J-Pod v Stuttaford

Regular readers of The Corner are likely to be familar with Andrew Stuttaford. A voice of moderation and reason, Stuttaford frequently clashes with some of NRO's more zealous ideologues. Stuttaford's most frequent sparring partner is John Podhoretz (J-Pod), a former Reagan speechwriter and the father of Podenfreude, a term coined by J-Pod's "Washington Times colleagues in the 1980s, to describe their ritual of gathering to read aloud from his columns in his absence and share a good laugh."

The latest installment of Stuttaford v. J-Pod centers on the conflict in Lebanon, particularly on the issue of whether or not a ceasefire is in America and Israel's interest. The opening salvo was fired by Stuttaford, who quoted approvingly from this Warren Christopher piece calling for an Israeli ceasefire. Rather than grapple with the important - and in my eyes laregly appropriate - suggestions raised by Christopher, J-Pod fired back with this:

Andrew Stuttaford's Umbrella [John Podhoretz]
Did you buy Chamberlain's at an auction?
Posted at 1:06 PM

The Chamberlain J-Pod is of course refering to is Neville Chamberlain, the infamous British PM who failed to stand up to Hitler at Munich in 1938. Yet rather than succumb to Podenfreude and revel in the sheer idiocy of J-Pod's insult, Stuttaford countered by arguing that things are far more complicated than J-Pod would have us believe:

Substantive, carefully argued criticism, John, but my point doesn't change. The West (and by that, I mean primarily the nation that is doing most of the work, the US) is, as you may have noticed, involved in a very wide-ranging, and complex, struggle with Islamic extremism, a struggle that, to varying degrees, has spread over a disturbingly large part of the globe. The US currently faces no greater challenge and, quite conceivably, danger. When America considers, therefore, how to react to what is occurring in the Lebanon, it has to ask itself the question whether what is now happening there is helping its efforts in a wider struggle that this country needs to win. That's a more complicated question than it sounds, of course, but I'm pretty sure that the answer is no.

Failing to grasp the larger points raised by Stuttaford, J-Pod continued to reiterate the standard neocon script about how terrorits are evil, we are good, and therefore surrender equals appeasement. Patient as ever, Stuttaford once again hammered away at the big picture by outlining the pitfalls associated with lumping Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah together in the same category and warning that a protracted military stalement with Hezbollah would only exacerbate Israel's (and our) dilemma. Completely out-argued, out-classed, and out of his league, J-Pod was again forced to invoke the appeasement canard.

I think this exchange demonstrates just how myopic and dangerous the worldview of right-wingers like J-Pod actually is. Instead of pointing to our (and Israel's) shortcomings in Iraq and Lebanon as evidence that we don't understand the complex political, social, and cultural dynamics of Muslim societies, that terrorism is in the first instance a political problem and not a military one, or that perhaps Iraq wasn't (and still isn't) the best place to wage the war on terror, J-Pod-types chalk up our failures to a lack of resolve. According to this line of argument, when the going gets tough, all the more reason to apply more military power. As J-Pod put it earlier this week:

What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn't the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?

Is that what conservative opinion on the war has come to? Are they seriously arguing that genocide is a possible policy option that we need to be taking seriously? If so, such thinking represents the height of irresponsibility and immorality.