The Wacky World of Norman Podhoretz

Where there's always another world war brewing…

By Justin Raimondo

"......The neocons, however, are not too concerned with such bothersome details: just let them reconstitute the heyday of their Cold Warrior mentality, revamp and refit it with fresh rhetoric and a new "grand theory," and we're off to what Podhoretz deems "World War IV." He writes:

"Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be understood if they are regarded as self-contained wars in their own right. Instead we have to see them as fronts or theaters that have been opened up in the early stages of a protracted global struggle."

Relax, we're in "the early stages." If the horror, tragedy, and futility of Iraq fills you with despair, you ain't seen nothin' yet! Poddy & Co. have given themselves lots of scope for their grand strategy and plenty of rationales for invading and destroying the Muslim nations of the world, one by one – and the prime candidate, as Podhoretz makes clear is Iran, "the most dangerous of all" because of its nuclear ambitions.....

Yet the economic ruin of the U.S. and much of the rest of the world is a small price to pay for the security of Israel, which is "existentially" threatened, as one Israeli politician put it, by Iran's nuclear program. Let the world economy plunge into the depths of a global depression; let the heavens cry out in pain at the sight of so much death and destruction; let a million jihadists rise up to threaten the safety and security of Americans everywhere. All that pales into insignificance when we realize that it's all part of the struggle against "Islamofascism." Citing John McCain – who else?! – Poddy opines: "The only thing worse than bombing Iran … is allowing Iran to get the bomb.".......

What world is Norman Podhoretz living in? Short answer: one that bears not the slightest resemblance to reality. In a normal world, his ravings would be no more important than the deranged tirades of the village nutcase. To our horror, however, we are living in a reality where Podhoretz's twisted ideology is largely shared by the most powerful man on earth. Therefore, when Poddy writes "my guess is that [Bush] intends, within the next 21 months, to order air strikes against the Iranian nuclear facilities from the three U.S. aircraft carriers already sitting nearby," we might very well take him seriously. "