The Stupidity of the American Enterprise Institute Continues

November 20, 2006 at 3:49 am | Posted in America, American politics, Iran, Iraq, King George, Muslim, Pakistan, Revising History, War on Terror | Leave a comment

Not satisfied with their philosophy utterly discredited with the war in Iraq, the American Enterprise Institute continues to spew out drivel, now directed towards Iran. In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, Joshua Muravchik argues that it is time to bomb Iran, as if that will somehow solve all our problems, i.e. as if that will end Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons. He does say that there will be a price:

Finally, wouldn’t such a U.S. air attack on Iran inflame global anti-Americanism? Wouldn’t Iran retaliate in Iraq or by terrorism? Yes, probably. That is the price we would pay. But the alternative is worse.

So the price of a risky attack which might not even get all the sites destroyed is that Iran will meddle further in Iraq, further destabilizing the country, create more terrorism around the world, and inflame global anti-Americanism even further. Is Mr. Muravchik really that stupid? He glosses over the costs as if it’s not bad, when he doesn’t even mention the very real possibility that bombing Iran won’t stop the WMD program from continuing further. In fact, it will probably only further embolden Iran. After all, once they get nuclear weapons, the likelihood of America attacking Iran will decrease exponentially. They know what power lies behind the possession of nuclear technology. They see it in Pakistan. America’s greatest failure in stopping other countries from getting nuclear weapons lies in her relationship with Pakistan. We support a military dictatorship that sits on nuclear weapons, that oppresses its people, that can’t control much of its country…oh and Osama Bin Laden is hiding there, comfortably among friends. Yeah, America. Great message that you send to the rest of the world!

Mr. Muravchik gets even worse in his op-ed. He starts using reductio ad Leninism, along with revising history:

Communism itself was to claim perhaps 100 million lives, and it also gave rise to fascism and Nazism, leading to World War II. Ahmadinejad wants to be the new Lenin. Force is the only thing that can stop him.

Yeah, tie Ahmadinejad to Lenin. Make him as bad of a man as the most influential person in the 20th Century, Vladimir Lenin. Of course, Ahmadinejad is no Lenin, nor a Stalin, nor a Hitler. But Mr. Muravchik does not wish to be honest with his readers. See, Lenin and Hitler were forceful personalities that could fundamentally alter what people thought about them. They won over the masses. They ruled with full force and power. They were the strongest cults of personalities you could ever find in history. Few even come close to their personas. Ahmadinejad does not hold the reins of power in Iran. He’s but a puppet, dancing the strings for the clerics in the background. Furthermore, they led countries that could mobilize themselves to be the most powerful nations on the planet. When Germany began attacking her neighbors in 1938, she was the most powerful nation on the planet. True, when Lenin took control of Russia, she was very weak, but that was only due to the fact that she just went through a revolution. However, by the time of Hitler’s attack on Russia, Russia fended off the most powerful nation. It is my belief that Hitler’s greatest mistake was to attack Russia when he did. That is what led to his downfall.

Now, if we look at Iran today, we find that militarily speaking, it doesn’t even have the largest military budget in the Middle East. That honor goes not even to Israel. Saudi Arabia has the largest military budget of the Middle East, nearly three times more than both Israel and Iran, which have similar sized budgets. Iran could not defeat Saddam’s Iraq even though they had three times more people.

Sorry but the comparison to two of the world’s greatest and most powerful leaders is false and rather unscholarly for one representing a think tank. But the American Enterprise Institute has not proven itself over the last decade to spew out much but trash about the Middle East.

Furthermore, he continues the tradition among right-wingers to say that fascism and Nazism were somehow created or formed by Communism. This is because right-wingers, like Mr. Muravchik, hate the fact that there actually arose evil people and philosophies on the right side of the political spectrum. Indeed some of the worst people in the world came from conservative societies. It is kinda detrimental to your attempt to smear the left as pure evil when your own political side has had some truly evil people. Thus, they revise history and move the goal posts so as to say evil only comes from the left.

Finally Mr. Muravchik says:

After the Bolshevik takeover of Russia in 1917, a single member of Britain’s Cabinet, Winston Churchill, appealed for robust military intervention to crush the new regime. His colleagues weighed the costs — the loss of soldiers, international derision, revenge by Lenin — and rejected the idea.

Hmmm, there’s probably a reason why only one person was stupid enough to think that such a plan would work. Or is Mr. Muravchik also deriding Mr. Churchill for not having the balls to go after Russia at its weakest? I’m sure Mr. Churchill was not for that idea. Mr. Churchill was much smarter than Mr. Muravchik is proving. How horrible the future of our country will be if we continue listening to such idiots as Mr. Muravchik and others from the American Enterprise Institute. Remember, America. They gave you the Iraq you see today. Those are the fruits of their labors. Those horrors are their visions and futures. Do not listen to them.