The Story Behind the Story
Logan finds one level in the Financial Times:
Diplomats and two US officials said the latest review was prompted by the conclusion reached by Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, and others that an effective sanctions option did not exist, and that they had been misled by the predictions of neoconservatives who saw the Iranian regime ripe for overthrow by a restless populace.
And they’re not the only ones! Because no matter what the story, it is our sacred duty to make it all about blogs. And this one is, because a coterie of hawkish bloggers spent about two years telling each other how certain it was that an Iranian revolution was just around the corner, on the evidence of blustering Michael Ledeen columns and the sweet, sweet sounds of their own voices echoing down the trackbacks. Do hobbyhorses leave splinters in your backside when they fall apart on you? Ask the self-correcting jingosphere.
Comment by Glaivester —
October 27, 2005 @ 2:30 am
I don’t think it is all about blogs.
I was under the impression that a large number of newspaper editorialists and radio talk-show hosts were also involved.
Comment by Atrios —
October 27, 2005 @ 1:23 pm
Whatever the merits of overthrowing any particular regime, does it also never occur to them that, to paraphrase don rumsfeld, revolution is messy?
Comment by Barry —
October 27, 2005 @ 2:33 pm
Atrios, they don’t. Because, you see it’s not really that messy - in the US, and for them.
For those people over there, and those soldiers of ours who have to deal with it - they don’t count.
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 27, 2005 @ 4:52 pm
I’m feeling a Fafbloggian impulse to rhapsodize on ”the Mess of Freedom!”
Comment by Hesiod —
October 28, 2005 @ 7:35 pm
The sad thing is, revolution WAS just around the corner in Iran before Bush went and fucked it all up with that Iraq invasion.
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 28, 2005 @ 7:44 pm
I’m not convinced. I don’t think we have any certain idea what the fvck is going on in places like Iran, though I’ll agree that, FROM WHAT WE CAN TELL, Iranian reformism is far worse off than it was three years ago, and the invasion is plausibly causal.
Late thought on Atrios’ comment: we HAVE seen wholly or mostly pleasant revolutions in living memory. Of all the countries in MittelEuropa that threw off communism, only Yugoslavia has lastingly effed it up; Rumania started bad but has gotten better; the Czech Republic and Slovakia managed their transition from Soviet rule to two independent nations remarkably well. The other countries have had their ups and downs economically and their political tempests, but they became what the Eastern Europeans of prior to 1990 longed to be: normal countries.
Now someone like me notices that that all happened with a very restrained US hand, and doubts that we can meaningfully force such things. So I can see why bellicose women bloggers and Septemer 11 Republicans might ROOT for Iranian revolutionaries, but not see why they’d think their sudden interest in what goes on overseas gives them any particular insight into what’s likely to happen or how to make it go their way.