Ralph Peters NY Post Surge Article

RebSaint said

A. The PNAC is the vision for Neconservatives. The PNAC has an aggressive, arguably imperialistic vision for U.S. foreign policy.
B. This "aggressive" posture will, to them, require more wars, which means more killing. War involves killing.
C. The policy in Iraq is arguably the first step in the neoconservative agenda. We've-already seen many NeoConservatives sabre-rattling against Iran.

You can label it "mindless" and "boilerplate" criticism all you want, but the bottom line is the NeoConservative vision is an aggressive, expansionist foreign policy which invariably calls for more meddling, future wars, more occupations. And they have depicted opponents to this vision as "appeasers" and anti-American.

Sorry, but a lot of what he pointed out is the truf [tm-TPS]

Click to expand...

Well, the thing is, the "neocon" belief system has been around for my entire lifetime, as has the more passive anti-war crowd, as has the real-politik crowd. Each has a place, each belief has it's own set of pros and cons. The problem is when we, mainly as a government, attempt to hide from or deny reality.

In the 90's, it's clear that the Administration kicked the terrorist can down the road, they didn't want to open a can of worms that could've disrupted a smooth running, well oiled machine. I think Clinton made a calculation that the overall risk/reward of confronting middle east terrorism against the United States wasn't worth pursuing, with vigor, the terrorists. In retrospect, it was essentially the same calculation that Reagan made in pulling out of Lebannon. Both calculations come with benefits and consequences.

In a similar vein, it certainly appears that the recent NIE estimate was a politically manipulated report designed to ensure that the current Administration is limited in what it can do to confront Iran. We'll have to see what kind of unintended consequences it produces.