Accepting the Bush administration’s view that the more dangerous the Bush administration makes the world the more we need to keep on keepin’ on with the Bush approach is, as I said, absurd. Still, it’s one thing to slam the incumbents and another thing to offer ideas of your own. And, naturally, people disagree.

Recently, we’ve been hashing this out a bit at The American Prospect Online. Shadi Hamid got the ball rolling with a two part series arguing that a certain form of democracy-promotion (though not the invade-conquer-occupy-democratize model) really should be at the heart of American — and liberal — national security policy. Spencer Ackerman fired back arguing that the emphasis on democracy is misguided and rather dangerous. The primary concern, he says, should instead be human rights. Ernest Wilson, meanwhile, weighed in on TPMCafe arguing for a more holistic approach and outlining a somewhat complicated view.

On the subject of the Ackerman-Hamid dispute, I tend to side with Spencer, though not quite with his level of vehemence and conviction. For my part, I think their disagreement is focusing on somewhat the wrong issue. I don’t buy into the strict academic realist view that the internal politics of foreign countries are irrelevant, but I don’t think they can reasonably be made the main focus of what American foreign policy tries to accomplish in the world. Rather, the main issue at hand is the nature of the world order. Wilson specifically argues that “Having a [progressive foreign policy should require more than declaring oneself in favor of a ‘liberal international order,'” which I guess is right, but I actually think declaring oneself in favor of a liberal international order would be a pretty good start. Perhaps I’ll spell out what that means down the road.

Gov. Rick Perry calls a special election to replace Tom DeLay.

Harry Reid strikes back at Don Rumsfeld:

Secretary Rumsfeld’s reckless comments show why America is not as safe as it can or should be five years after 9/11. The Bush White House is more interested in lashing out at its political enemies and distracting from its failures than it is in winning the War on Terror and in bringing an end to the war in Iraq.

If there’s one person who has failed to learn the lessons of history it’s Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld ignored military experts when he rushed to war without enough troops, without sufficient body armor, and without a plan to succeed. Under this Administration’s watch, terror attacks have increased, Iraq has fallen into civil war, and our military has been stretched thin.

We have a choice to make today. Do we trust Secretary Rumsfeld to make the right decisions to keep us safe after he has been so consistently wrong since the start of the Iraq War? Or, do we change course in Iraq and put in place new leadership that will put the safety of the American people ahead of partisan games? For the sake of the safety of this country, it is time to make a change.

That’s not bad.

And then there were six.

And then there was one?

It’s Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), according to Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) comments a couple of weeks ago, recorded in a small Arkansas paper.

What is it with Bushies and horses? Ken Tomlinson, in charge of public broadcasting, seems to have been using his office to run “a horse racing operation”.

Heck of a job, Kenny!

Which Supreme Court judge took a trip on Time Warner’s dime? That and other news of the day in today’s Daily Muck.

The Iran debate has really become rather surreal. You have the “Islamofascist” locution jumping from the fever swamps of rightwing punditry into the mouth of the President of the United States. You have the Secretary of Defense issuing dire warnings of another Munich. These things are being done by the exact same people who, four years ago, were utterly dismissive of claims that invading Iraq was likely to serve Iranian interests better than American ones. Indeed, you have the exact same people who two years ago were assuring us that it made sense to commit American blood and treasure to fight Sunni insurgents on behalf of Iranian-backed Shiite militias now saying we need to commit more blood and treasure in Iraq to stop . . . Iranian-backed Shiite militias.

You have Richard Cohen, who backed the Iraq War and came to regret it, turning around and saying it’s time to party like it’s 1938. Meanwhile, this entire view of the world has, as best I can tell, no relationship whatsoever to reality.

Via Kevin Drum, David Ignatius is in Iran and reports that though “you might expect that Tehran would feel like a garrison town” it’s actually surprisingly relaxed. But why might you expect that Teheran would feel like a garrison town? Well, you would if you’ve been following the media’s dubious, highly-spun coverage of the issue. But you wouldn’t if you asked yourself some basic questions. For example, if Iran is preparing to mount a Hitler-style bid for world domination they must be engaged in a big military build-up, right? But there is no such build up. Maybe there’s no need for a build-up because the Iranian military is already so vast and mighty? Well, no. Iran has a defense budget of about $6 billion a year.

