Neo-Cons Continue To Press For War With Iran

What are the Neo-Cons up to these days? Those geniuses who urged war against Iraq on false premises, then urged going in with too few troops, brought us de-baathification and the dismantling of the Iraqi Army, and hence the spark for a four-year insurgency?

If you're wondering, take a look at today's Wall Street Journal, the official propaganda rag of the Neo-Con movement.

There, you will see an op-ed piece by Michael Ledeen, "a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute," which would better be named the Neo-Con Institute. Invitingly titled "Victory Is Within Reach In Iraq," the piece seems, at first, to argue that we've pretty much "won" in Iraq, whatever that means. (In today's Bush administration, it appears to me subduing Al Queda in Iraq, which, of course, did not even exist BEFORE we invaded.)

But before we break out the Victory in Iraq parades, we need to take note of what Ledeen says at the end of his article. And before we look at the end of his op-ed, we should note that Ledeen just happens to have a new book out rather alarmingly titled "The Iranian Time Bomb."

So, after all the optimism that we've won in Iraq--and one would hence think can now send our soldiers home(?)--Ledeen contradicts himself by positing the twin bogeymen of Iran and Syria. "Not a day goes by without one of our commanders shouting to the four winds that the Iranians are operating all over Iraq, and that virtually all the suicide terrrorists are foreigners, sent in from Syria."

That sounds bad, but then get a load of this, which is downright frightening (because W Bush reads and believes this crap): "We have done great damage to their [i.e., Iran and Syria] forces on the battlefield, but they can always escalate, and we still have no policy to direct against the terror masters in Damascus and Tehran. [I.e., don't get excited about sending the troops home yet.] THAT PROBLEM IS NOT GOING TO BE RESOLVED BY SOUND COUNTERINSURGENCY STRATEGY ALONE, NO MATTER HOW BRILLIANTLY EXECUTED."

Let's just spell out what Mr. Ledeen is saying here: time to send the Marines into Iran.

Perhaps the WSJ should give its readers just a bit more background on Mr. Ledeen. Ledeen has been in and out of the national security apparatus of various Republican administrations, including involvement in Reagan's infamous Iran-Contra scandal.

After disappearing for awhile during the Clinton administration, the ultra-conservative Ledeen resurfaced as a favorite outside adviser to Karl Rove in the W administration. From day one he was urging war in Iraq, and he was subsequently implicated in the forgery of document suggesting that Saddam Hussein had purchased yellowcake from Niger (although he denies the allegations). (For more, click here.)

Now Ledeen is one of the most prominent war-mongers for an attack on Iran. (We will say this for him--unlike most of the chicken-hawks in the administration, he has a son serving in the Marines in Iraq, and hence would evidently be willing to send his son into Iran.)

Like most of the Neo-Cons, Ledeen starts with a conservative conviction, and then simply cherry-picks whatever facts are convenient to his theories. His rosy op-ed piece on Iraq is a case in point, blithely ignoring quite a bit of bad news while picking up on a few bits of cheery news to paint an extremely misleading picture.

Don't get burned by these charlatans again.