Prometheus 6

Though it is a natural development give the rhetoric of the Bushistas and their supporters, you gotta worry about the title.

The Perils Of Using 'The Allies'
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, August 25, 2006; Page A17

The cowboy has been retired. Multilateralism is back. Diplomacy is king. That's the conventional wisdom about George W. Bush's second term: Under the influence of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the administration has finally embraced "the allies."

This is considered a radical change of course. It is not. Even the most ardent unilateralist always prefers multilateral support under one of two conditions: (1) There is something the allies will actually help accomplish or (2) there is nothing to be done anyway, so multilateralism gives you the cover of appearing to do something.

That was real honest though, as was his assessment of which of the two categories our North Korean problem falls into.

It turns out that was just perfect hindsight. His original insanity returns at the end of the op-ed.

Realistically speaking, the point of this multilateral exercise cannot be to stop Iran's nuclear program by diplomacy. That has always been a fantasy. It will take military means. There would be terrible consequences from an attack. These must be weighed against the terrible consequences of allowing an openly apocalyptic Iranian leadership to acquire weapons of genocide.

The point of the current elaborate exercise in multilateral diplomacy is to slightly alter that future calculation. By demonstrating extraordinary forbearance and accommodation, perhaps we will have purchased the acquiescence of our closest allies -- Britain, Germany and, yes, France -- to a military strike on that fateful day when diplomacy has run its course.

We have an openly apocalyptic leadership too. Go read God's Country? American Zionism is older than the movement that founded Israel...how's that?

The Bushistas will get no support that Conservative pundits aren't even trying to convince the world of the rightness of their case. So we have Mr. Krauthammer, Mr. Williams, Mr. Steele, and now damn near every Republican supporter of Israel, acting as intellectual plow horses because this is too tough a row to hoe. Consciously preparing the hoi poloi for the "terrible consequences"...weasel words for the death of millions of innocent people. 

Excuse me. I have to vomit now. I'll be back.