Mar 20 2008
McCain’s Gaffe and Progressive Naivety
I’d like to say a lot more about John McCain’s Iran-Al Qaeda slip, but it has already been beaten into the ground. I’ll save my bloviating on the Left’s obsession (yes, the Left’s) with Al Qaeda, and the ignorance it reveals, for another day. For now, let me just add that I think it was a simple slip of the tongue. Any questions about McCain’s acumen, or his military judgment, should not be drawn from this incident. Now, I can understand why his opponents would feel the need to pounce on him. Any way to put a chink in the seemingly impenetrable foreign policy armor of John McCain makes tactical sense in a campaign.
However, the collective clamor over the issue from the far Left reveals a lot more about the Arizona senator’s critics than it does of him. Their childish insistence that Sunni and Shi’a never associate with each other, or that this somehow diminishes McCain’s leadership ability, is absurd (and as an aside, it takes a lot of chutzpa, one would think, for Josh Marshall to get all flustered over Iranian gaffes. Journalist, heal thyself). It might be helpful if the Leftists took some deep breaths, calmed themselves down and maybe examined some of the evidence. As Ed Morrissey pointed out yesterday, there is reason to believe that Iran has divvied out support across religious and ethnic lines in Iraq. While the republic’s first obligation is to Shi’a Islam, the old saying about “the enemy of my enemy” holds true in their case. The 9/11 Commission couldn’t dismiss ties between Tehran and Bin Laden in the Khobar Towers bombing; the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement–a Sunni offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood–is now heavily funded by Shi’a Hezbollah and Iran.
Sunnis and Shias aren’t the neat little college syllabus categories that Leftists make them out to be, and it reveals nothing but ignorance and willful naivety when they harp on John McCain’s slip of the tongue. It says a lot more about their acumen than his.
UPDATE: So the drum beats on today. As an other aside point, I’m sort of saddened that there is basically no difference between the rhetoric of some random Lefty blogger and the official mouthpiece of the Democratic Party. I realize that we’re in the midst of a campaign, and that you need to take your shots where you can, but I guess I had hoped for better from the party apparatus.
McCain appears to be sticking with the argument, although rather loosely. This doesn’t strike me as a very intelligent political maneuver, however the facts remain the same–Iran has financed, and continues to finance, Sunni insurgents all throughout the region. To act with feigned outrage over such an assertion proves that certain Leftists are more interested in political points than they are in reality.
Nice post. I’d like to get a dialogue going on this stuff more often. I really wish intelligence issues didn’t so often split on party lines. Has it always been like this?
No, it shows intelligence for people to pounce on this. Any ties, current or previous, between Iran and al Qaeda are tenuous at best and do not make any logical sense whatsoever, given that Iran and al Qaeda are currently COMPETING for influence in Iraq.
Come on. This is just disingenuous.
And yeah, shame on the left for their silly obsession with the people who actually committed a terrorist act on American soil. How quaint to want to actually commit the resources to going after al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda in Iraq isn’t competing for "influence" in Iraq, because the moment America leaves they realize that their influence is exhausted. They are a minority, and they would likely withdraw to the strongholds they think they can hold (which at one point was Anbar, although that has become less of a given for them). Their stated and primary mission isn’t to rule all of Iraq; but to end the "American empire." And the reason Sunnis will associate with Iran–aside from gladly taking their money and weapons–is that they look to the system established by Khomeini’s faqih regime as the model for what they want to impose on their own. Of course they have a different vision for the world, and they often speak a different language, however they all pray in the same direction. They’re all obligated to go on the Haj, etc.
You call the evidence tenuous, yet I doubt that you’re able to expand much on that claim. My guess would be that you have no idea whatsoever. Of course, all intelligence info tends to be "tenuous," and relies heavily on trends and assumptions. If I had to keep guessing, I’d guess that you find all of the info you don’t want to hear to be tenuous. I never said we shouldn’t pursue Al Qaeda, you’re just being obtuse if that’s what you took away from my post.
To simplify it for you, Al Qaeda is Islamic Extremism, but not all Islamic Extremism is Al Qaeda. Should we not stop both? I know you spend most of your time obsessing over McCain, but try to think about that for a bit.
Iran the "Axis of evil", but how much of the support and terrorists are from Jordan, Egypt and Saudis Arabia. Don’t ignore our "supposed allies".
I don’t ignore them, however it’s a bit of a canard to say "but Iranians never bombed us and Saudis did." Well, sure, but we currently exert more influence in places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt than we do in Iran (this, again, is partly why Sunni terrorists respect the regime in Tehran).
Iran has financed, and continues to finance global terror all around the world. Calling them the "central banker" of Islamic terrorism isn’t a stretch, as they have a specific byline in their budget dedicated to causing trouble, following through with their constitutionally mandated obligation to export the revolution.
But who is financing the Sunnis extremists, it’s rich Saudis and others Sunnis outside Iraq. The Pentagon spin ignores the support coming from Sunnis Arab countries. The Iranians influence in Sunnis terorism is tactical, not strategic.
Well, there’s a book’s worth of type in response to what you just said, but I don’t see how it relates to the topic at hand. The fact that it’s raining outside has little bearing on whether or not it’s day or night out.
I don’t think the Pentagon is downplaying anything…we know what goes on in Saudi Arabia, in Egypt and other parts of the Sunni Arab world. I don’t think it’s entirely fair to say no action has been taken–we’ve frozen assets, and the U.S. Treasury has gone after the resources that it can. One of the big problems in Iran is that nearly 30 years of poor relations have produced very few economic ties between us and them. So, no trade relations, nothing much to sanction (beyond a couple of small industries, or a few of their banks in ally nations like Bahrain). This is why the sanctions we’ve pursued have been viewed as mostly symbolic, and mean very little if Italy, Russia and China don’t stop cutting gas and oil deals with them.
And whatever the reason, it’s undeniable that Iran has funded and supported Sunni extremists. Whether or not they cut a check made out to "Al Qaeda bad people" sort of belittles the discussion, imo.