Fareed Zakaria Blasts John McCain's Foreign Policy Stances As Uninformed "Fantasy"
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.
Full transcripts below the fold
ZAKARIA: And now for our "What in the World" segment, what got my attention this week was a speech and an article by Senator John McCain.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZAKARIA (voice-over): In case you were wondering how a McCain foreign policy would be different from President Obama's, here it is. John McCain would have helped overthrow the government of Iran last year.
MCCAIN: If the president were to unleash America's full moral power to support the Iranian people, if he were to make their quest for democracy the civil rights struggle of our time, it could bolster their will to endure in their struggle, and the result could be historic.
ZAKARIA: This has become a mantra among neoconservatives these days. If only Barack Obama had given a few more speeches that supported the Green Movement, the regime in Tehran would have collapsed. But this is foreign policy as fantasy. I see no evidence that the Iranian regime could have been toppled a year ago, nor have I seen any to suggest it can be toppled today or anytime soon.
The regime has many opponents, but also many, many supporters in the country. President Ahmadinejad had the support of millions of people before the election. A 2009 telephone poll of Iranians by two American think tanks found Ahmadinejad leading Mousavi by more than 2 to 1.
Now, any polling in Iran is suspect, but these results are confirmed by many shrewd observers of Iran. Once you get out of the cities, into rural areas, among the poor, the devout, Ahmadinejad continues to have a following, and he plays to the religious and nationalistic feelings of many Iranians.
The supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, is also widely respected. Maziar Bahari, the "Newsweek" reporter who was jailed by the Iranian government for four months on trumped-up charges, says that Khomeini is certainly the most popular political figure in Iran.
I imagine Senator McCain, like many others, sees the situation in Iran as analogous to Eastern Europe in 1989.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAKARIA: 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.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MCCAIN: Is it any wonder that this is the same regime that spends its people's precious resources not on roads or schools or hospitals or jobs that benefit all Iranians but on funding violent groups of foreign extremists who murder the innocent? ZAKARIA (voice-over): In fact, the Iranian government spends vast amounts of money on subsidies for the poor and lower middle classes, their base of support. Iran has high literacy, decent health care, and many social programs. The economy is a mess, but its defense budget is not staggering. It's about $8 billion. America's, by the way, is about $660 billion.
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.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAKARIA: 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.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCAIN: That old Beach Boys song, "Bomb Iran", you know, bomb, bomb, bomb - anyway -
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAKARIA: Now, John McCain was joking when he said that, but he has on many occasions seriously suggested that bombing Iran might be the only way to stop its nuclear program.
Now, if you want to find a sure way to have the country rally around the - the regime, if you want to destroy the Green Movement, if you want to give Ahmadinejad lots of international sympathy and support, what we should do is bomb Iran.
Fuck Fareed Zakaria. He's just another war pimp as far as I'm concerned.
Idiot.
I think he was for invading Iraq...
But at least he isn't as big a nut as McLame.
First, I agree that Zakaria was a war pimp, a big cheer leader for the Iraq war and occupation. But in this case he is making an amazing amount of sense.
This is what is so disheartening about a lot of people on the left, they seem more interested in disparaging everyone else than in making allies and in actually changing things.
.
"Folks, this is not your father's Republican Party."
Joe Biden
will friend MikeD on Facebook now?
Hasa Diga Eebowai
" I agree that Zakaria was a war pimp" did you not understand?
Mcain, Lieberman israeli agents. Charge em for Treason for betraying america
Zakaria is just another colonial pimp. Just like many other such as Blitzer or anderson cooper, serving their masters with fake legitimacy as network anchors. Really no different than corporate lackey Big Barry, hillary or smiley joey
Excellent piece.
"McCain simply does not seem to understand the regime he wants to overthrow"
Most obvious observation ever.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
..my guess is not too much except "must spend money, must preach war, must get reelected".
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
; )
push Mr. Magoo off a cliff.
where aspiring journalists had fantasies about getting to take a turn in a Straight Talker's tire swing.
"Folks, this is not your father's Republican Party."
