“Do you think it’s an accident that when the neocons were in charge Hezbollah led the Lebanese elections but when we ditched the neocons, the Lebanese ditched Hezbollah? Do you think it’s an accident that when we ditched our far-right extremist government here in favor of a realist liberal that the liberals in Iran advanced their cause remarkably? Much further than anyone had a right to hope?” ~ a friend of mine, in a forum online somewhere
Erik Kain
Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.
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And so, once again, Americans get to claim responsibility for progress in the Middle East.Report
Right – and Larison has grabbed this now and made some very good points. However, I would just add that when a country is directly involved with the affairs of another country – when, for instance, there is the feeling that American might very well invade said country for instance, or assist in the invasion of said country, the citizenry might (just might) vote for hawks who promise to do a better job keeping us out. We certainly use that national security line all the time in our voting. Doesn’t that play a role in who many Americans vote for – wasn’t that part of why Bush beat Kerry in 2004, because of the perceived threats elsewhere? Why wouldn’t other nations do likewise when they perceive a certain American administration to be more of a threat than another?Report
They might, sure.
Then again, Bush might have beaten Kerry because Kerry was so god-awful and a grown-up nominated by Democrats (Gephardt?) would have beaten Bush handily (or, say, a Dean).
It’s possible to come up with any number of theories for why this is happening now… foremost, of course, is the Neocon theory that it *CAN* happen now because Saddam is gone.
It seems safer to wait for them to tell us, in their own words, why they did it.Report
This “Do you think it’s an accident?” style is out-and-out conspiracy theory. Or, rather, it’s an egregious example of post hoc ergo propter hoc so-called reasoning.
The most intelligent thing said about this so far: It seems safer to wait for them to tell us, in their own words, why they did it.
ED Kain wants to claim some sort of credit for “ditching” the “neocons” and then that this has somehow generated changes that we can agree with in the Middle East.
Once they do “tell us, in their own words, why they did it,” ED Kain & Friend will be eating their own words. Or probably not. They’ll still find a way to take credit for doing nothing.Report
“It’s possible to come up with any number of theories….”
And thank you My Sweet Lord for that. Otherwise this comments section would be largely empty.Report
Frankly, I do think it’s a coincidence. Iran and Hezbollah were successful while Clinton was President; they did not need a Republican in the White House to use as a bogeyman. Whatever the virtues or drawbacks of a purportedly “realist liberal” U.S. Administration, it must be the case that leadership groups in Iran and Hezbollah have their own dynamics and their own politics.Report
I think the diverse pressures of modernity have more to do with it than any US political party in power. It’s affecting China, India, Iran, the whole world. The time they are a’changin’….
Medieval mindsets just can’t survive in this quickly changing world. Technological progress alone is enough to cause discombobulation.Report