How to deal with Iran

By Rick Morris

Rumors have run rampant for years now that the Bush administration plans an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities before it leaves office in January 2009. Certainly, the move by the mullahs to acquire nuclear weapons is a frightening one that should be focusing our energies on how best to protect our interests in the Persian Gulf.

But military intervention is not the only avenue open to us in the area. My longtime friend Scott Pullins has announced that his Pullins Report is part of a wide coalition dedicated to pursuing other means of addressing our very real issues with the regime in Tehran.

Ironically, while I'm a bit unsure as to the utility of free and unfettered talks with Iran right now, I support Scott's general efforts 100%. As with his stance on the treatment of detainees, I may differ with him here and there, but I think his general focus is exactly right.

He and I have traveled down parallel political paths, which helps me to understand and to support his present direction a bit better. We were both of college age at the end of the Cold War and we were both very hawkish given the realities of the day. Essentially, while shooting in that war was rare and generally confined to proxies (i.e. Vietnam, Afghanistan), it really WAS a war and we needed to be on a war footing when dealing with a grim enemy which hungered for nothing less than world domination. Ronald Reagan's method of confronting the Soviets directly, which was totally unprecedented, was appropriate and it worked -- and Scott and I supported him.

But we are now in a different time. The conservative movement long ago fractured into the (completely dominant) neoconservative wing and my paleocon wing. The neocons never moved from the "war footing" mentality and seemed well before 9/11 to be searching for any excuse to project American military might upon the world. For all the talk about how Eeee-Vil Republicans tried to destroy the Clintons with the impeachment saga, the neocons stood behind Bubba steadfastly as he wagged the dog with a completely unnecessary war in the Balkans in 1999.

George W. Bush, about whom I can honestly say I was skeptical from the very beginning given my aversion to Republican Establishment figures, came to office promising a humble, respectful foreign policy. But, as the cliche goes, "9/11 changed everything."

The foreign policy "realists" that Scott and I scorned in our youth were wrong then -- I will always believe that. But, given today's circumstances, they are right in this climate.

I have said on The FDH Lounge program that George W. Bush and Bill Clinton each accomplished the same dubious action -- by opposite means. Clinton destroyed American deterrence in the '90s by turning a blind eye to each successive attack by bin Laden and establishing us as a paper tiger. Bush destroyed American deterrence by getting us bogged down in Iraq from the end of the first phase of the war in April '03 until he FINALLY delivered the surge in 2007 -- thus reestablishing us as a paper tiger after restoring our global prestige by winning swiftly in Afghanistan in late 2001. Imperial overreach and pacifism both lead to disaster and to America's enemies licking their chops.

The neocons are right in the very narrow sense about staying on the offensive against Al Qaeda worldwide and this is a job that our special forces should continue to be pursuing in every nook and cranny of the globe regardless of who gets elected president in November (although I'm admittedly scared that Barack Obama will not agree with this basic common-sense point). But starting full-on conflagrations against other governments without fully thinking through the consequences -- haven't we been here before? Every Deskbound Rambo who proclaimed in 2002-2003 that Iraq would be a cakewalk should be permanently prohibited from being taken seriously.

George W. Bush and Karl Rove, who openly dreamed of creating another longstanding Republican dynasty in the mold of William McKinley, have seen their dreams die in the sands of the Middle East much in the same way that Jimmah Carter's aspirations did. To the extent that their militaristic brand of neoconservatism is left to define the Republican party and the broader American Right, then the party and the movement will never recover. That's why, in addition to personal friendship, I support Scott's efforts as strongly as I do. The school of thought about what's best for this country, as well as the country itself, is too important to be left to the rotting corpse known as GOP leadership. Whether you support every individual thread of anti-neocon policy, it's time to get with the program and work for the clear best interests of this country. If opposition to rampant militarism is ceded to the peaceniks and pinkos, we all lose.

Ron Paul withdrawal story FAQ

By Rick Morris

Yesterday, I reported on our blog a straight news story about the Ron Paul campaign for president shutting down under the pressure of his congressional reelection campaign back home. As I fully anticipated, this has touched off a storm of reactions both in the wider Internet world and also to some extent here in our comment section. In order to correct the false statements about our blog that are being made, I decided that the most comprehensive and (equally important) least dreary way to correct the record would be in the form of an FAQ with the questions being posed (accusingly) by A Typical Ron Paul Supporter. Now, before anyone complains that I am lumping all Paul supporters together, that is untrue. I know that there are many sane and measured ones, but they are hugely atypical. Scan the Web and you'll see I'm right.

Frankly, the conclusions being drawn about me and my associates are clearly the work either of those with no capacity for reading comprehension (possibly) or are coming from extremely lazy folks who don't feel the need to educate themselves at all before they bellow incoherently out their cakeholes (more likely). In either event, the copious links in my answers should aid greatly in educating folks, at least those (likely few) capable of absorbing such a schooling.

