Slaughter fears Bush will launch Iranian invasion to help GOP

August 8, 2007

About two weeks ago, Anne-Marie Slaughter, the dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, wrote a much-discussed Washington Post piece about bipartisanship. I’m hard-pressed to think of anyone who found Slaughter’s item worthwhile — it seemed to praise bipartisanship for the sake of bipartisanship. It was Broderism at its least helpful.

Slaughter, for example, argued that in the foreign policy realm, “the fiercest battle is no longer between the left and the right but between partisanship and bipartisanship.” She seemed to suggest that those of us who see disastrous policies unfolding should just keep quiet and let people in power sort things out.

Given the negative response, Slaughter is now hoping to clarify her perspective. She had a follow-up item today at TPM Cafe.

Here is my nightmare. The Cheneyites succeed in creating a situation in which Bush does decide to bomb Iran. Iran retaliates, as they openly threaten to do, with terrorist attacks against us on U.S. soil. That tilts the election. I can imagine a Karl Rove political calculation that would buttress a Cheney-Addington national security calculation, probably with Eliot Abrams’ support.

This scenario is one that any Democrat, of any type, and any moderate Republican … should be taking seriously and fighting against.

Now, Slaughter’s broader point is that sensible people on the left need to fight the administration while making common cause with Republicans, who, she argues, we’ll need to establish a meaningful policy.

But as Kevin Drum noted, Slaughter’s argument, taken at face value, is rather striking.

Let me get this straight. Anne-Marie Slaughter, one of the most accommodating, serious, centrist, liberal foreign policy players on the planet, has just said that she thinks it’s entirely possible that the Bush administration will launch a foreign war next year in order to help the Republican Party win an election.

Apparently, being serious isn’t what it used to be.

Quite right. In fact, Slaughter also called for a march on Washington against torture, which is sounds pretty far afield for an establishment player who is the dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School.

It’s also a reminder that regular ol’ mainstream liberals have been driven to an unexpected ideological point over the last decade or so. It no longer sounds ridiculous, at least not to Slaughter, to think the White House would launch a war to help elect Republicans.

This is the result of Bush’s style of politics.

I’m still waiting for that column in which Republicans are called upon to move toward us vascillating, weak-kneed Dems who are too pig-headed to compromise.

  • I stumbled onto this the other day – Free online streaming of an English language channel from Iran – pretty fascinating stuff.

    mms://217.218.67.244/presslive

    It sometimes helps to see other people, other lands, other perspectives. It turns out that middle class people live there too. Who would have thought it watching the MSM here?

  • So, if the “Cheneyites succeed in creating a situation in which Bush does decide to bomb Iran” it’s “to help the Republican Party win an election”.

    But, if “Iran retaliates […] against us on U.S. soil” it’s a “terrorist attack”.

    Please explain.

  • Here is my nightmare. The Cheneyites succeed in creating a situation in which Bush does decide to bomb Iran.

    Yes, I’ve been having that same nightmare since last year after I discovered for myself all of the improprieties with the 9/11 Commission Report.

  • Shouldn’t that read “those of us who see disastrous policies unfolding should just keep quiet and let people in power sort things out.”?

  • Oh God! Please not that nightmare again! It’s been a recurring one for me for years. Let’s just all hold our breath and our noses for another four hundred and fifty or so more days, since Ms. Pelosi and her vacationing Dems seem disinclined to relieve us of our misery any sooner.

  • I’m entirely confused. What Democrat isn’t willing to work with Republicans to stop Bush? The problem isn’t that we’re anti-Republican, per se. It’s that we don’t like what Bush is doing and want to stop him, and most Republicans still stand by him no matter what he does. So it’s not that we’re too partisan. It’s that they’re too loyal to the guy that’s screwing things up. So no, there is no way of being “bi-partisan” while also opposing Bush, because Republicans in Congress are not their own people. They’re Bush’s. And so any bi-partisanship on our part does nothing but enable Bush; not stop him.

    But again, if Republicans want to help us stop Bush from continuing to screw everything up, I have no problem with them joining us. Slaughter clearly has the wrong theory on why partisanship continues.

