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Although the tepid response to EuroDisney makes this a questionable project.

Frankly, when folks are on the path to getting nukes, anything that promotes relative integration and interdependence is preferable to competing zealotries and increased isolation.

But don’t worry about it. Bush is far too chickenshit and mired in his own dogmatics to pull anything interesting off.

Reg,
Do we need another Disneyland in Tehran?

There are two interesting things about that Hitchens piece (aside from the remnants of neo-con fantasies). First is that a prominent pro-warrior/neocon ally acknowledges that military action would either be ineffective (airstrikes) or impossible and/or counterproductive (invasion with, of course, what troops?). The second is that he breaks through the two versions of “strategic” thinking I’ve seen to date – i.e. the varieties of belligerence and threat (hollow as that may be) or traditional multilateral negotiations (which are fine, but tend to just ratify status quos). The “Nixon in China” approach is a different roll of the dice and, while a pipe-dream given this crackpot administration, is the only one that’s bold enough to potentially shift the terrain.

“The thing that I JUST still cannot understand is how the Democrats haven’t taken advantage of perhaps their biggest opportunity in the last 40 years.”

I will repeat what I have said here before: The Democratic Party as an institution (as opposed to its rank and file) would rather LOSE election after election than take positions that would challenge the corporate money it depends upon, no difference with the Republicans on that score. So no surprise they don’t rise to the challenge; they don’t really want to. You can’t turn a donkey into a swan.

Reg,
Apprehensive—do you hear the deafening sounds of those war drums?

Having a deja vu of Iraq WMD’S—who says history doesn’t repeat itself?

Rice was beating her set of bongos really loud today—Iran’s policies are 180 degrees different from where we want the Middle East to go, blah, blah, blah, etc…

It is impossible for us to allow a country to successfully exist without being under the thumb of our economic system.
If our country was a person, we would be diagnosed with a disorder called megalomania, but since we are a country and not a person the condition is simply know as Empire building.

United States is gearing up for an attack on Iran, Bush will never mention oil as a reason for going to war. As in the case of Iraq, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) will be cited as the principal justification for an American assault. “We will not tolerate the construction of a nuclear weapon [by Iran],” is the way President Bush put it in a much-quoted 2003 statement. But just as the failure to discover illicit weapons in Iraq undermined the administration’s use of WMD as the paramount reason for its invasion, so its claim that an attack on Iran will be justified because of its alleged nuclear potential.

Iran occupies a strategic location on the north side of the Persian Gulf, it is in a position to threaten oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates, which together possess more than half of the world’s known oil reserves. Iran also sits adjacent to the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which, daily, 40% of the world’s oil exports pass. In addition, Iran is becoming a major supplier of oil and natural gas to China, India, and Japan, thereby giving Tehran additional clout in world affairs. It is these geopolitical dimensions of energy, as much as Iran’s potential to export significant quantities of oil to the United States that ultimately determines our government’s military strategy.

Iran’s nuclear facilities are scattered throughout the entire country. To launch an aerial attack, you would need many more fighter jets than were used in Iraq. How many civilians would be annihilated by missiles that don’t always have that pin-point accuracy to reach just the right target, and what further insurgencies will an attack like that incite. In addition, if these nuclear facilities were attacked, military strategists say that steps would need to be taken in order to prevent large-scale nuclear contamination from the resulting damage done to the reactors.

Hey, at least you struck back. They’ll probably kick you out of the DP for that.

>rope-a-dope isn’t such a bad strategy, >especially for the party of moderation —
>certain things can’t forced.

If the DP is still rope-a-doping right now, when will they come out and fight? Their opponents are led by someone who combines extremism with incompetence-what are you wating for? The GOP is stuck for three more years with a leader who *openly* ridicules some of the key principles of our form of government-separation of powers, separation of church and state, the first, fourth, fifth, and fourteenth amendments, the constitutional primacy of foreign treaties (like the convention on torture). The DP’s strategy thus far has been to go along with it all (confirm Roberts, support the war, vote for the Patriot Act). This is really not surprising since, as other posters here point out, the DP runs on the same corporate funding as the Repugs and thus represents the same interests.