Without any further ado, the questions and answers:

Q: We Ron Paul supporters know that you're just another ranting neocon ...

A: Hold up there, Chachi, you can't get me on that. I've said many times here that I'm a proud paleocon ...

Q: Did not!

A: Excuse me, yes I have. I did it this time, too.

Q: Did not!!!!!

A: Ooohkay. I heard this was how you Ron Paul people argued. Anyway, I'll get back to the point about my political philosophy and how that's relevant. Let's start with how this story came to be.

Q: Yes, let's do just that, you Tool of the GOP Beltway Power Elite!

A: Tool of the Beltway Power Elite (chuckles). Wow, didn't think I'd live long enough to hear myself called that. I'm certainly a shamefully ineffective one, then, having called Junior Bush less popular than gonorrhea right here just a few days ago. I'm a lot closer to getting myself audited by the IRS than I am to getting invited over to the White House to watch Texas Rangers games with Dubya. But don't let the facts get in the way of your name-calling. OK, back to the account. I was called out of the blue yesterday by the source I referenced in the story, someone with access to Paul's congressional campaign. This is someone I previously knew to be involved in the story in the Texas 14th and someone I've dealt with previously in a number of ways -- and I'm not going to be any more specific than that. I don't burn sources. Now, from what I read from Justin Higgins at Right on the Right, he very likely had the same source I did as I was also quoted the specific numbers from the internal poll, 43-32 Peden. I chose not to make mention of that as I wasn't sure at the time that exposing the specifics of the poll numbers wouldn't burn my source. As I piece together the timeline, it speaks well of Justin's character that he gave credit to us for being first on the story because he probably got his info not long after me and very easily could have pulled a "yoink" on us, but he chose not to. Well played, Justin, I appreciate that.

Q: Blah blah blah, you and your boring facts. Do you have a point?

A: Yes, actually, I do. I, a previously established paleocon, ran a straight news story here without any agenda whatsoever. I received the information, then, lacking any other sources involved in that race, I relied on the research I could do in the public domain to see if I believed it. I am, I must say, one heck of a researcher, and I found pieces of information to corroborate at least this general trend. As this blog entry indicates, Paul had already indicated that he was scaling back his presidential campaign -- and that was before his people got the shocking results of the internal poll! So given what he had been saying recently, combined with this new information, yes, I was convinced.

Q: Still convinced?

A: Glad you asked so I could state it loudly and clearly: yes, I am convinced we will see Ron Paul withdraw from the presidential race before March 4. I am fully and personally accountable for that and if I am proven wrong (which I will not be), then the fault is mine and mine alone and I will not make unsubstantiated assertions such as, "Well he was going to drop out but reconsidered." Nope. I've got my story and I'm sticking to it.

Q: Even despite these denials in the comment section of your story thread?

A: Oh, touche, one person flatly says it's not true with no evidence, one person quotes a pro forma campaign denial and some Johnny Anonymous wants us to believe he talked to a key decision-maker in the organization. Well, I'll say this for them, they're as credible as any other Ron Paul supporters I've ever seen!

Q: Somehow I don't think that's a compliment.

A: You got that right. Anyhoo, let's move on to the falsehoods about this site. After I posted the news story, my colleague Tony Mazur posted a column about his ill feelings about the Paul campaign. Now, this site is mostly analysis; we don't break much original news like the Paul story here just because we're not inclined to put the resources into it. We prefer to focus on what we do well, which is to break down anything relevant going on regardless of subject. So Tony was merely doing what we do here, giving his two cents worth on the Ron Paul "Revolution." Somehow, that gets made by many to be justification for trashing the validity of our story. Some comprehension-challenged Einstein even posted in the thread for my story that MY hatred was causing me to spread propaganda. TONY said that he hated the Ron Paul supporters. Learn to read, doofus.

Q: Speaking of which, I'm sure you're censoring the comment section here.

A: Actually, no, I haven't had to disallow any comments yet. In the words of the great Brodie Bruce, "the usual vault rules apply." Keep the language at least PG-13 and stay away from any extremely over-the-top personal attacks and we'll publish it. I make no apologies for controlling which comments get posted here because we were hit with a spam attack previously, but we'll publish even ones we disagree with as long as they meet the very basic, very generous above criteria.

Q: Well, what are your feelings about Ron Paul? You say you are a paleocon.

A: Yes, I am a paleocon as I have said. Now, I was never a Ron Paul supporter because I believed strongly in the candidacy of Fred Thompson. Plus, while I'm with Paul on many of his domestic policies, I'm against him on foreign affairs. While I'm certainly not a neocon, and I ripped them a third cornhole here, my sense of "conservative realpolitik" does not extend to the point of what I believe to be Paul's isolationism and liberal pacifism. It's one thing to say as I did that if I could magically unilaterally turn back the hands of time and prevent mistakes that I would have kept us from going into Iraq, it's quite another thing to be in favor of capriciously quick withdrawal of our troops regardless of facts on the ground and to be such a hippie that you would have been against the Civil War. I'm not with him on nearly enough to be a supporter of his, but I do have a soft spot for politicians to the right of the Republican Establishment (as he is domestically) who are willing to play the irritant role. I said so right here.