Joe Biden
victim of the Viet Cong. It's left him with a deep seated need to lash out at someone, anyone. And preferably from a distance.
if you read Chomsky he always disparages the various psychoanalytic approaches to politics. Who knows what drives McCain. Perhaps you are correct but if that is so how do we explain the war mongering of all the chicken hawks who never served a day in uniform, let alone were ever captured or abused? The important thing is that what they advocate is criminal and their arguments are based on lies. That is incontravertible. The deep seated motives, whether it was because they were captured by the Viet Cong or had a castrating mother, are speculation and pointless.
.
"Folks, this is not your father's Republican Party."
Joe Biden
in the motivations of the persons who own the pols?
Be as you wish to seem
Are you aware of how Viet Cong were treated when caught bombing Americans? They were regularly tossed from helicopters at 1000 feet and above.
Mr. Magoo spent 5 years drinking beer.
"unleash America's full moral power"....
The joke begins there....
Iranians want and deserve the right to change from within...
and besides...we already stole their democracy...supported a repressive tyranical leader and supported Iraq in the 80-88 war...and shot down one of their civilian airplanes to boot...
So whatever they are doing on an international or domestic scale...we have no right to pretend we hold any higher ground.
We mustn't forget that the only casualties America took during that time were at the hands of the Iraqis.
I was there shortly after the USS Stark was bombed in 1987. I did some temporary duty on-board the USS Acadia while she helped with repairs. Over twenty years later and I still can't get the smell of burning flesh out of my nose.
The bombing was no accident but Reagan's puppet Rumsfeld still glad-handed Saddam through the whole affair.
History will confirm that Reagan and Bush were the termites to America's foundation.
Bush's quote after we shot down Iran Air 655? (July 3, 1988)
"I will never apologize for the United States — I don't care what the facts are... I'm not an apologize-for-America kind of guy."
If the numbers were to be added up...which country (US-Iran) has been responsible for more deaths of the others citizens...
well....
not to say they don't have their hand in the pot in the Mid East....
Can you seriously blame them? We have our "hand" in the entire world. The amount of terrorism, torture, rigged elections, that we've committed in South and Central America make Iran's pot stirring look like nothing. And we've been hostile to them ever since they had the temerity to overthrow the dictator we installed.
and if a US airliner was shot down by an Iranian warship over the gulf of Mexico...
well...wouldn't we want a bomb if we didn't have one?
If the Iranians even sent warships to the Gulf of Mexico, let alone shot down a civilian air liner, we would probably destroy them. It reminds me of Hillary Clinton's comment during the campaign that we would destroy Iran if they attacked israel. Everyone was up in arms about it but I thought for once she was just being honest.
to help with the spill?
"Folks, this is not your father's Republican Party."
Joe Biden
IMO Obama would never accept their offers of help. For one thing he doesn't really need it. We spend more than the rest of the world combined on our military and a lot of that goes into the Navy. I doubt there is anything Iran could give us we don't have or couldn't get elsewhere but even if they could the political cost to Obama of accepting their help would be massive. He would be pilloried by the right wing loons as well as by the MSM (probably including Zakaria) who would get distracted from the story about how the repubs have more sympathy for BP than for the "little people" which is the last thing he wants now.
They have a lot of exeperience in such matters. And ships that could help too.
We told them to to go fuck themselves.
Can't accept help from countries you mean to crush one day now can you?
I don't believe in God. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life.
-Andrew Carnegie
..I've maintained (and if not here elsewhere) that Freedom comes from within. If a people want freedom, they must rise up and sacrifice if necessary their own blood before they ask for the blood of another nation to be spilled in their cause. Its not the like the French came here in 1776 and said, "Why don't you revolt against England?" now is it.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
McOverthrow-someone-else's-government speaking there?
It's an ironic name then, right?
me-oww!
Common sense and John McCain go together like oil and water.
With similar results...
The Vietnamese did not cause brain damage to this man?
I don't believe in God. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life.
-Andrew Carnegie
Acts of agression by the US legitimize Ahmadinejad's views. Even McClunker should understand this.
but he doesn't
He sees this solely through the exceptionalist filter of neocons.
We are quick to blather all over the place about what a bunch of maniacs the governing powers are, how crazy and weird Ahmadinejad acts and looks and yet we have no idea of what life is like there. Honestly. We see some op ed articles talking about lack of free press, etc. We read about maniacal clerics.
We don't know, however, what their daily life is like. Do they have fun? Do they go to work? Go to school? I saw a wonderful group of photos of Tehran one time and it blew me away. I thought the place looked like a desert outpost. Turns out it's a modern city with lots of parks, high-rise buildings, etc.
