Ashby 2008

I am continually baffled by this Administration’s seeming hatred of Iran. At least with Iraq, you could point to the fact that Iraq had invaded two countries in the previous twenty-five years. In addition, even North Korea invaded South Korea in the last sixty years. However, to my knowledge, the nation of Iran has not invaded another country in over two hundred years. Like it or not, Iran just has not been a threat to its neighbors. In addition, whether we care to admit it or not, Iran is the third most democratic country in the Middle East. This President, who claims to want to support democracy, seems to hate one of the few functioning democracies in that part of the world.

I know the President of Iran has said that he would like to see Israel wiped off the map. However, numerous Arab leaders have said the same thing, and we have not labeled them part of an “Axis of Evil”. It is worth noting that even if Iran had nuclear weapons, does anyone really think they are going to nuke Israel? How exactly would that benefit the Palestinians? Further, Israel is not really all that big – if it were nuked, think about what this would do to Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and a part of Egypt. If Iran develops the bomb, it will not be a modern Neutron Bomb that just kills people and leaves buildings – it will be a dirty old-school, lots of radiation bomb. Iran bombing Israel would make a sizable chunk of the Middle East uninhabitable, not to mention killing as many Arabs as Israelis. I am sorry, but this just does not make any sense.

Now the President is suggesting that the U.S. needs to go forward with the Missile Defense shield as protection for the U.S. against attack by Iran, and that Iran even getting the knowledge of how to build a nuclear bomb is the start of World War III. Does anyone actually believe that Iran is going to shoot a missile at the United States? Does the President really think that the leaders of Iran would risk actually having their country wiped off the map by the United State’s thousands of nuclear missiles? Again, the President’s statements baffle me. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), the promise that if either side uses nuclear weapons the other will respond with nuclear weapons, worked for decades. Does the President really think that somehow this would not work with Iran?

I hear Republicans say something to the effect of “It just takes one crazy person with their finger on the trigger, and the President of Iran is just such a nut.” Then they inevitably make comparisons to the suicide bombers. It is worth noting that the suicide bombers have not been representatives of democratically elected governments – they have instead been members of groups not in power intent on taking power. Most of the suicide bombers of 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia. The government of Saudi Arabia did not send the bombers. They attacked us in part because we support the non-democratic government of Saudi Arabia. Iran is an actual nation, with a functioning and vaguely democratic government. Elected leaders rarely do things that would cause the destruction of their country – they are far too focused on staying in power to risk starting World War III. The President of Iran is not going to order an attack on the U.S. because he wants there to be a nation of Iran for him to be the President of.

I also hear Republicans complain that Iran sponsors terrorist organization, in particular Hamas and Hezbollah. While I do not support their tactics, both of these groups are pushing for proportionate political representation for more of their members, a worthy goal for those of us that support democracy as a form of government. And I can pretty much guarantee you that Iran hasn’t done anything in the international arena that the U.S. hasn’t also done. We used to be against double standards in the United States, and this is absolutely a double standard.

For some strange reason, this President has committed to spending $75 million to “support the growth of democracy in Iran”. Here in the United States, it is illegal for candidates for office to accept donations from foreign countries. Why wouldn’t Iran be mad about this – we would be mad too, if Cuba, for instance, was trying to impact U.S. elections by funneling money to its preferred candidates. Again, it is clearly a double standard on the part of President Bush.

Over dinner last week, a moderately Conservative person suggested that the hatred of Iran was based in part on the Hostage Crisis. Are we really basing our foreign policy on something that happened almost thirty years ago, and that was not all that damaging to the U.S.? Further, if we are going to start cataloguing historical slights, its worth noting that the U.S. supported the overthrow of the democratically elected prime Minister of Iran in the fifties.

Unfortunately, I cannot help but thinking that the President’s focus on Iran is a political tactic. Focusing on Iran keeps people from thinking about what a disaster this administration has been – if everyone is concerned about keeping the President from starting the next ill-considered war, then they are paying less attention to the current disasters that are costing our country trillions of dollars. And conveniently, this issue flows through to the presidential election. It gives Republicans yet another way of suggesting the Democrats are soft on terrorism.