Q: Liar! You, sir, are a lying liar who lies! I have read attacks on Ron Paul right here on your very blog!

A: Yes. You most certainly have. Our Senior Editor Jason Jones denounced him pretty harshly right here (plus, when he was discussing his most hated political figures with me today, he referred to him as "Mitt Romney's red-headed bastard brother"). And we already covered the fact that Tony disemboweled him with his keyboard right here. Frankly, out of all of The Dignitaries of The FDH Lounge, only Nate Noy has been known to agree with me on any of the areas of domestic policy where I think Paul is right, so I'm in the minority around here. But guess who has posted more political columns here than anyone else? That's right, it was me! So you can't accurately call something a Paul-hating blog when the most prolific political columnist on that blog doesn't even remotely hate Paul. Nice try.

Q: But (long pause) ... you're saying your blog had nice things to say about Paul and also mean things? Hulk confused!

A: Yes, we have had both good and bad things to say about Ron Paul. I hope this doesn't cause your uncomprehending head to explode. I have had some (moderately) good and (moderately) bad things to say about the congressman and Jason and Tony have unloaded on him with both barrels. Here's a hint, though. CHECK THE F'ING BYLINE!!! We all speak for ourselves around here! Aren't you Ron Paul "Revolutionaries" supposed to believe in autonomy and being accountable for your own opinions and lives? Well, we practice that around here. The straight news story I wrote had nothing to do with any opinion piece penned by any columnist around here before or since. The same is true in reverse, of course, and nobody else around here should get the sack dance performed on them except me if I am proven wrong (which again, I won't be).

Q: How can you be even somewhat sympathetic to Ron Paul and harsh on his supporters like you do?

A: Because you are like a freaking cult. Y'know, I'm a Constitutionalist, too. I holler about the Tenth Amendment myself all the time. I get all worked up about the original intent of the Founding Fathers. So I'm with Ron Paul there and I appreciate that he's the rare libertarian who doesn't think it's cool to use forceps to squash the skull of an unborn baby. But for me or anyone else who disagrees with RP on even some issues, why we're Enemies of the Republic! You people are by and large fanatics who would make even Tom Cruise say, "Whoa, back away from the Kool-Aid, fellas!" At this rather cynical point of my evolution as a political observer, there aren't many politicians I can get behind at all. But the ones I support -- I'd never, ever reflect on them as poorly as you folks reflect on Ron Paul. It's like I stated to Jason in our aforementioned conversation: "I don't think Ron Paul is a kook, but his followers sure are."

Q: Hey ... why am I getting this warm, pleasant feeling in my head? I've never had that before.

A: It's called knowledge. I'm glad I could impart some on ya.

Redemption for right wing leaders

By Rick Morris

The fawning embrace given to Mitt Romney by so-called conservative leaders (bloggers, talk radio hosts, activists/lobbyists) was deeply damaging to their own credibility – but it was also unfortunately hurtful to the interests of the larger movement they claim to represent. While I’m not losing sleep about the harm done to the reputations of those like Hugh Hewitt who so consistently demeaned and undermined legitimate candidates in the race, I do recognize their power to diminish the future of this country since so many give them credit for speaking for the conservative movement. I do think the revolt against these people was a positive development, as the arrogance we’ve seen on display indicates that they’ve lost touch with those they purport to lead. Every intellectual revolution, such as this one that started with Goldwater, Buckley and Reagan back in the early ‘60s, eventually ossifies and becomes exactly that which it was supposed to oppose. For right-wingers, the Romney bandwagon of 2007-08 was the Animal Farm moment.

Herewith, my free advice for how these luminaries can get out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves and American conservatism:

^ Have the humility to read this column all the way through. Already, there are signs that the grand poobahs still don’t get it and want to foist the Mittster on us again four years hence. In this article, it is revealed that, in an insanely presumptuous and egomaniacal move, American Conservative Union Chairman David Keene took it upon himself to personally welcome Romney into the conservative movement at C-PAC. [Side note to Davey: You did nothing but induct him as a member of your little Beltway boys club. It’s very interesting that you have such contempt for the fact that a majority of conservatives in this country rejected your pet and would never call him one of their own. Who died and left you as The Sultan of American Conservatism? I’m just wondering if you put him through some rituals as part of a ceremony, such as “pinky swears” or a quiz on Bill Buckley’s five favorite Latin phrases.]. The continued arrogance of those who refuse to “get it” about Romney is unbelievable, inasmuch as they should be able to read the cold hard facts; if Mitt were the “great right hope,” then McCain and Huck put together wouldn’t have been able to stop him and he would have been more than a doormat in the bastion-of-conservatism Southern states. Leveling spurious charges of religious bigotry against the folks you clearly perceive to be nothing more than Flyover Country peasants won’t get you anywhere either. You need to accept the fact that the work many of you did for Goldwater in 1964 and Reagan in 1976 could very well be invalidated by the destructive moves you’ve pulled lately and in some cases persist in doing.

