Two weeks back, Paul Krugman got off a brilliant stroke in the Times, when he cited that “peculiar rule, which still prevails in Washington, that you have to have been wrong about Iraq to be considered credible on national security.”
The examples of this are legion. The author Peter Beinart, for instance, putting himself forth as an advocate for the use of force overseas after admitting, I got it wrong on Iraq. Sort of like a kid asking for matches after he burned now the neighbor’s house. Shouldn’t these people have a little humility? Does the suffering unleashed in Iraq mean nothing to them? Or do they rationalize it, saying, Oh it was inevitable when Saddam fell. Do any of them have family members at risk in these adventures?
Yesterday the Washington Post gave a platform to Richard Perle, once again lecturing us about a third force in Iran, and the dangers of appeasement:
A few days ago, I spoke with Amir Abbas Fakhravar, an Iranian dissident student leader who escaped first from Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, then, after months in hiding, from Iran. Fakhravar…wonders whether… the proponents of accommodation with Tehran will regard the struggle for freedom in Iran as an obstacle to their new diplomacy.
Wait a second, didn’t he just do that with Chalabi?
