Let me get this straight. In late 2002 / early 2003 western intelligence services overstated the threat from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. One of the main justifications for the eventual invasion was shown to be false and since then the intelligence services stock has been trading at a discount to say the least. Since then the anti-war left has cited this history (with some justification I should add) at every opportunity to rubbish any US / UK intelligence on Iranian nuclear ambitions. The lesson? - don’t trust western intelligence.
Yesterday a US Intelligence survey concludes that Iran ceased its nuclear weapons programme in 2003. Cue immediate acceptance of these conclusions from the same anti-war left who spent almost five years rubbishing the same intelligence sources and gleeful mocking of the impact the findings will have on the remaining neocons in Bush’s administration. The lesson this time? – when it supports your position the intelligence must be fine.
Don’t get me wrong – lord knows I’m not going into bat for the efficacy of western intelligence! Just pointing out that if you’ve spent the last few years charging that the intelligence is partisan and politicised then you can hardly jump four square behind it just because it suddenly supports your position. As ever Oliver Kamm is on the button when it comes to international relations and the comment thread is hysterical....
Yesterday a US Intelligence survey concludes that Iran ceased its nuclear weapons programme in 2003. Cue immediate acceptance of these conclusions from the same anti-war left who spent almost five years rubbishing the same intelligence sources and gleeful mocking of the impact the findings will have on the remaining neocons in Bush’s administration. The lesson this time? – when it supports your position the intelligence must be fine.
Don’t get me wrong – lord knows I’m not going into bat for the efficacy of western intelligence! Just pointing out that if you’ve spent the last few years charging that the intelligence is partisan and politicised then you can hardly jump four square behind it just because it suddenly supports your position. As ever Oliver Kamm is on the button when it comes to international relations and the comment thread is hysterical....
11 Comments:
I was bemused by the left over Iraq. The Conservative Party confirmed on several occassions they were going with or without WMD by the way. Lefties ending up making the case for realpolitik and a hands off approach with SH. A man who has killed at least one meber of every family in the place ?
Bizarre and there are more on the left than agree with me than you think . the anti war mob was largely a Liberal thing
Actually, Liam, you're not quite right there. Both Hans Blix and his predecessor Scott Ritter gave very good and accurate intelligence reports from Iraq. They both stated that there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in the country in the years before the invasion. I believed them then and I have no reasaon to doubt the current reports on Iran... although, as I think you know, my view is if the Iranians want a big bomb like Israel, the UK, Pakistan, the Us, India, France, China, Russia... then why shouldn't they have one?
As we all know... only one country has ever used the atom bomb...
Where are these "ant-war left" people you are talking about?
I wasn't passing any comment on the UN or IAEA intelligence Bob - just US intelligence. The point still holds that it's either trustworthy or it's not - it can't be trustworthy just when it contradicts neocon plans...
As for the idea that Ahmedinejad is as stable and responsible a leader as Gordon Brown (the implication of your point about Iran being as entitled as anyone else) I just think that's silly Bob.
That's interesting Liam, because almost every overseas leader in my living memory, from Nasser through to Ahmedinejad has been described as clinically insane by the British media. Of course, in reality it is Catch 22: You would have to be mad to threaten the economic interests of the United Kingdom Government, therefore, if you are opposing UK/Us economic interests (which cannot be separated you are automatically mad.
This theory has been applied to a wide diversity of leaders from every Continent in the world since 1950 (with the exception of the US - despite the fact that their leaders have shown an amazing propensity for total fucking insanity ... Nixon, Reagan, Bush the younger to mention but 3) including many who have ended up supping tea with the Queen in Buckingham Palace as soon as they have aligned their economic interests and cured their madness instantly - but that doesn't matter as long as there are legions of gullible people prepared to accept the initial premise... opposing our interests = madness.
I am truly saddened that you appear to have joined their ranks.
Bearing in mind where I am and where I'm coming from, I can tell you they very much have not ceased it.
Bob - we won't find common ground here. On many international issues I'm actually on what could be called the left but it's the left of Nich Cohen, Oliver Kamm, Euston Manifesto etc.
You loosely dismiss 'western economic interests' as though they were grubby inconsequential things, things which should have no impact on decisions about foreign policy. You also imply equivalence between western economic interests and those of places like China or Afghanistan - this is nonsense and precisely the sort of relativist muddle that Cohen etc. have been trying to free the left from for some time.
Competeing economic interests across the world aren't all neutral things based only on the economics - western interests are the foundations of western freedoms and human rights. Iranian economic interests support Iranian 'freedoms and human rights' (nuff said).
You're dead right. We won't find common ground here... not when you can make a statement like 'western interests are the foundations of western freedoms and human rights.'
Is that the 'western values' that gave us apartheid, Abu Ghraib, My Lai, Sabra and Chatila... to mention just some that spring immediately to mind. I don't suppose it has occured to you that these distasteful inconvenient little events were anything at all to do with the economic interests of the parties involved. They were just... spreading their values.
I'm afraid the problem is, Liam, They do nasty things that YOU don't like, whereas those with so-called 'Western values' do nasty things that you avert your eyes away from because they just don't fit.
Me? I think Saddam Hussein was a shit for murdering Iraqis... and I think Bush/Blair are shits for... errrm, murdering Iraqis.
Sorry to be so goddam consistent, I appreciate it is not aligned with my 'western values'.
It's perspective Bob - and the fact that there's influential and growing constituency within the left that recognise these follies tells me that it's not about party politics or left and right.
Drawing an equivalence between Saddam and Bush is just lazy, teengage politics - the sort of stuff most of us grow out of as soon as we read a book or two. Saddam was a dictator, he rounded people up and tortured and killed them for fun (including one of his sons) There was no free press, freedom of speech or assembly etc. etc. I KNOW Bush is a total f***wit and a very dangerous man but he'll be gone in a year, is subject to complete mockery even in his own country and his responsibility for mudering iraqi's is at the end of a long chain of democratic oversight and check & balances. The idea that this is 'the same' as what Saddam did is just utter nonsense Bob and I suspect you would agree....
I do agree they are not the same, which is probably why I didn't say it. Trying to insinuate that I was making that direct comparison is just, well, idle teenage politics.
My point was about values being driven by economics and I note you ignored that central point. As it happens I think the genocide inflicted on the Vietnamese people by Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon (or in reality, the military industrial complex which really governs the United States whichever F***wit is presented to the people in the name of western democracy)was far from a 'grubby inconsequential thing'. It was a battle not of ideas 'communism' v 'western democracy' but a battle over markets.
I think actually, Liam, you have come full circle here. Your original point was about people having different values in response to similar circumstances in order to suit there pareticular point of view... and that is exactly where you are with this 'western values' nonsense.
That's fair, you didn't say they were the same so apologies for the insinuation. I think you were indicating some sort of equivalence between the two though and I have to say that's something I'm still at odds with you on.
You make a fair point re: applying different values in similar circumstances. Again though I just happen to think that's a necessity in the modern world and something we all do - we just draw the lines in different places.
Well if you think it is something 'we all do' it is hardly reasonable to imply it is either unusual or a particular trait of "the anti-war left."
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