Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/ NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
Where the Islamic world is concerned, that scary 10% of my brain is already in full control. I say glass 'em.
V.D. Hanson's last minute, eloquent plea for Iranian sanity -- in another universe it might have an effect.
Bump.
We got lots more, just like this one.
Are you sure you want to go down this road?
I do so love that paragraph about the 90/10 ratio. Beware the wrath of a patient man (and a patient country as well).
Great article. Thanks for posting it.
There is an old saying in Islamic circles. When a Muslim you don't really care directly about is in need, you are forbidden to refuse to help him, so you tell him "that he can drink from the sea..."
This will be the attitude of 99.9% of the Muslim world if Ahmadinejad and his government disappear in a whiff of smoke. They'll bellow. They'll riot. But ultimately, it will not be their problem.
Thanks for the full text.
In the words of the Mask, "SMOKIN"!!!
My money is on the idiot in Tehran doing just that. "Go ahead punk, make my day."
I'll bet that we're going to strike Iran, and hard. Why? First, the Iranian leadership, like the Germans twice and the Japanese once, have utterly failed to understand us. Generally, the US is an amiable country. We haven't been particularly bellicose toward others in an offensive way since about 1898 (too bad for the Spanish), so we appear soft. Also, as the Japanese reminded us after the end of WW2, we're prone to bouts of near suicidal pacifism on occasion (then it was the re-authorization of the draft in 1940 by only 1 vote). So, we appear weak and unwilling to fight - the key word there being "appear."
Second, there's steel underneath all that weak-looking flab on the surface. This is, after all, the same country that within living memory mobilized over 40% of its GNP for a war against 2 modern and powerful empires, and which had armed forces amounting to nearly 10% of its population. That's when we felt threatened - and that's what Iran is doing now.
If Iran keeps it up, then they'll get to see what we're like when we're pissed off. I would, however, like to offer Iran some advice: ask some old Germans and Japanese what its like to eff with the US of A.
I saw two B1Bs flying low enought that they left a dust trail Monday.
First I have seen in months.
History might, but I think VDH is underestimating the capacity of the present liberal crowd to lie to themselves here. If, after all that has gone down in that benighted part of the world, we still hear useful idiots in the West whining "All We Are Saying Is Give Peace A Chance" then that capacity has to be reckoned pretty near infinite. The world did sit by once and watch a madman who announced his intentions bring them to fruition. A second time isn't quite as unimaginable as a lot of people would like to think.
Low polls work both ways...Of all recent American presidents, [Bush] seems the least likely to make decisions about risky foreign initiatives on the basis of unfavorable polls.
I'll say this slowly - Mr. Bush. Isn't. Running. For. Re-election. Polls are at this point as close to irrelevant as they can get in American politics and much more so than they ever are in European politics. Anyone who thinks poll numbers are a factor here is kidding himself.
The reality is that such pimples as Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Kim Il Jung, and Ahmadinejad can wax hysterical only as long as the effort necessary to take them out isn't worth the result. If they insist on upping the ante with nuclear weapons that equation changes. They may honestly think - I believe they do - that forbearance is weakness and that Iranian nuclear weapons deployed, say, to Venezuela or to Cuba will make them invulnerable. There isn't really much we can do to talk them out of the notion, and so the hammer has to be very heavy when it does come down. It will be.
Bump for VDH into Saturday. The last 3 paragraphs alone are eminently bumpworthy!