Category: 2

What Not to Read

09/12/2009

For the latest installment in our What Not to Read series I offer this maddening miasma from the editors of the Baltimore Sun:

As we reflect today on this anniversary of loss and imagine a skyline over New York City where we can still see the Twin Towers, it would do us good to remember the lessons we learned on that day. Namely, that there are those in this world who are willing to sacrifice everything, including their lives, to hurt us. This lesson is currently being ignored in the Obama administration's policies toward Iran, a move that could cost us just as greatly as that day in September. Etc.

Now I know--it’s the Baltimore Sun. No one (or at least no one of substance) takes it's views on foreign policy seriously. The problem is that this sort of article fuels popular demand for bad policy. It allows concerned citizens to project their worst fears on to a seemingly logical bad guy: the Iranian boogieman. Hence, a rebuttal is in order.

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What Not To Read: The Economist on Erdogan's Kurdish Opening

09/06/2009

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Turkish PM Erdogan at an AKP rally in Diyarbakir before the March 29, 2009 elections. The scarf is of the local football club.

Over the past year, Turkey's ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party), under the leadership of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan, has made an unprecedented push for Kurdish rights in Turkey.

An article in last week's edition of the Economist, "Turkey and the Kurds: Peace Time?", fumbles badly in its attempt analyze this push and explain its ramifications.

Surely, the Economist does a fine job of reviewing the Kurdish problem in Turkey, and details recent reforms. However, its fatal flaw is that it never examines why Erdoğan is pushing so hard for Kurdish rights. Erdoğan is no Nelson Mandela, and he's certainly no liberal-- despite the picture that the Economist paints for the unacquainted reader.

But it is in concluding sentences that the article really takes a nosedive:

"[Solving the Kurdish problem] will not be easy, but Mr Erdogan seems determined to plough on. If he succeeds, says Sezgin Tanrikulu, a human-rights lawyer in Diyarbakir, the Kurds will flock to back him..."

This might be Sezgin Tanrikulu speaking, but by finishing with this quote, the Economist is endorsing this view.

The only problem is, Sezgin notwithstanding, there is absolutely ZERO evidence that Erdoğan (whom Kurdish nationalists like to call Katil Erdoğan: Erdoğan the killer) is on the cusp of winning over the Kurdish electorate.

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What Not to Believe

08/22/2009

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Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan

In the continuing evolution of the What Not to Read category, I'm going to rebut President Obama's recent proclamation about the war in Afghanistan:

"But we must never forget. This is not a war of choice...This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again."

It was a war of necessity. But the decision to continue indefinitely is a choice.

Afghanistan was a necessity because Al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda is now based in Pakistan, and has been based there for the past few years. The only real interest the U.S. has in Afghanistan now is to prevent it from again becoming a haven for terrorists who are committed to attacking America.

But this does not require occupation or democracy. Furthermore, even if Afghanistan is sealed off from being a terrorist haven, and if Pakistan successfully evicts Al Qaeda from its frontier provinces, there are still many places that Al Qaeda could regroup to-- such as Yemen or Somalia.

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What Not To Read

08/03/2009

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Leon Panetta's editorial in the Washington Post is not a classic case of What Not To Read- as CIA Director, there is something inherently valuable in what Panetta says. Neither is his argument filled with disingenuity, untruths, or the shoddy research that is standard for this category.

Still, Panetta's argument against investigating the CIA's past, and simply moving on, is wrong:

"I've become increasingly concerned that the focus on the past, especially in Congress, threatens to distract the CIA from its crucial core missions: intelligence collection, analysis and covert action."

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What Not To Read

07/17/2009

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Every time I come across a piece by Michael Rubin, I know that I'm in for a treat. His pieces are a reliable mix of alarmism and ad-hominem attacks. It would be funny if this man wasn't considered an expert on Iran in academic circles, and didn't give regular lectures to our military.

In an article which is postdated to July 20th, Rubin unleashes an incoherent tour de force, packing 7 nonsensical sentences into his first paragraph. He wants to argue that the U.S. should be louder in its condemnation of Iran, and more forceful in its support of the opposition. I thought we were over this.

There is just one problem: many Iranian opposition leaders themselves have argued against conspicuous American support. In an attempt to solve this problem, Rubin decides to impugn the Iranian opposition.

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What Not to Read

07/10/2009

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If I had the power to ban partisan hacks from writing about one area, it would be arms control. Ralph Peters' truly horrible piece in the New York Post last Tuesday is a perfect example of a writer trying to score political points and in the process totally butchering the facts.

More after the jump -->

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What Not to Read

06/26/2009

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This week's 'What Not to Read' comes from The Daily Beast's Reihan Salam. Salam's articles are normally a blizzard of ersatz contrarianism (see "How Glenn Beck Saves Lives;" it's even worse then it sounds), but his recent article on Obama's Iran strategy takes the cake.

What make Salam's piece so galling is not his criticism of Obama--which is remarkably petty--but his ridiculous prescription for the current administration:

"Whether he likes it or not, his engagement strategy with Iran has been revealed as a hollow hope, one that rested on an overoptimistic interpretation of Iranian intentions. As former Bush foreign-policy adviser Peter Feaver has explained, Iran is far more likely to negotiate from a position of weakness than of strength. Rather than reassure the Iranians with a wink and a nod that we’re ready to do business, President Obama should be building an international coalition to isolate a recalcitrant Iran as thoroughly as the the West once isolated apartheid-era South Africa."

In the current geopolitical environment, this strategy will work as well as it has over the past 30 years, which is to say not at all. As long as Iran remains one of China's top crude oil suppliers and Russia continues to use Iran as a counterbalance to the expansion of Western influence, the international coalition Salam hopes Obama can build will remain a myth.

-Evan

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This Week's 'What Not to Read'

06/21/2009

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Jon and I have decided to start a feature highlighting the worst column(s) we've read over the previous week.

This week we selected John Bolton's speculative analysis of what would happen if Israel attacked Iran. Bush officials have always loved to paint the world as they see it instead as it is, but this is just blind whimsy.

Money Quote:

"Many argue that Israeli military action will cause Iranians to rally in support of the mullahs' regime and plunge the region into political chaos. To the contrary, a strike accompanied by effective public diplomacy could well turn Iran's diverse population against an oppressive regime."

Really? I can see them greeting the Israelis with flowers now...

-Evan and Jon

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