"Giuliani Foreign Policy Advisor Says 'Bomb 'Em'"--(Gotta love the 'Pod')

[laststeamtrain]

Giuliani Foreign Policy Advisor Says 'Bomb 'Em'

With Rudy Giuliani hanging on at least until I-Can't-Believe-We-Have-Nine-More-Months-Of-This Tuesday (February 5), his candidacy still matters, if a little bit less than before. You might be interested to know, then, that one of the Hero of 9/11's neocon foreign policy advisors has just written an astoundingly long-winded piece in the conservative journal Commentary advocating that the U.S. military bring its shock and awe to Tehran. Norman Podhoretz, intellectual godfather to the neocons who goaded us into the Iraq mess, argues that the only way to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is a preemptive bombing campaign—this despite the latest National Intelligence Estimate finding that Iran suspended its nuclear program in 2003. The only question, says Podhoretz, is of "who should do the bombing." Israel? Nope, they don't have the necessary military capability to ensure success and, besides, the Iranians would blame us anyway. "If Iran is to be prevented from becoming a nuclear power," he writes, "it is the United States that will have to do the preventing, to do it by means of a bombing campaign, and (because 'If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long') to do it soon."

So, does Rudy agree with this assessment? After all, as of October, Podhoretz was still among the group of hawks whispering in his ear (along with the likes of Daniel Pipes and Michael Rubin). According to Giuliani's chief foreign policy advisor, Charles Hill, a State Department veteran who also worked as an aide to U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali, the answer is no. "Norman's position is unique to Norman, and it's well thought out," Hill told the New York Sun last fall. "It is not a far out, radical position, and it is deeply felt and held intellectually, but it is unique to him. Rudy Giuliani has Rudy Giuliani's view." What's that exactly? That we should give tougher sanctions a chance. As for Podhoretz, he says, "I express my views mainly through email communications to the foreign policy team. Rudy is free to accept or reject them."

Still, having Podhoretz in the mix (not to mention Pipes and Rubin) is enough to make you question where Rudy's really coming from. He might as well add the Filipino Monkey as his communications secretary...

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/01/6974__with_rudy_giul.html
*

Gotta love the 'Pod' & Daniel 'crack' Pipes. They're not obsessed about anything. They're clear-eyed foreign policy realists as sure as our next president will be an ex-mayor.

[Selatius]

1. If we bomb Iran, we're looking at the entire Middle East turning into a battlefield

Countries like Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon could easily be sucked into such a conflict. Turkey, Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and other states could also get dragged into the conflict through various ways.

It would be the largest conflict seen since the Second World War, and we don't have the manpower or the position to deal with such a large conflict.

[Angela Shelley]

3. What about the battlefield in your back yard?

Other countries have planes too.

[Selatius]

4. Eh, the threat from enemy warplanes is negligible. Iranian agents on US soil, that's a bigger worry.

Iran's retaliation will be unconventional and asymmetric in nature, given that they don't have the conventional means to match the US military, so they will use a combination of sabotage using spy agents like blowing up oil lines in Saudi Arabia, support of surrogate groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, and guerrilla warfare tactics inside Iraq against US forces.

[Angela Shelley]

5. Thanks for the professional information, Selatius,

and I have no data to support my claims.

... but it makes me laugh to hear "the threat from enemy warplanes is negligible."

Is that island mentality or what?

[Selatius]

6. Well, Iran doesn't possess warplanes with the range capable of hitting US soil.

If you're talking about US assets in Iraq, that's another story, but if a war with Iran begins, the US Airforce will likely destroy their airforce on the ground within hours by cratering their runways with bombs and missiles before their planes can take off.

[Angela Shelley]

7. Range capability depends on where you´re shooting from.

You know how well the attack, invasion and occupation of Iraq is going, and Iraq "had no military".

Iran is another story.

First, because they have strong military capabilities.
Second, they have more friends than the US does.

[Selatius]

8. True, but Iraq isn't bombing the continental US with warplanes.

And with the possible exception of Russia, which is on the fence at any rate, Iran's allies likely also don't possess warplanes capable of hitting US soil.

[Angela Shelley]

9. It´s nice to know that whatever the decision may be,

we will not be in danger. UGGGGHH

Why do we have bunkers?
Why do people have gas-masks in their emergency box?
and why do we have airplanes which patrol air space?

[Selatius]

11. I never said the US wasn't in any danger if a war broke out.

But you narrowly defined the topic of debate down to simply enemy warplanes. None could reach US soil at any rate. That doesn't mean terror cells from Iran can't blow up civilian airliners inside the US, but that's not classified as being hit by enemy warplanes.

[groovedaddy]

2. If NYC Fire Dept. folks had their way, ROOTIE would be running all right

running out of the country!

[The Stranger]

10. We need to give Norman a rifle and drop him off on Iranian shores.

"Go get 'em, Norm!"