idiots pick fights they will lose, ergo, Ledeen is an idiot.

[Roland99]

4. If Ledeen is upset, it must be something 1/2 decent

Unless it involves marching across the sands of every Middle Eastern nation with US tanks then it's a bad idea to Ledeen.

[orwell]

5. "...foreign policy conservatives..."

...What a canard. There is nothing conservative about Ledeen and the Neocon's rabid interventionism. In fact, it is radical and audacious, two words I would never associate with classical conservatism.

But then, nobody pays attention to words anymore. It is all symbols, slogans, and sound bites.

[Julius Civitatus]

6. Ledeen wants blood! And he wants his blood now!!!

This monstrous neocon Michael Ledeen, this poor excuse for a human being wants Ayrab blood now.

I truly don't understand how after f*cking up on Iraq the way that they did, these pieces of shit have the gall to still call for more wars and invasions.

When is Ledeen gearing up and joining the front lines?
He can volunteer and join the troops any day now.

:mad:

[grytpype]

7. After 9/11 they could do no wrong...

... now they can do no right!

They are on a death spiral.

[Toots]

8. Comparing how Clinton handled N. Korea to Bush*'s handling of N. Korea

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[UpInArms]

9. Ledeen is definitely one of the most evil things to exist on this planet

Who is Michael Ledeen?

May 8, 2003

Most Americans have never heard of Michael Ledeen, but if the United States ends up in an extended shooting war throughout the Middle East, it will be largely due to his inspiration.

A fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Ledeen holds a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin. He is a former employee of the Pentagon, the State Department and the National Security Council. As a consultant working with NSC head Robert McFarlane, he was involved in the transfer of arms to Iran during the Iran-Contra affair -- an adventure that he documented in the book "Perilous Statecraft: An Insider's Account of the Iran-Contra Affair." His most influential book is last year's "The War Against the Terror Masters: Why It Happened. Where We Are Now. How We'll Win."

Ledeen's ideas are repeated daily by such figures as Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. His views virtually define the stark departure from American foreign policy philosophy that existed before the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001. He basically believes that violence in the service of the spread of democracy is America's manifest destiny. Consequently, he has become the philosophical legitimator of the American occupation of Iraq.

Now Michael Ledeen is calling for regime change beyond Iraq. In an address entitled "Time to Focus on Iran -- The Mother of Modern Terrorism," for the policy forum of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) on April 30, he declared, "the time for diplomacy is at an end; it is time for a free Iran, free Syria and free Lebanon."

With a group of other conservatives, Ledeen recently set up the Center for Democracy in Iran (CDI), an action group focusing on producing regime change in Iran.

Quotes from Ledeen's works reveal a peculiar set of beliefs about American attitudes toward violence. "Change -- above all violent change -- is the essence of human history," he proclaims in his book, "Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are as Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago." In an influential essay in the National Review Online he asserts, "Creative destruction is our middle name. We do it automatically ... it is time once again to export the democratic revolution."

...more...

[hadrons]

11. separated at birth

Michael Ledeen

[Copperred]

12. This man is not a Conservative...

In all honesty this man is not a conservative. He is way out of line, and basically a war monger for special interests cloaked as a "conservative".

It is because of men like this that the real conservatives are looking for new people to support, hopeful that someone can purge the Republican party of these twits.

When Pat Buchanan and the American Conservative take this guy in, let me know....

[Supersedeas]

13. Conservatives have real issues with Condi's conduct--Do not impugn her

integrity that way--with facts and such.