Neocons Still Frighteningly Wrong

This is one of the scariest things I've read recently. Commentary Magazine is neocon central; they had their first annual dinner this week.

it started with a "a standing ovation from the crowd of 300 persons for Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff [and convicted felon], I Lewis 'Scooter' Libby".

Then they honored former editor-in-chief Norman Podhoretz who has an article in the June issue called 'The Case for Bombing Iran'. Of course the biggest problem is hinted in the title. It's not what to do about Iran but rather how to justify bombing Iran.

They ended with a speech by former UN Ambassador John Bolton on regime change. He walked through historical regimes he would have "changed": Bolshevism, Hitler, Iraq in the early 1990s and Afghanistan in the late 1990s. But hindsight isn't enough for him he discussed which regimes we should consider changing now (in other words, what are the next countries we should invade not because they are threats, but just because). Top of the list was North Korea and Iran. Cuba will take care of itself when Castro dies. Genocide apparently isn't a reason for regime change because he said Sudan was not a sufficient threat to American interests. Burma and Venezuela are ones to watch. Burma because they might be starting to work with Russia on a research nuclear reactor and Venezuela last year they bought 100,000 AK-47s. Syria is apparently a difficult question because in a burst of forethought he thought what would come after Assad might be worse. Maybe they did learn something from Iraq.

Here's a great clip of John Bolton on British TV. I wish our political debates were like theirs.