Fareed Zakaria Blasts John McCain's Foreign Policy Stances As Uninformed "Fantasy"

[babylonsister]

http://crooksandliars.com/node/37887


Fareed Zakaria Blasts John McCain's Foreign Policy Stances As Uninformed "Fantasy"
By Nicole Belle Monday Jun 21, 2010 9:00am
Video/transcript at link~


As disenchanted as we liberals can get over the Obama presidency and their apparent obliviousness to progressive priorities, we should all breathe a huge collective sigh of relief that we are not facing a future with President John McCain and Vice President Palin (if she managed to ride out this far into her term). Nevermind how much more poorly their response would necessarily be to be BP spill...can you imagine a third front (or actually, fourth, if you count the undeclared one in Pakistan) in the War on Terror™ in Iran?

Well, that's what we would have with President McCain. This week, he continued his ongoing campaign to attack Iran in the pursuit of a regime change with a speech at the National Endowment for Democracy:

My friends: I believe that when we consider the many threats and crimes of Iran’s government, we are led to one inescapable conclusion: It is the character of this Iranian regime – not just its behavior – that is the deeper threat to peace and freedom in our world, and in Iran. Furthermore, I believe that it will only be a change in the Iranian regime itself – a peaceful change, chosen by and led by the people of Iran – that could finally produce the changes we seek in Iran’s policies.

The only problem, as Fareed Zakaria points out, is that McCain doesn't understand the reality of Iran, just the neocon lies about the country. And his undermining of Obama's diplomatic efforts with such bellicose rhetoric is the exact opposite of helpful.

I imagine Senator McCain, like many others, sees the situation in Iran as analogous to Eastern Europe in 1989. Back then, we saw bad regimes crumble with what often looked like very little effort. But I don't think the analogy holds. Those dissenters 20 years ago had three things on their side in Eastern Europe -- nationalism, because communism was imposed by the Soviet Union; democracy; and religion, because communism forbade religion.

I would argue that the Green Revolution only has one of those three clearly on its side - democracy. The regime can use religion and nationalism just as easily as the protesters can.

McCain simply does not seem to understand the regime he wants to overthrow. <..> Look, the Iranian regime is very repressive at home and up to no good abroad. I do not like this regime at all. The U.S. State Department has called Iran the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism, and that is an accurate description of the regime's activities in the region.

But I think much of Senator McCain's rhetoric plays into what is a kind of recurring American fantasy, that all good things always go together and all bad things go together, that men like Ahmadinejad are evil, also have no legitimacy, are also unpopular, and preside over a fragile regime about to collapse.

By the way, if we do want to try and help the Green Movement and we want to try and undermine this government, the most important policy choice we could make would be to not listen to Senator McCain's many suggestions that we should bomb the country.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. I'm not sure what it is that often rubs me the wrong way about Zakaria...

but he's often very right, and is definitely correct on this issue as well. Maybe it's his tone. :shrug:

[babylonsister]

2. I don't know; he's very intellectual and seems to me to have

no patience with those who aren't, like gramps.