Krauthammer, you ignorant slut …

Posted by Joshua Holland at 11:22 AM on May 27, 2006.

Is there a more dangerous intellect than Charles Krauthammer on a tear against the Islamunist menace?

His latest:

All of a sudden, revolutionary Iran has offered direct talks with the United States. All of a sudden, the usual suspects -- European commentators, American liberals, dissident CIA analysts, Madeleine Albright -- are urging the administration to take the bait.

Yes, Charles, all of a sudden …

Flynt Leverett, in the New York Times:

During its five years in office, the administration has turned away from every opportunity to put relations with Iran on a more positive trajectory…

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, Tehran offered to help Washington overthrow the Taliban and establish a new political order in Afghanistan.

In the spring of 2003, shortly before I left government, the Iranian Foreign Ministry sent Washington a detailed proposal for comprehensive negotiations to resolve bilateral differences. The document acknowledged that Iran would have to address concerns about its weapons programs and support for anti-Israeli terrorist organizations. It was presented as having support from all major players in Iran's power structure, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A conversation I had shortly after leaving the government with a senior conservative Iranian official strongly suggested that this was the case. Unfortunately, the administration's response was to complain that the Swiss diplomats who passed the document from Tehran to Washington were out of line.

According to the Financial Times, that wasn't the first time Iran's tried to open a dialogue, but previous tries have been scuttled by neocon madmen -- men like Krauthammmer:

Iran's proposal of a road map leading to the restoration of relations with the US did not come as a complete surprise to the Bush administration, but it has intensified a fierce internal debate between "realists" and "neo-conservatives" over ambitious plans to remake the wider Middle East.

Signs of an overture from Tehran had been picked up by Washington a year before the invasion of Iraq …

Even before last May … a suggestion [of detente] had been aired by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president.

Mr Rafsanjani, a powerful figure central to several abortive bids over the past 18 years to strike deals with the US, suggested the question of Iran-US relations could be put to a referendum, a move almost sure to secure approval for rapprochement…

For Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, Iran and its creation Hizbollah cannot be forgiven for the retreat of US forces from Lebanon in 1983 after 241 Marines were killed by a bomb.

For many in the Bush administration, that humiliation, followed by no meaningful retaliation, created an image of American weakness in the Arab world that ultimately encouraged the al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001.

The story goes on about the internal fight between people in Dick Cheney's office -- like Doug Feith, who Tommy Franks called "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth" -- and Colin Powell, Bush I's National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and other sane folks about how to react to the overtures. Guess who won? The fucking stupidest guys on the face of the earth.

Anyway, "European commentators, American liberals, dissident CIA analysts" and even wild-eyed Clintonistas like Madeleine Albright were encouraging direct dialogue all that time.

And, by the way, those attempts at rapprochement were all big news stories at the time, meaning Krauthammer knows all of this to be true and is essentially just lying his way through this whole column. Eh, what else is new?

Back to it:

Mark my words. The momentum for U.S.-Iran negotiations has only begun. The focus of the entire Iranian crisis will begin to shift from the question of whether Tehran will stop its nuclear program to whether Washington will sit down alone at the table with Tehran.

The horrors of negotiation! I ask you: can't we all just drop a bomb?

Just yesterday the world was excoriating the Bush administration for its unilateralism -- on Kyoto, the ABM Treaty and, most especially, Iraq -- and demanding that Washington act in concert with the "international community." Just yesterday the Democratic nominee for president attacked President Bush's foreign policy precisely for refusing to consult with, listen to and work with "the allies."

Another day, another principle. Bush is now being pressured to abandon multilateralism and go it alone with Iran.

The one area where I agree with Krauthammer is his belief that people who read him (for knowledge instead of entertainment) are very, very stupid.

How else to explain this pathetic attempt at a "gotcha"?

Let's set aside the obvious differences between attacking a country or pulling out of a climate treaty and sitting down to negotiate to get something you want. Nobody, and I mean nobody, has suggested that Bush "abandon multilateralism." It's called "multiple-track" diplomacy: on track one you continue the multilateral negotiations -- with the EU-3 taking the lead -- and on track two you have bilateral U.S.-Iranian negotiations for the issues that can only be settled between the two. This is done all the time -- it's a standard operating procedure in peace negotiations -- and, again, Krauthammer knows this very well.

The next 500 words are the boilerplate half-truths and transparent historical revisionism that prove that Iran is the Next Nazi Germany. He forgets to mention that Iran has an "inalienable right," under a treaty signed by the U.S., to enrich uranium, or that all of Iran's nuclear fuel is presently accounted for.

Then we get an idea of what Krauthammer's hoping to achieve in the short-term:

Pushing Washington to abandon the multilateral process and enter negotiations alone is more than rank hypocrisy. It is a pernicious folly. It would short-circuit the process that, after years of dithering, is about to yield its first fruits: sanctions that Tehran fears.

Sanctions. Nothing would hurt Iranian reformers or strengthen its hardliners more than sanctions. It's another example of how these guys feed off of each other. The Krauthammers and guys like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are two sides of the same coin; they need each other -- hell, they feed off of each other.

But sanctions won't happen, or at least not significant sanctions. The rest of the world sees the Iranian leadership as a nuisance, but the country itself as a major trading partner. The rest of the world needs their oil.

And the world will get it regardless of sanctions. Let's review the countries that border Iran:

Afghanistan

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Iraq

Pakistan

Turkmenistan

Turkey

Good luck stopping Iran from smuggling out that $100 dollar-per-barrel oil through those borders.

Anyway, finally, at the end of his column, Krauthammer comes clean and admits that he'd accept direct negotiations as long as they're geared, ultimately, towards bombing Iran to hell:

We should resolutely say no [to bilateral talks].

Except on one condition. If the allies… [pledge] support for U.S. and/or coalition military action against Iran in the event that the bilateral talks fail, then we might achieve something.

You want us to talk? Fine. We will go there, but only if you arm us with the largest stick of all: your public support for military action if the talks fail…

That's our condition. Otherwise, the entire suggestion of bilateral talks is a ploy that should be rejected with the same contempt with which it was proposed.

It's not that he thinks anyone's going to pre-approve an attack -- by this administration -- on a country that hasn't demonstrably breached any international law. It's just that he's nuts.

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.