Learning the Wrong Lesson, and Learning it Well

This recent interview of Michael Rubin contains at least one really bizarre analogy:

People often bring up the U.S.-supported coup against Prime Minister Muhammad Musaddiq in 1953 as a watershed moment. It was. It was, unfortunately, a triumph of realism. But while Musaddiq was no saint — his populism and willingness to use mob violence parallel the strategy of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti — we are paying the price for swimming against the tide of much of the Iranian public. This is why it would be such a mistake to make the same mistake again by holding out an olive branch to the current regime, which is as unpopular now as was the shah in 1953 and 1979.

Uh - the problem with the Shah and the coup against Mossadeq is that we helped to overthrow their government and to install a person who would do our bidding. We also helped to keep him propped up until 1979. That is not comparable to simply dealing with an unpopular regime and trying to make peace with them. If we gave the Iranian regime aid to keep the regime going, or gave them intelligence that would help them to crush dissidents, that would be one thing. If we actively helped the regime, that would be one thing.

The fact we are not actively trying to undermine the Iranian government is something else entirely. There is some concern that actively encouraging the anti-regime side in Iraq may discredit it, and there is a general concern that actions taken againt Iran may cause its people to rally behind the regime.

And of course, let's remember that Rubin is a shill who continuously claimed that anyone who opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq was enormously unpopular with the Iraqis, that the Iraqis were, in the beginning, overjoyed at the prospect of U.S. occupation Ahmad Chalabi was well-loved and the favorite son of the Shi'a, and who in general would state what appear to be his own opinions as the general Iraqi opinion.

Rubin has the general neocon tendency to assume that everyone thinks like them and chooses their allegiances and allies based entirely on ideology, with such petty concerns as race, nation, kith, and kin being put far on the back-burner.

In short, while what Rubin says is patently ridiculous, it is not anything that deviates from the usual neoconservative pap about freedom and about the solidarity that all people (other than the bad guys) feel as they strive for the common goal of liberty and human rights for all.

Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Penraker.

That is all.