This is what is so maddening about this administration. If they are clever enough to realize the electoral uses of Iran as an enemy, then they should be clever enough to recognize that this position actually hurts U.S. interests, and further hurts the spread of democracy. Whether we care to admit it or not, Iran is the third most democratic country in the Middle East, even if it is a rough and developing democracy. That crazy president – he was elected as an economic populist, in part because the Iranian economy isn’t doing well. The Iranian economy still is not doing well, but Ahmadinejad has not been called to task for it, because instead attention is focused on the situation with the U.S. Just as President Bush is using confrontation with Iran to avoid the fallout from his many mistakes, the President of Iran is using the confrontation to avoid having to talk about his failures on economic issues. If President Bush really wants to push for expanded democracy in Iran, the best thing he could do would be to tone down the rhetoric, and give the Iranian press the room to focus on Ahmadinejad’s economic record. This of course, this would allow the U.S. press to focus on Bush’s economic record…

So there you have it – yet another example of this Administration both getting the problem wrong, and then proposing the wrong answer to the non-existent problem. Yet another example where the only logical reason for a position taken by the President is that it will help Republican electoral chances. This is yet another example of President Bush putting the well-being of the Republican Party ahead of the well-being of the United States of America.

Thanks for visiting the Ashby 2008 blog, and reading the first posting. Of all the candidates in the Republican field, Ron Paul to my mind is the most honest and certainly not a “Crack Smoking Republican”. People have suggested that I am more of a Libertarian than traditional Republican. On social issues I am close to the Libertarian view, which I think used to be the mainstream Republican view as well. It’s not so much a matter of being socially Liberal as socially disinterested – I really don’t care what people do in their private lives, as long as they don’t spend my money to do it. However I do believe the government needs to have a defined and in some ways strong role in the economy, as a pre-requisite of a functioning capitalist system.

On economic issues, the Libertarians have chosen conceptual purity over how things work in the real world. Ron Paul’s stance on the Internal Revenue Service is a great example. He calls for abolishing the IRS, which is a great applause line. Traditional Republicans have always seen benefit in comparing the operations of government to the operations of private enterprise. Every company that I have ever been involved with has had a process and usually a department for accounts receivable. Every private enterprise has to worry about collecting the money it is due. Why would the United States of America be any different – why wouldn’t the government need a way of collecting money? Paul talks about moving to a different tax approach. But whether sales tax, value added, income tax – regardless of the tax structure, the federal government will still tax its citizens, and need to have a way to collect the money it is due.

At a broader level, I believe that a defined and in some ways strong role for government in the economy is critical to the health of our capitalist system. Adam Smith talked about the sheep markets as an example of the tenets of capitalism. A key part of the market was that each buyer could have approximately equal knowledge and could know what they were buying – each buyer could evaluate the sheep for themselves. In a modern exchange economy, buyers lack this knowledge. We buy a can of green beans, without actually being able to see the beans. We buy a small part of a company through the stock market, without being able to see any tangible proof of ownership. All of these transactions are possible because of the role played by government – the government insures the integrity of the transaction. Why is this important? Because without the integrity of the transaction being insured, buyers are much less likely to buy from people they don’t personally know, or products they can’t personally inspect. Without the government, a widespread exchange economy can’t happen.

It is worth noting that it is not just consumers that want government in this role – businesses have recognized the need as well. The food safety laws that were passed early in the last century, that allowed the development of national markets for food and the industrialization of agriculture, were supported by major meat packing companies like Armour and Swift. These companies recognized that if that selling processed and canned meat to consumers would require that the consumers trusted that the contents would match the product claims. And the easiest way to give consumers this level of confidence was to put the government in charge of assuring compliance. The meatpacking companies wanted government oversight, to insure consumers that the products were sound and safe. Banks wanted the federal government to insure deposits, to give people the confidence to deposit their money. Banking oversight and government limitations on acceptable risks and leverage were considered a small price to pay, because banks realized without the government’s role in guaranteeing the integrity of transactions the banks would have problems attracting deposits. And of course, no deposits, no loans, no profit.

Something has happened to the Republican Party. It used to be aware of the importance of government involvement in the economy – it used to actually remember what the economy was like before the government started guaranteeing the integrity of transactions. You know, regular depressions and all, runs on banks, periodic widespread fraud. Now, it seems, the party has slipped off into some kind of weird theoretical world, with no connection to what actually happens in our economy. The fantasy world makes for great slogans, but it’s no way to run a country. Unfortunately, none of the current Republican candidates seem interested in rejoining the real world, and realistically addressing the necessary role of government in the economy. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – the most “Republican” candidate in the field is still boring ol’ Hillary Clinton.