Yesterday I caught part of PBS travel guru Rick Steves's wonderful trip to Iran on television. His whole message was great, till he spoke of "family values" in Iran. That's why people support the Islamic republic, he said, they have traditional family values and don't want their children to grow up to be Britney Spears. That strikes me as true. Then he said, Isn't it ironic that the people in this country who are the hottest to attack Iran are the ones who support traditional family values, too?
This is an error, and it speaks to the lack of logic on the left about the "war on terror." The people who want to bomb Iran are almost invariably supporters of Israel, and most of them are Jewish neocons. Elliott Abrams and Joshua Muravchik, for instance, who argued for bombing Iran at the University of Virginia the other day. They are not family-values types. They are the Israel lobby. The Conference of Presidents and AIPAC have hawkish policies re Iraq. It is extremely uncomfortable for liberals to say as much, because it involves speaking of some Jews as an important political force in American life and this goes against our training, Jews are liberals, anti-semitism is a prevalent factor, etc. Until liberals correct their analysis, the neocons will continue to find havens. You can't counter a war party if you cannot identify its members.
