Long before the recent Columbia University brouhaha I had noticed a tendency in the Left-wing blogosphere to deny, minimize, and apologize for any Iranian mischief. I believe that there are two currents of thought driving this phenomenon.
The first is exemplified by the recent Greenwald post on the Columbia controversy:
All of the hysteria over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speaking at Columbia University is so tiresome for so many reasons, beginning with the fact that it is all rather transparently motivated by exactly what Juan Cole says: “The real reason his visit is controversial is that the American right has decided the United States needs to go to war against Iran. Ahmadinejad is therefore being configured as an enemy head of state.”
The logic here is that the right is beating the drums to go to war against Iran, so one has to avoid acknowledging any threat or problem from that country in order to avoid giving the warmongers ammunition.
In the case of Joe Sixpack, arguing at the corner bar, I would fully understand and expect this behavior. I do have a problem with it, though, when it comes from someone like Greenwald, who has pretensions of being a public intellectual, or at least a pundit. Surely, he could at least be intellectually honest enough to acknowledge when his opponents have a point.
Notice that, not only does Greenwald avoid acknowledging any genuine reason for concern over legitimizing Ahmadinejad, but also, as is his habit, he psycho-analyzes all the opponents of the speaking invitation, and diagnoses them all as “transparently motivated” by a desire to start a war.
The second, distinct, undercurrent feeding the defense of Iran on the Left is a barely concealed anti-semitism that is rampart in the netroots. It is clear from reading a lot of commentary in the Left-wing blogosphere that there are a lot of moonbats out there who are not offended by holocaust denials or threats to wipe out Israel, because, frankly, they agree with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on these issues.
Update: I should probably note my own views. On the Columbia University speech: I support academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas. Accordingly, I would have no problem with allowing Ahmadinejad to air his ideas in an academic setting where he could be challenged by knowledgable professors and graduate students. I think giving him a soapbox on which to make a public speech to the world is not equivalent, and it unwisely legitimized someone who stands opposed to the whole Western liberal paradigm which the university should serve. Even so, the invitation to speak bothered me less than the self-righteous prattle about free speech by academics who routinely suppress, both openly and tacitly, American conservative and libertarian thought.
On Israel: I am neither Jewish nor an uncritical defender of Israel. In fact, I believe that it may be time to reassess the particulars of our support for Israel now that we are forty years out from the 1967 war, in the same way that we reassessed our force deployment and basing after the end of the Cold War. Still, it is quite clear that the Israel/Palestinian issue was not the “root cause” that gave birth to al Qaeda, nor will any tweaking of our policy towards Israel appease the jihadists. The Left-wing obsession with Israel in discussions about the jihadist threat are misguided and uneducated at best, and often little more than a stalking horse for simple anti-semitism.
Update 2: I considered breaking out BDS as a separate reason the progs often side with Iran, but I decided that BDS is really a subset or corollary of my first point:
“one has to avoid acknowledging any threat or problem from [Iran] in order to avoid giving
the warmongersChimpy McHitler ammunition.”
Incidentally, this is Jane Hamsher’s Law: “You never enter that echo chamber as a participant. Ever. You never give them a hammer to beat the left with. Just. Don’t. Do. It.”
Comment by dorkafork on 9/26 @ 1:08 am #
The real reason his visit is controversial is that the American right has decided the United States needs to go to war against Iran. Ahmadinejad is therefore being configured as an enemy head of state.
Once again, for the left, history started yesterday.
Comment by Karl on 9/26 @ 5:39 am #
Ahmadinejad has a blog, so you would think he would have picked up on Hamsher’s Law. Yet he constantly hands the US ammunition… when his elite forces aren’t firing it at US troops in Iraq.
Comment by Karl on 9/26 @ 6:13 am #
PS: Countdown to GiGi or the Olberdouche claiming that Bush spending more time on Burma than Iran in his UN speech is an evil bit of Rovian strategery starts now.