^ Crawl out of your echo chamber and be willing to defend your opinions. This piece of advice applies mostly to the talk radio potentates, most of whom hide behind the skirts of their call-screeners. Take a lesson from Michael Medved, who not only accepts calls from those unfriendly to his point of view but specifically seeks them. You have to get in fighting trim and go beyond accepting arse-kissing missives from vapid folks like “Dittoheads” and be willing to mix it up and articulate your principles in a consistent manner or learn to deal with irrelevance in a world fast leaving you behind.

^ Take an honest look at where you went wrong. Most of you were silent when you had a chance to boost Fred Thompson. Some of you, like Hewitt, actively slimed him. Regardless of how far off the reservation you went, you damaged the advancement of vital American causes. You did so in the false belief that you were embracing a candidate as sleek and supercharged as the American Motors company his father once ran. Instead, you ended up climbing aboard an Edsel that could not meet any necessary performance standards (justifying the megabucks investment in the early state contests, connecting with voters on any level, finding explanations for a myriad of conveniently-timed policy changes, creating an even moderately-successful campaign message). At long last, you need to admit that you picked the wrong “vehicle” and stop blaming others for the inevitable crash into the ditch.

^ Stop bashing populism. This edict applies specifically to good old El Rushbo, who denounced populism as part of his intellectually dishonest critique of Huck. One wonders exactly what he considers his denunciation of entities such as Nancy Pelosi and the “intellectual elites!” I realize that I speak as a member of the paleoconservative wing of the movement, which unfortunately accounts for a small minority, but let it be said once and for all that populism is a good thing! Certainly, Rush doesn’t like the concept when it’s turned on him, but that should have been an early sign that he was in the wrong. Some types of populism, such as the economic form of it that panders to folks of an illiterate mentality, are idiotic. But always, in making a choice between the people and their leaders who are pushing them down the primrose path, I side with the people and anyone aspiring to lead the conservative movement must also do no less.

^ Speak truth to power. The conservative intelligentsia has spent the last seven years toadying up to the Bush crew at all costs – Limbaugh and Hannity in particular come to mind. They’ve overlooked a host of offenses against sound policy but now ask us to get outraged about ones made by John McCain! [Another aside: how the heck does George W. Bush get a hero’s welcome at C-PAC from the same audience of “purists” who had to be begged not to chuck tomatoes at McCain? Again, not that McCain’s Mr. Right himself, but he’s made no more transgressions than Dubya and arguably has had less. But Bush pretends harder to be a consistent conservative than McCain does and appeases the sheep that way. Quite a shame the way the psychology works]. A little less worry about access to the Bushies and a little more pressure to do the right thing would have been better for the country, even if the individuals involved wouldn’t get invited to as many ice cream socials. The idea isn’t to be loved by the political elite, it’s to keep them honest. You people don’t need my admonition to hold McCain’s feet to the fire; it’s a tragic shame for our country that you chose not to apply the same standard to “The Decider.”

A New Year’s Plea: Fred!

By Rick Morris

As managing partner of the FDH family, I want to wish all of the readers, viewers and listeners of our content a very Happy New Year.

Now, speaking only for myself …

Our 22^nd edition of The FDH Lounge program this past Sunday night featured our first fantasy presidential election draft and a tremendous political roundtable afterwards. During the course of that discussion, I ended up butting heads with my fellow Dignitaries Burrell Jackson and Chris Galloway. Burrell is explicitly for Mitt Romney on the Republican side in the upcoming presidential race and Chris, while agreeing with me that Fred Thompson is the best candidate, does not oppose Mittens with nearly the same intensity I do (to put it mildly!). The segment was a truly outstanding piece of broadcast entertainment, as three passionate followers of the political game let loose as only we can. As Burrell and Chris correctly noted, my usual insane level of intensity was even more pronounced than usual as I begged and pleaded for what seems like the inevitable to be stopped – the Republican nomination of Mitt Romney.

Chris did not agree with my use of the word “conspiracy” to describe what is happening right now, and we could perhaps quibble on the exact application of the word vis-à-vis this process, but it is indisputable that the Grand Poobahs of the Republican party and the conservative movement are closing ranks behind Romney at light speed. I have already written here on how these self-appointed arbiters of what’s best for America, including a who’s who of the right-wing blogsphere, are having it both ways by ignoring Romney’s past aversion to conservatism while trying to read Mike Huckabee and John McCain out of the conservative movement. Huck and McCain have their share of deviations, to be sure, but it’s the height of hypocrisy to denounce them while praising Romney as a “full-spectrum conservative.”

