My gast is flabbered.
This stuff is coming from the National Review Online.
No, really, it is.
More Damning Info on Chas Freeman
Over at Reason, Michael Moynihan notes that "Freeman seems not to have too deep an understanding of the history of the Middle East. For instance, after the first Gulf War, Freeman told the left-wing journalist Alexander Cockburn that the prospect of an Iraq fractured by sectarian warfare was unlikely because, after all, the Shia and Sunni are actually pretty close pals." He then unearths this doozy of a quote from Chas Freeman, speaking after the first Gulf War:
Over at Reason, Michael Moynihan notes that "Freeman seems not to have too deep an understanding of the history of the Middle East. For instance, after the first Gulf War, Freeman told the left-wing journalist Alexander Cockburn that the prospect of an Iraq fractured by sectarian warfare was unlikely because, after all, the Shia and Sunni are actually pretty close pals." He then unearths this doozy of a quote from Chas Freeman, speaking after the first Gulf War:
The behavior of the Iraqi Shia in the
Iran-Iraq war convinced the Saudis that the Shia were not Iranian
surrogates. Washington was obsessed by that idea, and attributed it to
the Saudis. I don't know where all this panic about the breakup of Iraq
came from. After all, Mesopotamia has been there for quite a
while-about six thousand years. Iraq is not a flimsy construction.
No, really, it is.
This may be the most mindlessly reflexive thing I've ever seen from the right this week.
Posted by: Me | March 07, 2009 at 11:37 AM
You want rationality, let alone proportionality, from the NRO? The absolute best you ever can expect from them is occasional marginal literacy.
Posted by: Dr Dick | March 07, 2009 at 02:35 PM
Wow. Sure, review the last six thousand years of history. There aren't that many periods when Mesopotamia wasn't either part of somebody else'e empire, or split up into two or more parts at each other's throats.
Posted by: mwg | March 07, 2009 at 10:03 PM