With Rudy Giuliani hanging on at least until I-Can’t-Believe-We-Have-Nine-More-Months-Of-This Tuesday (February 5), his candidacy still matters, if a little bit less than before. You might be interested to know, then, that one of the Hero of 9/11’s neocon foreign policy advisors has just written an astoundingly long-winded piece in the conservative journal Commentary advocating that the U.S. military bring its shock and awe to Tehran. Norman Podhoretz, intellectual godfather to the neocons who goaded us into the Iraq mess, argues that the only way to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is a preemptive bombing campaign—this despite the latest National Intelligence Estimate finding that Iran suspended its nuclear program in 2003. The only question, says Podhoretz, is of “who should do the bombing.” Israel? Nope, they don’t have the necessary military capability to ensure success and, besides, the Iranians would blame us anyway. “If Iran is to be prevented from becoming a nuclear power,” he writes, “it is the United States that will have to do the preventing, to do it by means of a bombing campaign, and (because ‘If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long’) to do it soon.”
So, does Rudy agree with this assessment? After all, as of October, Podhoretz was still among the group of hawks whispering in his ear (along with the likes of Daniel Pipes and Michael Rubin). According to Giuliani’s chief foreign policy advisor, Charles Hill, a State Department veteran who also worked as an aide to U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali, the answer is no. “Norman’s position is unique to Norman, and it’s well thought out,” Hill told the New York Sun last fall. “It is not a far out, radical position, and it is deeply felt and held intellectually, but it is unique to him. Rudy Giuliani has Rudy Giuliani’s view.” What’s that exactly? That we should give tougher sanctions a chance. As for Podhoretz, he says, “I express my views mainly through email communications to the foreign policy team. Rudy is free to accept or reject them.”
Still, having Podhoretz in the mix (not to mention Pipes and Rubin) is enough to make you question where Rudy’s really coming from. He might as well add the Filipino Monkey as his communications secretary…