Comment by Dan Collins on 9/26 @ 10:34 am #
E-I-E-I-O
Comment by BJTex on 9/26 @ 12:25 pm #
Speaking of “history started yesterday” this is one of the most persistant and mind numbingly ignorant declarations currently being vomited on several left wing blogs. Some incovenient facts:
1) Bin Laden never mentioned Palistinians and their cause until the fatwas of the late nineties and only as one of many examples of oppressed and victimized muslims. While he expressed sympathy his organization exsisted as a Salafist/Jihadist vision to fight Russians, to drive infidels from holy lands and, mainly, to topple apostate Muslim rulers. Osama discovered the Palistinians for the same reason he discovered Chomsky; crass opportunism.
2)Al Qaeda exists as a theological based jihadist movement seeking to create by force an Islamic Caliphate in the Middle East. Israel is simply in the way and will continue to be in the way even if peace with Palistinians is achieved. Wait and see how quickly bin laden throws Palistine under the bus if peace breaks out.
3) The “Free Palistine” movement through the 60’s and well into the seventies was a largely secular interreligious movement inspired more by leftist liberation groups like the IRS and the Baader thugs. It included a significant number of Christian raised fighters as well as Muslims. Islam was never a big part of Arafat’s or any other leaders proclamations until Iran demonstrated the potential of success for Islamic based revolution and introduced the idea of divine suicide bombings. Arafat, being the clever opportunist, embraced the concept and, as a result, began to trumpet the methods if not so much the religion. Not being sufficiently devout for the hard core Jihadists the formation of Hamas as rivals followed, a creation inspired by both a desire for theological purity and as a response to Arafat’s participation in the peace process and his personal corruption.
Is there any way we can legislate a decree that forces these anti-semite history morons to read one book by Bernard Lewis?
TW: root facts now that’s just eerie…
Comment by Aldo on 9/26 @ 2:20 pm #
The goal of a Palestininan homeland in the Mideast is as more anathema to al Qaeda than to Israel. Al Qaeda is fighting for a muslim caliphate, not Palestinian nationalism.
Comment by BJTex on 9/26 @ 2:44 pm #
Aldo: Exactement!
Which makes the whole al qaeda/US support of Israel argument boneheaded on a spit roasting an entire steer way. Palestinian nationalism pre-dates Islamic jihadism. Fatah and others just borrowed the tactics.
One wonders if the leaders of Fatah think back to the late nineties when Arafat refused to pull the trigger on the peace deal from heaven with sighing regret.
Think of all the money they could have made by now…
Comment by Aldo on 9/26 @ 3:15 pm #
The smarter progs, when backed into a corner, will concede all of this and fall back on the argument that the I/P issue is a rallying cry that spurs recruitment for the terrorists. Though this argument can get overblown, it is probably true to some extent. But it begs two questions:
1. Is it wise to make changes to our foreign policy in response to the demands of terrorists?
2. Is there any change that we could realistically make in our relationship with Israel that would go far enough to appease the people who are so extreme on this issue that they are joining the jihadists?
Comment by BJTex on 9/26 @ 4:48 pm #
so what to do about it. What can Israel do that will not spur terrorist signups for Hamas? Hamas continues to unrepentantly call for Israel’s distruction and the slaughter of her citizens. How does one start a negotiation with that position? The academic amateur diplomats will say, “Well, that’s just a bargaining position.”
No, it isn’t. It represents the clarion call of Jihadist idealogy, an entirely seperate attitude from liberation theology. Hamas wants a Palistinean Slafist state and would inevitably run afoul of Hizbullah as well as the various Fatah elements. Israel is and has been right ot insist upon the disavowing of both terrorism and their destruction before putting pen to paper.
As always, they understand the jihadist mind better than we do.
Comment by The Sanity Inspector on 9/27 @ 1:46 am #
Just compare the reception Ahmadinejad got from Columbia with the reception that, oh, David Horowitz routinely gets on campus visits. Case closed, nu? It’s the academic radical’s eternal watchword: “The enemy of my sugardaddy is my hero.”