  • I can’t quite understand what this post is getting at. Probably just me being dumb.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if Bush launched war on Iran if a Dem wins in Nov 08.

  • When the unthinkable happens repeatedly, a rational person begins to think that the impossible is indeed possible, if not probable.

  • To add to the fear, consider just how this group manages to miscalculate short-term triumph for long-term gain. What if Bush launches a half-assed war, there’s a retaliation, and people catch on enough it DOESNT help the Republicans?

  • I don’t think Bush would start a war with Iran to help Republicans, but he would to force the Democrats’ hand in regard to the Middle East. He’d be smirking all the way back to Crawford.

  • Why is it that the MSM’s idea of “bipartisanship” usally entails the Dems bending over? Why shouldn’t the Republicans come around? Really, they’re the ones that need to answer for the complete disaster in Iraq, right?

  • The current polls say the people trust Dems more than Rethugs across the board on every issue. They also greatly dislike the war. Why in the name of Eugene Levy would starting another war, particularly if it induces terrorist attacks in US soil going to reverse that trend? The problem here is that people think the Dems have gained ground with their message. I am inclined to believe that the GOP has pushed the button on their suicide vest but forgotten to go into the market first. Their credibility is zero and is only headed down.

  • Goldilocks,

    If you bomb at ground level with a truck full of explosives and kill civilians (“victims”), it’s a terrorist attack.

    If you bomb at 35,000 feet with a B-2 full of JDAMs and kill civilians (“collateral damage”), it’s a “pre-emptive strike”.

  • The only way Bushco will be stopped is by a large bipartisan surge that leaves the mindless Rethug ideologues behind. That isn’t likely to happen, as it did in 1974 when Nixon was forced out. Congress is now full of people without the brains they were born with, and propaganda rules the land.

    Would the boy-president start another way to help the Repugs? Sure. But he’s more likely to start it in the interest of protecting oil interests, and to commit the Dims to a war they won’t be able to win. He’ll be in a secure retirement pointing out how the Dims lost the war, whether or not they’re in the WH, and how his strategies for “success” would have carried us to a greater glory. The reincarnation of Goebbels, Rover, knows how to spin it, and the stenographic American media will lap it up. 2008 is going to be a nightmare.

  • Ohioan (@2) said:

    I stumbled onto this the other day – Free online streaming of an English language channel from Iran – pretty fascinating stuff.

    Ohioan, if I were you, I wouldn’t be watching or listening to anything coming out of Iran, now that we’ve “fixed” FISA. We’d be sad to miss you among the commenters…

  • I’m still stuck on this bit:

    “Iran retaliates, as they openly threaten to do, with terrorist attacks against us on U.S. soil.”

    What the hell is Slaughter talking about? Has Iran actually made such threats? If so, I’ll be even more depressed. But if not, I don’t see why we should pay attention to anything she writes ever again.

    Unless she meant that to be part of her imaginary future scenario: we bomb Iran, and then they threaten to attack us, and then they attack us. Which is a very weird thing to write.

  • Now, Slaughter’s broader point is that sensible people on the left need to fight the administration while making common cause with Republicans, who, she argues, we’ll need to establish a meaningful policy.

    I mean, sure. Who are these Republicans again, who will stick by us when we go against “our” Commander in Chief? Lieberman maybe? Can’t even get the Dems to do it, much less the mythical “moderate” Republicans.

  • Ms. Slaughter clearly thinks Americans are dumber than rocks. We are a bit slow, but we do eventually get things sorted out. Another terrorist attack on American soil will be the straw that breaks the “Republicans are strong on defense” myth for the next twenty years. Even the 2006 elections were a strong indication that Rove has played the fear card way too many times.

    I would suggest to you that political parties don’t live forever and the Republican party as it now exists is a goner. Look for the GOP candidates to break hard from Bush when they realize what supporting Bush does to their poll numbers. And if Bush manages to start a shooting war with Iraq, I firmly expect the GOP candidates to be the first Republicans to back impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

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