The United States spends over 50 times more than that. But perhaps comparisons to the USA are misleading. Lets compare our would-be regional hegemon to its neighbors. Well, Israel spends $9.6 billion and Saudi Arabia spends $25.2 billion. Pakistan, immediately adjacent to Iran and nuclear armed, actually has engaged in a recent defense buildup. What kind of quest for hegemony is Iran supposed to be on? Ignorant American pundits and television personalities may be unaware of these facts, but surely Iranian military and intelligence officials have noticed that Iran has no capacity whatsoever to conquer the region.

Meanwhile, the freaky and unpredictable Iranian regime has actually been in power for a very long time. Since before I was born. The regime is not only long-entrenched, but quite corrupt. Mightn’t this lead you think it’s being run by reasonably comfortable men who enjoy the fruits of power, intend to stay in power, and know a thing or two about maintaining their power rather than by irrational lunatics who’ve been waiting in the wings for 27 years preparing to spring their bid for world domination upon us without first having acquired so much as a single modern tank?

And then there’s the small matter that our purported would-be Hitlers in Teheran were trying to reach a comprehensive peace agreement with the United States as recently as 2003. Their proposal was rejected by the Bush administration. Not rejected, I remind you, because the Bushies found the details of the proposal inadequate and Teheran refused to compromise further. No! It was rejected without any effort at negotiation because, at the time, the administration was busy threatening to overthrow the government of Iran as the second or third item in an ambitious plan to overthrow every government in the region.

So, here’s Iran. Outgunned by its two leading religio-ideological antagonists, Israel and Saudi Arabia, in the region. One immediate neighbor is Pakistan, with a larger population base and a nuclear arsenal. Another immediate neighbor, Afghanistan, is occupied by soldiers under the command of an American president who has spurned peace offers and threatened to overthrow the Iranian government. A second immediate neighbor, Iraq, is occupied by a larger number of soldiers from the same country. The Iranian military’s equipment is outdated and essentially incapable of mounting offensive operations. So Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them. Under the circumstances, wouldn’t you? Don’t you think a little deterrence capability would serve the country well under those circumstances?

I’m sorry to have gone on at such great length here, and a little nervous about stepping outside the “sensible” zone with my commentary on this topic, but somebody needs to call bull$#*t on the prevailing elite consensus about Iran. Of course it would be better to find a way to persuade, cajole, whatever Iran out of going nuclear — the spread of nuclear weapons is, as such, bad for the USA. But there’s no need — absolutely no need — for this atmosphere of panic and paranoia.

Ah, the “lessons of history.” Reader C.B. reminds me that “One of the huge mistakes that the democracies made with regard to Hitler was that they refused to take seriously what he said… until it was too late.” In turn, “We dare not do that again– especially when we are talking about nuclear weapons that can be packed in suitcase or stuck on the end of a Katuysha rocket.” Interestingly, I was just reading (via Robert Farley) this great monograph by Jeffrey Record of the Army War College about the West’s pre-war approach to Hitler and the abuse of the lessons thereby learned by subsequent American presidents.

At any rate, it’s certainly the case that the leaders of the United States, Britain, and France erred in their estimates of Hitler’s strategic ambitions. It’s also certainly the case that, in retrospect, we can see that Hitler outlined those ambitions in advance, in Mein Kampf and elsewhere. People have, however, a terrible habit of overinterpreting these data points. In particular, they want to propose that the 1930s teach us the lesson that we should always take foreign leaders at their word.

Except, of course, that nobody actually thinks we should take that lesson away. I hope I won’t rob anyone of their innocence by making this observation, but politicians lie. In particular, along with telling the truth about his strategic ambitions, Hitler lied about his strategic ambitions. One reason people underestimated their scope was that Hitler put some time into trying to deceive people. He said different things at different times. Similarly, you don’t hear the people arguing that we need to take Ahmadenijad’s public statements more seriously arguing that we need to take his public protestations that Iran’s nuclear program is for civilian purposes more seriously.

So the “lesson” people want to draw from the 1930s isn’t that we should take people’s statements more seriously. Rather, the “lesson” they’ve learned is that we should always adopt the most alarmist possible interpretation of every given situation. But, of course, they never put it that way. Why don’t they? Well, because when you put it that way it sounds like a stupid lesson. Which, obviously, it is. If you want to draw lessons from history, you need to really look at history as a whole. Have countries, as a general matter, been well served by adopting maximally alarmist interpretations of events abroad? I don’t think that’s a remotely justifiable view. If anything, history teaches the reverse lesson.

And then there was one. A spokesman for Sen. Ted Stevens admits it’s him.

More soon.