I believe strongly that Romney cannot be trusted given the fact that he ran on one set of beliefs to get elected governor of a radical left state and a contrary set of ideas when trying to get elected nationally. I believe strongly that Romney, given his plastic, calculated, say-anything, politics-as-usual persona, will have absolutely no appeal to independent and Democratic voters in the fall – and that his cold corporate persona reinforces every preconceived notion about the Republican party not caring about the little guy and is particularly unsuited to draw votes in these uncertain economic times. I believe strongly that Romney is outside the Judeo-Christian tradition that has governed our country since its inception (and I urge those who disagree with me about this to at least research Romney’s religion first rather than spitting out tired clichés about religious bigotry). And I believe strongly that Romney has served as a magnet for every phony conservative leader who can’t sell out his or her beliefs fast enough.

It didn’t have to be this way. Earlier this year, Fred Thompson served as a beacon of hope for not only Republican voters, but also open-minded independents and Democrats who related to his plain-spoken common-sense approach. He chose the unconventional approach of trying to enter the race as an official candidate in the autumn months while serving as an unofficial “non-candidate” earlier. We can perhaps quibble on whether he should have thrown his hat in earlier or put in more appearances in the early states or any other “inside baseball” notion that wouldn’t have any resonance at all with the American people if the professional pundit class wouldn’t beat it into the ground. But what is clear as day is the notion that I angrily spit out to Chris Sunday night when he alluded to some of these notions working against Fred: if he loses this race, in large part it won’t be because of the self-inflicted wounds everyone speaks of incessantly. No, if he loses, it won’t be suicide on the part of his campaign. It will be premeditated murder on the part of the self-serving parasites in the Republican party and conservative movement who could have heeded his call to join a purifying movement to save our country but chose instead to sell their souls to Romney’s well-heeled greasy machine.

So yes, I agree that I was coming across with scary intensity Sunday night. Guilty as charged, because I’ve seen this routine before. The Republican party as a rule casts aside its best and most qualified candidate in favor of the person they cynically perceive as a winner for whatever reason. The insiders gathered in the smoke-filled rooms of D.C. in a panic in ’96 when their pet Bob Dole got smoked by the people’s populist Pat Buchanan in New Hampshire. Every piece of filthy politics imaginable got thrown Pat’s way over the next few weeks as the party succeeded in its foul desire to foist Bob Dole’s wrinkled bones on the American people in November. How’d that work out? In 2000, the process repeated itself as the GOP string-pullers decided early on that George W. Bush should be anointed as the prince. Pliable puppets like Rush Limbaugh slimed Buchanan on a daily basis and kidney-punched John McCain relentlessly when he emerged as Bush’s main competition. Is there any sane observer of the political process who is still willing to say that George W. Bush was the best possible candidate for president on the Republican side in 2000? Leaving aside Ronald Reagan, who I believe to be the best president of my lifetime (faint praise when you examine the weasels he’s measured against) and also the best since Lincoln, when has the GOP actually rallied behind a strong and attractive-on-policy candidate?

Again, I am not for McCain or Huckabee, I am strongly for Fred Thompson. But I do not brush off lightly the one-sided treatment these candidates have received from the GOP and right-wing nomenklatura. In this zero-sum game that we find ourselves in just prior to the Iowa caucuses, an attack on McCain or Huck for being unauthentic while ignoring every objectionable aspect of the Romney campaign is a blatant in-kind contribution to Team Mittens. Likewise, the simple-minded dismissals of Fred as a non-starter are dishonest because they serve the exclusive purpose of pushing Romney towards ultimate inevitability.

Burrell warned me that if enough people agree with me that Hillary Clinton will end up getting elected president. I repeat here what I said to him: it won’t be on our heads, it will be on the heads of those who crammed Romney down the throats of the American people as one of two nominees for president. The notion that absolutely any squalid excuse for a candidacy can be foisted on us with the bogeyman of Hillary Clinton being utilized to expect us to behave as robots will apparently have to be squashed the hard way when the Mittbots end up ensuring the third Clinton term.

Despite my pessimistic tone above, I must mention and reiterate that it is not too late for this country to come to its senses. Fred posted an unbelievable video summation of the rationale for his candidacy and for what he will do for this country if elected. Chris and I joked about how I as a paleocon see the glass half empty. But I do believe these are dire and urgent times for our country. The Republican party, for all of my many and profound differences with it, remains the institution closer to my belief set by far, and it needs redemption after the many problems with adherence to conservative principles and competent execution of policies these past seven years. As was the case in 2006, the political winds are blowing strongly to the Democrats and we face the very real possibility in 2009 of a President Hillary Clinton working with an enlarged Democratic majority in the House under Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid having a filibuster-proof 60 votes in his back pocket on any issue. Our country cannot be saved by cynical attempts to rally around a politician perceived to be slick enough to be a winner. We can only salvage our future by getting behind an honest man who doesn’t pander and tell us what we want to hear – a man with experience who commands confidence by communicating strongly to us a principled vision for the future. That man is Fred Thompson, and in lieu of a general wish of Happy New Year for this country, on this day I wish for our country to prove itself worthy of many happy years to come by getting behind Fred while we still can.