If the US press'treatment and description of Iran and Iranians is similar to their treatment and description of Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and many other U.S. leaders, we're getting the wrong picture. It's all cartoons, with the U.S. always playing the good guy and everybody else playing the evil, stupid, backward, zealots.
Joan of Oak
..the MIC would get wealthier. Of course more American troops would die for a war we can't win or fight to win (if mccain was president). The sooner this guy is voted out of office, the better except for the fact that jdhayworth is not all that there in the head either.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
...he's saying exactly what I was thinking during the Iranian election last year.
Most western media never strays beyond Teheran and has no idea what is going on in the hinterlands of Iran. They never talk to anyone who isn't urban bourgeois.
It's as if an Iranian journo landed in San Francisco during the Cheney administration and judged the mood of the entire US from what he's seen here. He'd think the gov't was ripe for overthrow, too.
Someone needs to show McCain a map. Point to Iran and say "Look dumbass, see how fucking big this country is? We don't have the forces to effect change here militarily. If the Iranians want to change things then they have to do it without outside help. End of story." Trouble is he is such a lying son of a bitch, he will say anything to anyone, especially during an election cycle.
Look in the mirror McCain.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
Must
Bang
Head
On
Wall
I don't believe in God. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life.
-Andrew Carnegie
we have the Iran we have today because we overthrew their government in 1953
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_cou...
there could have been a secular, albeit mildly socialist regime in Iran; instead we have the mullahs.
BP didn't want to pay a higher royalty rate in letting Mossedegh nationalize the oil industry...
and at the same time...was not England nationalizing a few of its' own industries?
90% of American adults would say you're lying or just give you a blank, ignorant look if you showed them that.
And that's the problem. How many Americans knew ANYTHING about the countries we have destroyed before we did so?
I don't believe in God. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life.
-Andrew Carnegie
"we have the Iran we have today because we overthrew their government in 1953
there could have been a secular, albeit mildly socialist regime in Iran; "
I know a lot of wingnuts who use the Mossadegh points AGAINST progressives by asking - -ok, if Iran was capable of democracy in 1953 why do progressives oppose the "liberation " of Iraq 50 years later?
that eleven US warships and one Israeli warship have passed through the Suez Canal and are now in the Red Sea...........wonder why that is??
Howz about going into
MyanmarBurma and kick starting their underground "Green Revolution"?There's a certain democratically elected leader there who has been held under house arrest since, oh...1990?
The ruling junta there isn't very nice:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/massac...
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Frankly, this is just about the only joy I get these days from my presidential vote in the last election.
You know I used to think all the talk about how the left thought Obama was the mesiah was just right wing BS but some times I'm not so sure. I for one never thought that his election was going to change everything and I can't understand why anyone would think that. He never claimed to be a progressive. He was clear from the start that he was a middle of the road democrat, which was still a million times better than McCain and (shudder) Palin.
Not to mention even if he WAS a progressive all the talk about a veto proof majority was just BS. He never had a real majority in congress. When you realize there are so many DINOs who are as far to the right as many Republicans its amazing to me he has gotten as much done as he has. His election and your vote was the beginning not the end. There is a lot more work to do.
Compare the attitude of a lot of american progressives to the Iranian green movement. You wouldn't know it based on how it gets reported in the MSM but they are still fighting. They worked for decades to get rid of the Shah and will patiently work to reform their theocracy. And they aren't whining about their candidate who doesn't do everything they want right away they are getting their heads beaten in and their balls zapped.
They deserve democracy, sometimes I'm not so sure we do anymore.
I certainly had no illusions that Obama was anything other than a centrist, but he has also shown himself to be remarkably unwilling to actually push for the things he campaigned on and has back tracked on a lot of things, like Guantanamo, withdrawing from our disastrous wars of aggression, executive power, etc.
Why doesn't this guy just hurry up and die?!
How unpatriotic can you be!? You may not agree with everything McCain has said or done. But you cannot disagree that this man has spent his entire life working and fighting for this Nation that he so loves. He is a man of much integrity and intelligence. He has experience that is beyond anything any of us could ever have. He is not this dumb crock that some make him out to be...ignorance is not becoming. At his best, McCain is precisely what a senator should be -- independent, passionate, unawed by power, unmoved by influence. He has quickened national debates on torture, the environment, immigration, military strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the budget process. He now stands accused of sidling to the right during a Republican primary -- of which he is guilty. But events of the past year have moved Republicans of every variety to the right, in reaction to the vast Obama overreach.
