Mulshine: Neocons go off the deep end

Paul Mulshine, from the ajc.com: "The one good thing that's come out of the current mess in the Mideast is the final and incontrovertible proof that the adherents of that strain of thought called neoconservatism are off their rockers.

For this we can thank William Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard. Kristol, having been perhaps the chief cheerleader for the liberation by force of Iraq, is now leading the call for a similar liberation of Iran.

That the neocon plan for the liberation of Iraq did not go according to plan does not slow him down in the least.

'The first two battles of this new era are now over,' Kristol proclaimed just after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003. 'The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably.'

Pressed by an interviewer who speculated that the natives seemed restless in Iraq, Kristol answered, 'If, three years from now, we have beaten back these threats and have a decent regime there, it'll be worth it.'

It's been three years and three months now. We haven't beaten back the threats and we don't have a decent regime. The American combat fatality count in Iraq was about 100 when Kristol made that statement. It now approaches 2,600. No matter. It's on to Iran. Kristol suggests the climate in the Mideast will be improved by a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. 'Why wait?' he asks. He answers his own question by arguing that 'It would be easier to act sooner rather than later.'

It would also be relatively easy to bump off the Syrian leadership as well, say Kristol and the other neocons. We can presumably expect 'a decent regime' to spring up spontaneously there as well once Bashar Assad's dictatorship goes the way of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.

Kristol's exuberance at the Mideast mess was too much for George Will. The other day, the Washington Post columnist termed Kristol's views 'so untethered from reality as to defy caricature.' Will, a traditional conservative, went on to proclaim neoconservatism 'a spectacularly misnamed radicalism.'"