(Qualified) sympathy for Ron Paul

By Rick Morris

Every presidential election cycle features an unlikely breakthrough candidate who captivates the mainstream with eccentricities that set him apart from the pack. Unlike Howard Dean in 2004 or John McCain in 2000, however, this year’s refugee from obscurity has no chance of even coming close to the nomination. But Texas Congressman Ron Paul has separated himself from the rest of the Republican candidates by taking positions radically different from the rest – and in so doing, he has angered members of this royalist political party whose idea of responsibility is to sit down, shut up, and swallow the pabulum being pushed by the leadership.

Make no mistake – I am not a Paul supporter. Like other members of The FDH Lounge program, I am backing Fred Thompson and see him as the only viable candidate to save our country from further doom. But I harbor some sympathies for some of the Paul positions and certainly for the spirit that animates his candidacy.

Recently the RedState.com website made headlines by taking the extraordinary approach of prohibiting any new Ron Paul supporters from establishing a presence in the community. They are well within their legal rights to do so. Moreover, in light of the annoying tendencies of Paul supporters to spam and perform various Internet acts of harassment on behalf of their candidate, I understand the unwillingness that RedState may have to deal with the antics of a candidate almost universally regarded as “fringe.”

But the RedState folks were incredibly ill-advised in defending their decision by labeling the Ron Paul movement as “liberal.” Ron Paul is a self-described libertarian who takes paleoconservative positions on many foreign policy matters. Now, I must admit, as a self-identified paleoconservative, that Paul seems to go beyond where I and other paleos are at and does seem to advocate liberal foreign policy positions (such as the nature of the disengagement he seeks from the Middle East). My disagreements with him about this are such that they would preclude my support of him for the Republican nomination for president.

However, even if you grant some matters of foreign policy to those questioning Paul, he’s one of the least liberal candidates ever to run for public office. The man is a radical libertarian. Name any aspect of the modern welfare state and he’s against it. He speaks fondly of the gold standard and the reintroduction of principles from the Austrian economic school of thought. The aspects of complete individualism he preaches run so counter to liberal philosophies that the RedState justification stands as one of the more asinine explanations of any decision in this election cycle.

For a Republican Party that sold its soul this decade to try to buy more votes by embracing a boondoggle Medicare prescription drug program, the heinous, dollar-sucking No Child Left Behind, amnesty for illegal immigrants and all forms of corrupt pork barreling, a moral watchdog like Ron Paul serves a vital purpose – even if he does offend the Powers That Be in the GOP who want everyone to sit down and shut up as our Old American Republic yields to the New World Order, piece by piece. When the guardians of conservative purity have more sympathy for the blow-dried power brokers at the RNC than they do the pursuit of sound domestic public policy, they have nobody to blame but themselves for a world ready to embrace Hillary Clinton and empower the wackos at DailyKos.

The Iraq War: An FAQ

By Rick Morris

The Iraq War is the single most divisive issue of our time, with most elements of it still remaining confusing to the American public nearly 4 ½ years into this conflict. As previously stated, my position on domestic and international issues is that of the paleoconservative, as opposed to that of the somewhat militaristic neoconservative wing which dominates the Republican Party and the pacifist philosophy of the Democrats. I believe strongly that the paleo position is the one most in touch with the approach of the American people on this most difficult of matters. As such, I’m going to apply my paleo philosophy to the dominant questions of this war and create a “Morris Report” of sorts. On The FDH Lounge program this Sunday night, we will hold a straight up-or-down vote on the contents of my answers to ascertain what my fellow Lounge Dignitaries think. I believe that they will agree with me that it is a fairly accurate unified position of what the American people feel deep down about this war.

Was the initial invasion a mistake?

This is the question that sets the tone for how almost every person reacts to everything that has happened since – which is certainly not wise. It is also a question which most people consider to be a fairly easy one in one direction or the other – which again, is certainly not the case.

On the positive side of the ledger, we must admit that by 2003, Saddam Hussein was wiggling its way out of the post-Gulf War “box” that we had fashioned for him. Aided by the usual leftist demonstrators in this country whining about the effects of U.N. sanctions on the Iraqi people, Saddam was constructing a strong case of “punishment fatigue” in the world community. As we have subsequently learned, Saddam made a mockery of the Oil-For-Food Program by getting governmental and non-governmental stooges from England, France, Russia and a number of other countries to help him evade the world body’s limits on his weapons programs. If left in place in 2003, Saddam Hussein would surely not be nearly as boxed in by the U.S. and the U.N. as he was in the initial years after the first war.

