Muravchik on neocons and Iran

Joshua Muravchik, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, gave an interview last week to IslamOnline.net, which provides an interesting contrast of a diehard neoconservative with a reporter sympathetic to Islam and Iran.

Some quotations worth repeating:

Muravchik on the origins of the label 'neoconservative':

Since we thought of ourselves as liberals, we thought it was not fair to put that label on us, but since there were more of them than of us, the media started to use that term the way they used it. So, over a few years we surrendered and accepted the label. That's the origin.

Muravchik on reconsidering the War Against Iraq:

My feeling about it is not much different than it was then. I was never sure, I'm not sure now and never was sure that going to Iraq was the right move for us. I do support strongly the idea of going to war on terrorism and as I described that yesterday (during a symposium with IOL staff) that it's like the cold war. That terrorism is a great evil, a great threat to the civilized world and that it has to be fought, and that would mean fighting over a long period of time, sometimes militarily and more often politically and very much with intelligence operations and the whole variety of tools that we might have available to us.... All I am trying to say is in a moral sense, I do not regret supporting the war in Iraq. In a strategic sense I am not sure now and I was not sure then that it was the right decision to make.

Muravchik on other so-called neocons recanting or changing their opinions on the War:

Buckley never was a neocon. He is a traditional conservative. I think that Buckley always objected to the war in Iraq for conservative reasons. My sense was that he was always against it.

The idea of bringing democracy to the Middle East seems to Buckley and many others to be more fanciful, because they always argue that democracy has to rest on a certain cultural basis that the West has but the Middle East does not have.

Buckley was historically a traditional conservative, but in his later years he has become very eclectic. So, he could at one moment take a very traditional conservative stand and at another could be more similar to a neocon.

Sullivan is really a case by himself. Sullivan was, in a sense, a more traditional conservative, he has been for long a traditional Catholic conservative. But he is also a leading advocate of gay rights. This made him a special kind of neo con.

And Sullivan, I think, that in the end he does not regret supporting the war. May be that he had learned many lessons that he had made mistakes but still in the end it might have been the right thing to do.

Fukuyama, of all that group, Fukuyama was the one that was more truly a neocon, and I am surprised by Fukuyama because I haven't read his book [America at the Crossroads] yet, but he is, I don't know what to say, a friend told me that Fukuyama was against the war from the beginning.

Muravchik on Iran:

Q: Let move onto another related issue, that of Iran. Many observers see frightening similarities now to the period leading up to the Iraq invasion, but the target now is Iran, do you agree with them?

A: What's not similar to Iraq is that there is zero possibility the United States will try to occupy Iran. But there is a possibility to use military force.

Q: You mean a military strike against nuclear sites?

A: Yes, a military strike against Iran's nuclear installations. I think it is possible and pretty likely.

Q: Pretty likely?

A: I think so. Because at this point with Ahmadinejad [Iranian president] being so belligerent and with the Iranian governments pursue of this nuclear weapons' program for 20 years.

Q: Don't you mean nuclear program?

A: No, nuclear weapons program!

Q: The Iranians are denying it?

A: Yes, they are denying it, but they are lying. They've acknowledged they were lying to the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] for 18 years.

Q: They opened up all their nuclear installations to the IAEA?

A: No, they didn't open everything to the IAEA.

Q: Sorry to interrupt, but this line of rational seems to correspond to the Iraq case! Iraqis were denying the weapons of mass destruction [WMD] charges, you insisted, and eventually it turned out you were the lying party!

A: [A long period of silence] It turned out things were more complicated than that. It turned out…

Q: Well, You said Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Saddam denied this. You guys invaded the country and found nothing!

A: Well, it is also true that he was lying. He was lying about part of it. One of the reasons why we were sure is that we had clear evidence that he had been lying about weapons of mass destruction. Over a period of years, we had one of his sons in-law who left Iraq and came to Jordan [in August 1995, two daughters and a son-in-law defected to Jordan, but later return to Iraq on promises of forgiveness. Saddam Hussein had the men killed] saying they had been involved in a biological weapons program that had been hidden.

Q: In regards to Iraq, it turned out there had been so many false reports.

A: There were false reports and there was evidence the US Intelligence believed to be true but was not true. But, also, while it is not true that there were no WMD in Iraq, there are reports that show how Saddam Hussein was lying about the WMD program. Not reports from Iraqi dissidents, but ones that were found in Iraq, and the story about the development of chemical and biological weapons in the mid-1990s are confirmed.

Q: Are we now talking about the mid-1990s or only three days before the invasion in 2003 when UN weapons inspectors were actually inside Iraq and they had not found anything? Now, three years after the invasion, the Americans are saying, "We were wrong." Isn't it possible that you are now wrong about Iran's nuclear program as well?

A: Yes [A long pause of silence].

Q: Is there a remote chance that the Iranians are just seeking peaceful nuclear activities as they are saying?

A: Is there any chance? [Long period of thoughtful silence]. Theoretically I suppose so. But as I said, things are more complicated than that.

Israel

Q: Because Israel is involved? Is Israel the only issue as far as Iran is concerned?

A: No, Israel is not the only issue, but it is of course part of it.

Q: What about Israel's own nuclear arsenal?

A: [A long period of silence again] Well, there is a dramatic difference between Israel and Iran. The president of Iran said they wanted to wipe Israel off the map and he said [he wanted to do the same to] the United States, too. But statements by every Israeli government have been just the opposite. Every Israeli government has said that "we would not be the first to use such weapons." So, it's exactly the opposite of what the Iranians say.

Q: You are telling me that Israeli governments are peace-loving, unlike their Arab neighbors?

A: Israel is, to my knowledge, is the only state in the world whose very existence is challenged by some of its neighbors who say that they want it to cease to exist. So, that puts it in a very different situation from other countries.

I think the little editorial asides about "long silences" are interesting, as well as the frequent use of exclamation points. Besides the stylistic issues, the interviewer does reveal some of the gaps in logic of the rationale for war, although I have to agree with Muravchik on most of his points. Critics of the war often gloat when pointing out the apparent hypocrisy of war supporters when it comes to things like Israel's nuclear weapons and the logic of proving or disproving deceit on the part of the Iranians. As Muravchik shows in his answers, there aren't easy responses to many of those points. One simply has to make the most convincing case possible and stand by one's principles.