Iran has attracted the attention of a lot of bloggers. In the following list, I’ve color-coded blog names (red = right-wing, black = centrist, blue = left-wing). I apologize in advance for any mischaracterizations.
Left-wing bloggers have had remarkably little to say about the growing confrontation between the West and Iran. Of the 50 or 60 leftist blogs that I visited, I could find only three whose authors thought that the rising tension was important enough to warrant a post.
- Eschaton isn’t worried about Iran joining the nuclear club. Instead, the threat is that Republicans will use Iran as a campaign issue:
Despite the fact that all but 30 Democrats vote for the resolution, Republicans run a national ad campaign telling voters that Democrats are objectively pro-Ahmadinejad. Glenn Reynolds muses, sadly, that Democrats aren’t just anti-war, but “on the other side.” Nick Kristof writes that liberals must support the war due to Ahmadinejad’s opposition to gay rights in Iran.
- Left I on the News avers that if the U.S. can have nukes, so can Iran:
I seem to recall another country that has nuclear weapons, thousands of them, has used them to kill hundreds of thousands of people, has proven with actions that they are “bent on changing the status quo in the region,” and definitely has proven with actions that it has “aggressive tendencies.” Now who could that be?
- Political Animal is also worried about Iran as a campaign issue:
We can gripe and complain about the perfidy of Karl Rove all we like, but it’s idiocy not to think seriously about a subject that’s at least 50% likely to be a major campaign issue. And the sooner the better.
They just don’t get it.
All Things Beautiful—The Rules of Engagement [NEW]
American Footprints—ElBaradei losing patience?
American Thinker—Underestimating the Iranian Threat
Atlas Shrugs—Iran: Cycle of Appeasement
Balloon Juice—Wishful Thinking
Belmont Club—Grappling with the ayatollahs
Bloggledygook—The Little ‘Ol Warmonger, Me
Captain’s Quarter’s—Have We Given Up on Iran?
Dean’s World—Sanctions for Iran? Oh, Kumbaya! [NEW]
Democracy Arsenal—Hope Springs Eternal from Annan on Iran
Dr. Sanity—Is It War Then?
Duck of Minerva—Europe and Iran’s Nuclear Program
Editor: Myself—The West should change its focus regarding Iran
Eschaton—How It Goes
Frontpagemag—Next Steps on Iran
Glittering Eye—Options on Iran II
Huffington Post—Iranian Psycho?
In the Bullpen—Ahmadinejad speaks, again
Left I on the News—Hands off Iran!
Moderate Voice—Sanctions Threat Doesn’t Impress Iran’s President [NEW]
neo-neocon—Iran’s dirty little weapon
New Sisyphus—The Red Line [NEW]
no oil for pacifists—What If They Gave a War and Europe Never Noticed?
Obsidian Wings—You wanna know why?
Political Animal—Dems on Iran
QandO—Iran: The Nuclear Messiah
Regime Change Iran—When the Soft Talk Has to Stop
ShrinkWrapped—It’s Not Fair! Compare and Contrast
Sic Semper Tyrannis 2006—On a Nuclear Iran
Thomas P.M. Barnett—They Confront Us and Deal with Us . . .
Washington Realist—Unity on Iran?
All Things Beautiful TrackBack The Rules Of Engagement
Ahmadinejad Makes Veiled Threats to West
The West’s stance against Iran’s ambitions for a nuclear program and thus nuclear weapons might do more to hurt Ahmadinejad within Iran and the Iranian power structure than any sanctions might do to the nation’s economy. Iran has la…
[...] Marc Schulman of American Future has collected a round-up of posts from around the blogosphere on Iran today. He’s handily color-coded them by political ideology (left is blue, right is red, black is center). I suspect that we’ll be hearing a lot about Iran in the upcoming days and weeks so Marc’s list is a good place to start in forming or informing your own position. [...]
Dean Esmay a strongly pro-democracy centrist, has a fine rant on Iran you might want to take a look at. Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice (also a centrist) has a round-up of media commentary.
The Left in this country, if nothing else, is consistent. If this crisis comes to a head, it can present an opportunity for the Democratic Party to regain some creditability in the area of national security with Truman Democrats hopefully asserting their influence, as you’ve been calling for, Marc. Or Iran can hasten the Dems’ slide towards irrelevance. But this will require them to break away from their ideological inclinations. As you observed, most of them are silently wrestling with this choice.
Similarly, the future relevance of the Security Council is at stake, as is the role of Europe on the international stage. Iran may prove to the crucible for many in the upcoming months.
Marc,
In your romp thru the blogsphere, did you see any discussion about a possible coup by the Iranian military?
Tom
Sanctions Threat Doesn’t Impress Iran’s President
Iran’s President is standing steadfast, insisting he won’t be intimidated by threats of international sanctions that seek to force him to end his country’s nuclear program and that his country doesn’t even need nuclear weapons.
But he may …
Nice roundup. Concern with Iran certainly seems to be an idea whose time has come.
But I think I should be listed in black, not red (others, no doubt, would disagree with that characterization).
Tom,
I haven’t seen anything about a possible coup, but I do remember something (but can’t remember where) about a recent plane crash that killed some Revolutionary Guard leaders possibly being sabotage.
Thank you for doing this. I have been doing my own searches this past week trying to find out what the left was saying. Like you, what I found ranged from very little to their normal cry of “the right is picking on Iran”.
Marc,
The plane crash that killed Ahmed Kazemi, commander of the Revolutionary Guards ground forces, occurred on Jan. 9th. On Dec 17th, there was an apparent assassination attempt on Ahmadinejad that killed his driver and wounded a bodyguard.
As Shakespeare would say, something is rotten in the state of Iran. Something I hope our policy-makers are looking to exploit and we armchair variety should include in our calculations. I can’t help but think of the anti-Nazi conspiracies that was left to fester within the German High Command due to willingness of the Western powers to placate Hitler.
Tom
I’m equally dismayed by much of the reaction by the left-wing blogsphere. There are some good arguments that a nuclear Iran can be deterred, but that still doesn’t change the fact that Iranian proliferation is something to be very worried about. Thankfully, the mainstream Democratic leadership appears to be taking the threat seriously… I hope this remains a situation in which the left-wing blogsphere is out of touch.
PS: when I have time, and when blogger is up and running again, I’ll have more to say.
A very useful collection of links.
It was interesting to read here some of the speculation about a possible coup inside of Iran. Indeed, one could see justification of removing Ahmednejad as a way to safeguard the revolution itself.
It might be interesting, time permitting, to also classify the various responses on the regime change versus nuclear non-proliferation spectrum, those for whom the main issue is the nature of the regime whether or not it has nuclear weapons (for example, those who argue that there would be less of a problem if the Shah’s regime or a democratic Iran had a nuclear capability) versus those who see the nuclear (and perhaps terrorism) component as the real problem but otherwise are prepared to leave the existing regime in place.
acne treatment…
nice blog i really like it….