Additionally, we must disregard the spurious surface logic of anti-war demonstrators that Saddam, as the perpetuator of a secular regime, could not possibly be in cahoots with terrorists who were religious fanatics. The Middle East as a whole is rife with countless examples of the old phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” – and among anti-American actors in that corner of the world, the United States and Israel are always the instruments of the devil no matter what. So every time you hear a leftist raise the differences between Saddam and terrorist groups as evidence they would never work together, you are listening to the perfect embodiment of smug faux intellectualism. Hussein’s Iraq did have links to numerous terrorist groups and even had training facilities in Baghdad – although this admittedly was all-too-common in the Arab world and there was in all likelihood no connection between Saddam and 9/11. While it seems like more jihadists are materializing there every day, we are killing a boatload of them in Iraq and our successes in Anbar province at the expense of Al Qaeda have reversed most of the propaganda gains they chalked up during the war.

The other obvious positive involves the fact that many stretches of the country, especially those in the Kurdish north, are better off than they were before our invasion and most people in the affected areas are greatly appreciative of our help. And it should not be minimized that, although chaos has ensued since the war began, we saved Iraq from genocide by Saddam Hussein. This actually starts the segue to the other side of the ledger, however, since mass killings take place in other regimes around the globe and our country has never thought of itself as a global policeman.

The negative side needs far less explanation, because these points have been drummed into our heads for most of the duration of the war. Let’s start with Iran, which unquestionably has a nuclear weapons program underway and has always been a graver strategic threat to us than Iraq. Iran is much stronger without the Iraqi counterbalance in the Gulf region, and has been emboldened by sectarian rivalries in Iraq and the fact that we have gotten bogged down there and are automatically less of a threat to confront them militarily. The strengthening of the mad mullahs of Iran outweighs our total gains in and of itself. And all of our enemies in the Arab world have reveled in the propaganda gains we have handed them during the course of the war, with the Abu Ghraib scandal topping the list. These enemies have also had forces coming in and out of Iraq all throughout the war as that country has served as the training ground for urban warfare that Afghanistan used to be.

But from there, we have a death toll of what will likely exceed 5,000 of our best and bravest and an injury assessment several times in excess of that. As brutal as this statement may be, death and destruction are inevitable in war, and we lost far more men than this at the Battle of the Bulge alone. But with the Axis powers posing a global threat, we knew that this blood had at least been shed for a vital and necessary purpose. Unforgivably, we cannot with certainty say the same of our fallen heroes in Iraq. To add insult to their deaths and injuries, many units were not properly equipped with body armor and other defense against the merciless enemies we have faced – and they were saddled with a failed status quo policy for almost four years until the 2007 troop surge turned the tide somewhat. The years of wasted motion while we lingered without a credible counterinsurgency strategy represent one of the greatest blunders in American history. We have an exhausted military, with much degraded and destroyed weaponry needing to be replaced at great cost. And we have soured the American people on the very concept of war when it may be necessary in our clear national interest against some other entity in the near future. The overreach of the 2000s has been every bit as damaging as the pacifism of the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘90s.

We addressed the blood, now let’s examine the treasure. It’s almost inevitable that over $1 trillion will be spent in the desert of Mesopotamia by the time we cease serious combat operations. At a time of reckless pork-barrel federal spending (the bill for which will be passed on to our grandchildren), underfunded port security and a looming entitlement crisis that will bankrupt this country soon enough anyways, it’s more than an understatement to say that we could sure use that trillion dollars back.

So the answer, while not as overwhelming as the knee-jerk anti-war protestors would have you believe, is that the decision to go to war was not worth it. Even given the fact that the intelligence community for whatever reasons put forth the notion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, every other justification for war was flawed even when viewed through the lens of the time (and I was one who was queasy about our decision to invade). As addressed above, we had no semblance of a counterinsurgency strategy to follow the first part of the war when we would topple Hussein. We willingly put ourselves in a position to be ganged up and marginalized in the world community by opportunists in the French and German governments and countries looking to assert themselves on the world stage at our expense in Russia and China. We put all of our propaganda hopes on the swift success of democracy, when centuries of human history have shown it to be an institution that can only work well amongst a people who have taken the time to embrace and understand it. Democracy itself has been discredited in the eyes of countless Arabs, a blunder of historic impact. And by toppling a minority Sunni government and empowering the Shiite majority, we ensured that their co-religionists, our enemies in Iran, would inevitably be strengthened. Of course, the neoconservative war theorists believed that we could march right into Iran after we pacified Iraq, but we’re years away from that possibility as the Iranian nuclear program becomes more of a threat each day. Also, the Sunni-Shiite-Kurd rivalries frozen by the Saddam Hussein dictatorship were very reminiscent of the Balkan feuds kept under the surface by Communist rule – as it turned out in both instances, once the totalitarians were gone, vicious rivalries never firmly settled reemerged with a vengeance and toppled any attempts at regional stability.

On balance, the war was not worth it, certainly in retrospect and arguably at the time. Given the best we are likely to still accomplish in Iraq, it is very unlikely that history will be kind to the decision to invade.

Did Iraq possess weapons of mass destruction?

