Must Read from Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria: Stalin, Mao And...Ahmadinejad?

[flpoljunkie]

Stalin, Mao And … Ahmadinejad?
Conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers.
By Fareed Zakaria

NEWSWEEK
Updated: 1:57 PM ET Oct 20, 2007

At a meeting with reporters last week, President Bush said that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." These were not the barbs of some neoconservative crank or sidelined politician looking for publicity. This was the president of the United States, invoking the specter of World War III if Iran gained even the knowledge needed to make a nuclear weapon.

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

When the relatively moderate Mohammed Khatami was elected president in Iran, American conservatives pointed out that he was just a figurehead. Real power, they said (correctly), especially control of the military and police, was wielded by the unelected "Supreme Leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Now that Ahmadinejad is president, they claim his finger is on the button. (Oh wait, Iran doesn't have a nuclear button yet and won't for at least three to eight years, according to the CIA, by which point Ahmadinejad may not be president anymore. But these are just facts.)

<>We're on a path to irreversible confrontation with a country we know almost nothing about. The United States government has had no diplomats in Iran for almost 30 years. American officials have barely met with any senior Iranian politicians or officials. We have no contact with the country's vibrant civil society. Iran is a black hole to us—just as Iraq had become in 2003.

more...

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/57346

[EFerrari]

1. Podhoretz sees Hitler everywhere he looks. He needs help.

I like Zakaria. He asks great questions and his opinion pieces are thoughtful and instructive.

[hobbit709]

2. Claiming Ahmadinejad is in the same league

as Mao, Stalin and Hitler is about as accurate as claiming that shrub is the intellectual equal of Einstein or Hawking.

[baldguy]

5. Norman Einstein & Wilma Hawking

[trusty elf]

7. "shrub is the intellectual equal of Einstein"

Hey, shrub is VERY integillent! He's a veritable suppository of informations.

[LakeSamish706]

3. And the beat goes on with this bunch of thugs! n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Good to see a mainstream publication doing a good debunking job like that

If Newsweek can be sensible about Iran, with any luck they'll shame the rest of the media into avoiding the Bush lies and hyperbole about it.

[Solon]

6. I just love how the neo-cons, and conservatives in general can change...

their perception of reality so quickly. One President of Iran was just a figurehead, the next a Dictator. These folks suffer from crystallized minds, they are impervious to facts and reality when it contradicts with their worldview.

[Jim__]

8. It's good to see that article in Newsweek.

It's amazing how much the MSM goes along with the bush's distorted world view.

[gratuitous]

9. Yeah, but they don't mean it

This is just their obligatory "See, we really opposed the invasion of {insert country name here}. Back in 2007, we ran a whole column about this!"

This is not meant to spark a serious discussion or really even to bring it to the country's attention. It's a one-off, and then it will be back to vacant head-nodding as usual, as if this corrupt administration is to be trusted any further than Nicole Richey could caber-toss the Washington Monument.