I am sorry, but, now that Fareed is our fount of all that is good and true I must protest . . . . .
"because communism was imposed by the Soviet Union" and democracy is imposed by the US, so it must be acceptable to the world.
"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." -- I wonder why the "U.S. State Department" and Fareed left off the two countries involved in the most "terorism" and military invasions in the area -- The USA and Israel. Oh yeah, democracies can't do "terrorism", they do "liberation" or "protection of the Homeland".
"Now, if you want to find a sure way to have the country rally around the - the regime, if you want to destroy the Green Movement, if you want to give Ahmadinejad lots of international sympathy and support, what we should do is bomb Iran" -- Or you could just have the major "newspeople" of the USA pronounce that "we want to try and undermine this government".
Ok. Fareed is less of a dumbshit (I mean less of an intellectually challenged mouthpiece) than the fox whores, but the whole idea that we get to change regimes as a right is still pervasive in his ideas.
Same bullshit, different smile.
This actually represents a mellowing of McCain's rhetoric and to me sounds like he would out-Obama Obama if he were president. Which of course is nonsense, but at least he isn't calling for a bombing campaign.
I'll bet no one would be more surprised than Senator McCain to learn that his view of the world is perfectly Manichean, especially after someone explained to him what the term meant. My dogs see the world in black and white too and I am equally happy that none of them is president either.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
MikeD,
I am sorry MikeD, we (the West) had Saddam as an ally for how many years? Israel, our ally for how many years? Apartheid S.Africa? Noriega, our ally. Insert endless list here. . . .(I'll admit that Stalin was a neccessity for a while.)
How many fucked up allies does one need? I, justifiably, do not want to be associated with "war pimp" Zakaria. Except for his position of prominence in the laughable American media, his ideas would and should be abused.
Things will not change for the better with allies like Zakaria. Even if he occasionally says something approaching reasonableness.
you should get your Ayatollah's right. Khomeini has been dead for over 10 years.
They have one of those.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
It's pretty clear that John Banana Republican McCain doesn't
understand much about international politics any more.
He just wants to preserve the commanding reThuglican lifestyle.
That bus has left the depot.
The Republicans are tribal marauders.
I don't see how a caring electorate could see things any other way.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
So they fighting tribal wars."
-Bob Marley.
I don't believe in God. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life.
-Andrew Carnegie
f**kup. I wish he'd just go away. I wish people would stop calling him a hero, because I've seen no evidence of it. If he was half the hero he wants everyone to think he is, he wouldn't have had his records sealed.
He didn't volunteer to be tortured to save others lives, he had it forced on him (I suspect because of his own ineptness, which he showed by wrecking two planes before he even got into a battle), don't get me wrong what happened to him should not happen to anyone, but hero? I don't think so.
'lost' a total of 5 navy aircraft.
....the fools do not realize,a population that can ,..... not paticipate .............in the 'economy'...,can not keep it viable!..........."we are listening,.......and we're not blind.,......this is your life....this is your time."
Fareed Zakaria states that "McCain simply does not seem to understand the regime he wants to overthrow."
Mika Brzezinski accuses Rudy Giuliani of taking "cheap shots" because he had "an axe to grind" with the Obama administration.
When attacked for that, Brzezinski defended herself: "I'm glad that there is someone on the set asking questions when people come and vomit out complete baseless lies on our set." Take that, Rudy!
Bill O'Reilly defends Obama and the escrow account and tries to persuade fruitcake Michelle Bachmann not to necessarily meet whatever the President does with instant reactionary obstructionism. (Good luck with that one, Bill.)
Though "Crazy Joe Barton," as he is affectionately known, doesn't step over any party policy lines but merely parrots the thoughts and the word "shakedown" from a document the 115-member Republican Study Commission had produced the day before, he is met with a barrage of (Republican) condemnation. Hypocritical, sure, but let's settle for what we can get.
Pundits standing up to lying politicians? Republicans scoring political points -- by beating up on their own ranking members? "Something's going on here, and I don't like it, Dr. Watson. It's quiet. Too quiet."
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