Notwithstanding the answer to the first question, and the fact that the absolute consensus seems to be that they did not, I am still a bit uncertain on this issue. Rumors have floated for years that Baathist thugs trucked the WMDs across the Syrian border to be stored by their allies in the Damascus dictatorship. It seems highly unlikely that the Bush administration would keep that information under wraps, especially given its need to defend an unpopular war – but, with the urgent imperative to keep Israel from engaging in shooting wars unhelpful to us in Iraq, anything is possible. Even if Iraq did have WMDs, however, I still believe that we should have held off on invading, at least at that time – because we did face reality and realize that invading North Korea was a bad idea and we haven’t invaded Iran (yet).

Should we own up to the fact publicly that the idea to go to war was a mistake?

No, there’s nothing to be gained by it in any sense, morally or logically. First and foremost, we would be dishonoring our troops by undermining the rationale of what we professed to be accomplishing with their blood. The wounded and dead and their families don’t deserve that, not by a longshot. Also, any goodwill we would regain with any erstwhile allies would be more than negated by the fact that our enemies would be emboldened by a public admission of failure.

Has this war damaged our deterrence factor?

No question about it. Sadly, it ruined the incredible level of deterrence we earned by accomplishing in months what the Soviets couldn’t in several years by wining in Afghanistan. Every tinpot dictator on Earth feels emboldened by the fact that Uncle Sam has his hands full with a ragtag terrorist network in Iraq – and since deterrence is more critical to keeping America safe than almost any other factor, we are likely to pay a dear price for our failures to date and will pay a bigger toll in the future if we can’t earn back more respect for our military capabilities by the time we inevitably draw down in Iraq. And a war-weary American public will be that much harder to rally when we face a legitimate threat, due to rationale for this war that was thoroughly discredited in their eyes.

What are the similarities and differences with the Vietnam War?

Similarities

^ Both wars lost the support of the American people, in part because many opportunistic and unprincipled politicians have succeeded in defining it narrowly as an unpopular president’s war as opposed to a venture in which we are all invested.

^ In both instances, American forces received inadequate military direction for the first several years of the war as the enemy utilized brutal terrorist techniques.

^ Our ineptitude at “telling our story” has cost us dearly on the global stage, as our rivals for global influence scheme and try to take advantage of our distraction.

^ The massacres in Southeast Asia that followed our pullout would be mirrored on a horrific scale in Iraq – additionally, our global prestige and deterrent threat would take an immense beating by pulling out of Iraq in defeat the same as in the Vietnam aftermath.

Differences

^ Without a military draft, opposition to the Iraq War is not as visceral because nobody can be sent involuntarily.

^ The North Vietnamese and Vietcong were never going to follow us to America and continue the war here after winning. The jihadists in Iraq want to kill Americans wherever they can and prefer a 9/11 type of attack on our soil.

^ Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon were, for better or for worse, guided in Vietnam by knowledge of war they obtained firsthand in the military in World War II. George Bush’s military experience, such as it was, during the Vietnam era, did not infuse him with any battlefield lessons for the Iraq War.

Was the surge a good idea – and should we stay with it?

Yes and yes. This goes back to the unfortunate initial point about how one’s conclusions about whether we should have gone to war initially color people’s perceptions about what to do now. Regardless of whether anyone wants to admit it or not, we as a country own this war and the successes and failures, not merely George Bush and Dick Cheney. The surge of American forces has been successful enough that it’s possible to state with some confidence that if it were applied four years ago that it might have brought the war to an end in a reasonable period of time. The immense danger evident if we leave in allowing Iraq to devolve into an unchecked terrorist breeding ground and de facto satellite of Iran (in Gulf-bordering part of the country) justified our decision earlier this year to “double down” and try to salvage something from the disaster of the previous few years. Even after years of our sleepy inaction that allowed Iraq to spiral downward, we have still made great success in retaking key parts of the country and lethally countering terrorist networks. True, we can’t sustain the surge forever with our manpower limitations, but we can and must build on our progress for at least another six months so that we can try to ensure the situation we leave behind is not a festering sore.

Is Iraq legitimately a part of the Global War on Terror?

It is now. While it probably wasn’t involved to a critical degree before our invasion, it certainly is at the moment given Al Qaeda’s vast efforts to rebuild their network to full strength using Iraq as the main focus. Our battles against jihadists there are the same as any we fight around the globe, covertly or otherwise. Distinctions that politicians seek to make between terrorists in Iraq and others around the globe are artificial and a deliberate attempt to confuse the stakes we face so that our defeat might seem more palatable.

Can we still win in Iraq?

If by “win,” we mean leaving behind a country that is not a completely failed state and not a threat to its neighbors or us via terrorism, then the answer is yes. If by “win,” we mean leaving behind the vision of flourishing Jeffersonian democracy previously preached by George Bush and his neoconservative missionaries, then the answer is no. Fortunately, our military and civilian leadership seems to have pulled its collective head out of its collective posterior, so we now have a realistic chance to salvage the aforementioned modest definition of success from our years of hell in the sand.