Friday, August 25, 2006

a ploy of coercive diplomacy.

* a comment at EW's place:

Suppose for a moment that the threat of war with Iran might conceivably be necessary, as a ploy of coercive diplomacy. This is not to say that war itself is necessary or appropriate, only that the credible threat of it lies within the imaginable range of options.

In that case - if there is any possibility of needing to go to war, isn't it absolutely necessary that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld resign? Their incompetence at war and everything else is well understood by a hefty majority of the American people.

(This does not mean putting sock puppet Denny Hastert in the White House; the Agnew-Nixon resignations supply precedent for a constitutional alternative.)

Anyone who asserts that war might be necessary, but is not willing to demand their resignations is on the face of it non-serious if not delusional. So ... why not raise this question to the people who are tooting the war bugles? If they think we may need to enter another war, are they willing to call for the architects of the disastrous current one to step down? If not, why not?

That shifts the debate from "the Iranians are bad" to "Bush is incompetent." It will make Republicans squirm, and might even bring out a few long knives.

ew responds:
I like it. I've long advocated a similar approach for Iraq--if we're going to stay, then we absolutely HAVE to get competent (non-Rummy) leadership at the healm. Otherwise, we'll just be shipping off our men and women to serve as IED fodder.

But expand the idea to Iran? Yeah. I like that.

3 comments:

profmarcus said...

i wish to hell we could squash once and for all the idea of the bush administration being incompetent... yes, bush is a sock puppet for the dark powers that stand behind him, and yes, he is barely able to rub two brain cells together to utter an articulate thought or a complete sentence, but, when you consider that bushco has accomplished virtually EVERYTHING they set out to do, i simply must give credit where credit is due...

their agenda - accumulate unlimited power whether legitimately or through extra-constitutional, extra-legal means; through fear, manipulate the u.s. and a large part of the world population into forsaking civil liberties and - in the u.s. - most of the fundamentals on which the nation was founded; divert massive sums of money into their own pockets through war profiteering; continue to foster global chaos, conflict, and war, thus keeping the u.s. dominance in weapons sales intact; lobotomize any implied or explicit social contract, leaving everyone to fend for themselves regardless of circumstance; and establishing rigid social controls, again through fear, but also through an unholy alliance with religious extremists - is a success story unparalleled in modern times... it was achieved through a 30-year strategy, and not only succeeded in taking over the republican party but a big chunk of the democratic party, and, i suppose, one could say, the ruling parties in the uk and australia as well... that's NOT incompetence... they have NEVER been committed to stability OR peace OR fighting terror OR a healthy economy OR anything else that makes for a sane and functioning world...

Anonymous said...

Hear! Hear!

I've been saying the same thing since the day they started fighting to avoid counting votes in Florida in 2000. These people are criminals. Extremely brazen, in-broad-daylight, highly-competent criminals. And as for the empty suit put in place to facilitate the schemes, he does not get off the hook on a plea of stupidity. He is perfectly content to aid and abet the plans of this political organized crime family, which means he is just as culpable as any of the rest of them.

Anonymous said...

woo-hooo LeeB and Prof. Marcus! exactly what y'all said. :)

IM-FUCKIN-PEACH. NOW.