Did President George Jeb Wanker Bush declare war on Persia in 1250 BC?

Or so he says. He says it in a way that seems pretty unambiguous. So it must be true, right?

I don't know what goes on in that fat head of his, but color me skeptical. Consider his long history, for one. Consider the tone of this article, 'frightening consequences' and all that.

But more than that, consider the professional space Freidman occupies. He sits, alongisde other pundits like George Packer, Peter Beinart, et al, inside an allegedly liberal space of those whose professional identities rely on their influence, their quotability, the fact that they have staked out a distinctly identifiable, informed and smart-sounding position. Saying you want a cold war, but not really war, accomplishes that.

What I kept thinking about while reading this was Ken Pollack. 'Threatening Storm', Pollack's thick tome, was the most densely documented, thoroughly reasoned and persuasive argument presented anywhere and by anybody that we had to invade Iraq, for reasons that appeared (!) to transcend the partisan political purposes anybody could question. (The thin chapter on how deterrance wasn't going to work was easily devastated in a short article by John Mearsheimer, but the mass behind that skip-this entry was impressive)

Then, Pollack goes on to say that he thinks the administration is making a big mistake in the way it's going about things, that he would do it differently, etc. He hedged, in other words. Planted a seed that he could point back at later, in case things didn't go so well. And this he did, with great skill, after the fact; he performed his ritual mea culpa, some ablutions, then went back to cheerleading the ongoing debacle while being billed as a 'war critic'.

The hedge is an obvious, but important strategy, and Friedman is smart enough to know how the pundit game works. Or maybe, he really doesn't want war, but is too confused to wrap the rest of his what-shall-be-done article around that sentiment.

. . . your article and comments in this forum are very disingenuous in how they represent Thomas Friedman's column and past statements on Iran. In support of your argument that Friedman is seeking war with Iran, you say "while [Friedman] denies in passing that he wants to wage actual war on Iran, he says we must find incentives 'that the other side finds too tempting or frightening to ignore.'" As you added in your last letter, "Did you miss that or just not comprehend it?"

I, for one, did comprehend what you and Friedman wrote. Here is the Friedman quotation in context for your readers (since you refuse to provide this context for whatever reason):

The big debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is over whether or not we should talk to Iran. Obama is in favor; Clinton has been against. Alas, the right question for the next president isn’t whether we talk or don’t talk. It’s whether we have leverage or don’t have leverage.

When you have leverage, talk. When you don’t have leverage, get some — by creating economic, diplomatic or military incentives and pressures that the other side finds too tempting or frightening to ignore. That is where the Bush team has been so incompetent vis-à-vis Iran.

Friedman is talking about how to start negotiations with Iran, not a war! One can argue whether a Cold War deterrence mentality is necessary in dealing with Iran; however, Friedman is certainly not saying that the US should go to war with Iran.

The so called "liberals" like Friedman who are as gung ho as any Republican to exercise military power (the technical term being, "kill, kill, kill").

The really insidious problem with people like Friedman is that they are intelligent and they seem reasonable, but ultimately this is just a veneer that masks their irrationality. An irrationality that is as arbitrary and extreme as the worst of us. Their prose is ultimately balm to otherwise sooth the nastiness of their real positions.

Glenn did such a great job of covering the "We're not going to war with Iran" red herring that I almost hesitate to join in here, but since I was called out on the issue, I will respond.

Note that Friedman is saying that we already are at war with Iran, it's just that it's a cold war:

The next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges, but surely one of the biggest will be the cold war. Yes, the next president is going to be a cold-war president — but this cold war is with Iran.

What is a cold war? Friedman characterizes it as a "struggle for influence across the region". Globalsecurity.org has more:

The Cold War began after World War Two. The main enemies were the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold war got its name because both sides were afraid of fighting each other directly. In such a "hot war," nuclear weapons might destroy everything. So, instead, they fought each other indirectly. They supported conflicts in different parts of the world. They also used words as weapons. They threatened and denounced each other. Or they tried to make each other look foolish.

Link:http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/cold_war.htm

So really, when Friedman says we're not going to war with Iran but that we are in a cold war with them, it means he is too afraid of what will happen if we attack Iran directly. Instead, we have to wage proxy wars, such as the struggle for Lebanon he laments at the end of the column.

Gosh, doesn't this slide from traditional war with Iran to a cold war fit the Chesterton quote?

Another point to keep in mind relates to Friedman's call for creating leverage. What he is referring to here is instilling sufficient fear in Iran so that they will be content to fight proxy battles as well, rather than attacking us. As Glenn points out in the comment above, giving Bush and the neocons the authority to wield sufficient power to instill such fear didn't work out so well when it was aimed at Saddam.

The irony, of course, is that neither Iraq under Saddam nor Iran now truly has or had the capacity to inflict anything approaching true damage on the US other than that we have inflicted on ourselves through the squandering of lives and treasure, both ours and those in the areas we have attacked, and our reputation as an honest and just nation. And it is precisely this pathway that takes us from a great power to a small power.

No shooter, I don't want our country to become a small power. I want it to use its great powers for great ends. Those great ends do not include the imposition of democracy on those not asking for it nor the obliteration and looting of a nation that never attacked us. Think of the assistance we could be providing in Myanmar and China this week if we had not squandered our budget surplus and depleted our military capability and reputation.