I've neglected to blog about two ideas I heard on TV that seemed important.
1. Chris Matthews, a history buff, has been praising Eisenhower. And not just praising Ike for his political marketing, as this Times Op-Ed column did. But Matthews mentioned Suez. The fact that Eisenhower put the brakes on that adventure of neo-colonialism. He didn't make too much of it, but some day historians will say that the Israel lobby got itself together in the 1960s and from then till 2008 or so it was all she wrote. Nixon railed against it, Ford fumed, Carter threw himself body and soul agin it, Reagan propitiated it, George Bush was enraged by the settlements, etc. But no one had the effect that Ike had. I think that was Matthews's dog whistle meaning. Maybe I was the only dog, though.
2. Duncan Hunter is a rightwing congressman from California with a military bent. At a hearing a week or so back of political appointees with Iraq responsibilities, he dismissed the idea that it was a mistake to disband the Iraqi army when the Americans took over. You'll recall that the disbanding of the army in April is the great original sin cited by George Packer and Charles Ferguson, director of No End in Sight. Up till then, in their view, the war was peachy-keen. Anyway, Hunter said that if you had kept an officer corps loyal to Saddam, there would have been no real change and far more turmoil in the end. There would have been chaos. I think it's a reasonable point, but it only serves a more important point. Once we decided to invade, the choice was, A, Chaos, Murder and Mayhem, or B, Chaos, Murder and Mayhem.