Hear hear.

I have to say that I’ve heard so much insane crap come from the anti-Democrat version of the “left” over the years, that I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a good thing we oppose most of what they stand for. As for “frigging losers” the far left has given us a lesson in losing that’s unprecedented for any ideological faction in American political history.

http://www.slate.com/id/2137560/

Essentially, he suggests that Bush pull a “Nixon goes to China” with Iran. It could never happen, because Bush is too stupid, but it’s clearly one of the best ideas for dealing with Iran anyone’s put forward. The reason it’s possible as well as strategically necessary at this point is, ironically, our invasion of Iraq that has in essence set the stage for an Iraq/Iran Shiite muslim alliance that will effectively control the Gulf. It would not only shift the terrain of relations with Iran from confrontation to engagement, it would increase the chances of stabilizing the situation in Iraq – if that’s possible. Bush inadvertantly created a coincidence of interest between Iran and the U.S. by toppling Saddam. He’d be smart to try to pull something out of that fire. Hitchens is the first commentator I’ve seen so far who’s proposed an approach that’s truly visionary and strategic – as opposed to knee-jerk and rhetorical – and far more likely to undermine the most conservative of the mullahs over the not-too-long term than pursuing the kind of brilliant policy that’s worked so well with Cuba lo these many decades. We can afford to have blown it with Cuba, but not a potentially nuclear armed Iran. Putting forward an ultimatum to Israel that links military aid to ending the occupation at the same time could shift the dynamic of U.S. policy in the Middle East and strengthen our hand against al Qaeda and the like.

As a counterpoint, if you want to read something truly moronic on the same subject, click over to Roger Simon for a link to his great friend Michael Ledeen’s lunatic ravings. Unfortunately, the people in this administration are more at the Simon/Ledeen level of reactive, blowhard idiocy than an apparently chastened Hitchens in the wake of a three year war in Iraq with no end to the chaos in sight.

Reg,
Apprehensive—do you hear the deafening sounds of those war drums?

Having a deja vu of Iraq WMD’S—who says history doesn’t repeat itself?

Rice was beating her set of bongos really loud today—Iran’s policies are 180 degrees different from where we want the Middle East to go, blah, blah, blah, etc…

It is impossible for us to allow a country to successfully exist without being under the thumb of our economic system.
If our country was a person, we would be diagnosed with a disorder called megalomania, but since we are a country and not a person the condition is simply know as Empire building.

United States is gearing up for an attack on Iran, Bush will never mention oil as a reason for going to war. As in the case of Iraq, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) will be cited as the principal justification for an American assault. “We will not tolerate the construction of a nuclear weapon [by Iran],” is the way President Bush put it in a much-quoted 2003 statement. But just as the failure to discover illicit weapons in Iraq undermined the administration’s use of WMD as the paramount reason for its invasion, so its claim that an attack on Iran will be justified because of its alleged nuclear potential.

Iran occupies a strategic location on the north side of the Persian Gulf, it is in a position to threaten oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates, which together possess more than half of the world’s known oil reserves. Iran also sits adjacent to the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which, daily, 40% of the world’s oil exports pass. In addition, Iran is becoming a major supplier of oil and natural gas to China, India, and Japan, thereby giving Tehran additional clout in world affairs. It is these geopolitical dimensions of energy, as much as Iran’s potential to export significant quantities of oil to the United States that ultimately determines our government’s military strategy.

Iran’s nuclear facilities are scattered throughout the entire country. To launch an aerial attack, you would need many more fighter jets than were used in Iraq. How many civilians would be annihilated by missiles that don’t always have that pin-point accuracy to reach just the right target, and what further insurgencies will an attack like that incite. In addition, if these nuclear facilities were attacked, military strategists say that steps would need to be taken in order to prevent large-scale nuclear contamination from the resulting damage done to the reactors.