Norman Podhoretz -- Senior Foreign Policy Aide to Rudy Giuliani and leading advocate of a war with Iran -- was on PBS' Online News Hour last night with Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria (the author of an excellent article this week on the complete irrationality of warmongers like Podhoretz). Podhoretz's argument: "So that leaves us with only one terrible choice, which is either to bomb those facilities and retard [Iran's] program or even cut it off altogether or allow them to go nuclear. And I agree with what Senator McCain has said in the past: The only thing worse than bombing Iran is to allow Iran to get the bomb."
In order to justify bombing Iran, Podhoretz, in response to Zakaria, talked about Hitler and how Zakaria didn't want to fight Hitler:
NORMAN PODHORETZ: Well, I'll tell you why. First, I want to say that I think the attitude expressed by Fareed Zakaria represents an irresponsible complacency that I think is comparable to the denial in the early '30s of the intentions of Hitler that led to what Churchill called an unnecessary war involving millions and millions of deaths that might have been averted if the West had acted early enough.
The next time he spoke, Podhoretz talked about Hitler and how Zakaria didn't want to fight Hitler:
Yes, let me respond to that. You know, similar arguments were made about Hitler in the early '30s, and it appalls me that this kind of attitude can still prevail after what we should have learned from the words of despots.
The next time Podhoretz spoke, he talked about Hitler and how Bush promised to fight Hitler:
JUDY WOODRUFF: I do want to ask you both, because I think it's important. Mr. Podhoretz, do you think that, as you wrote a few months ago, this administration, this president intends before he leaves office to strike Iran?NORMAN PODHORETZ: Yes, I do believe he will, because he has said many times -- or at least two times that I know of in public -- that, if we allow Iran to get the bomb, people 50 years from now will look back at us the way we look back at the men who made the Munich pact with Hitler in 1938 and say, "How could they have let this happen?"
Then the show ended on this note:
FAREED ZAKARIA: I believe in just the way that we have deterred the Soviet Union, Mao's China, Kim Jong Il, history will prove that we can use deterrence and containment to contain the problem of Iran and that we do not need to launch a third unilateral invasion just to do that.JUDY WOODRUFF: Fareed Zakaria and Norman Podhoretz...
NORMAN PODHORETZ: God help us if we follow that counsel.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Norman Podhoretz, we thank you. Fareed Zakaria, gentlemen, we thank you both very much.
That about covers the full set of arguments and knowledge of our nation's leading neoconservative war cheerleaders.
Whoever is next on the War List is always The New Hitler and the country they lead is always The New Nazi Germany. Anyone who wants the new war is the brave and glorious Churchill. Everyone who opposes the new war is the cowardly appeaser Chamberlain, willing to allow Hitler to Take Over the World and impose Caliphate and burquas and humiliation on everyone. That's the level of advice which both George Bush, the current President, and Rudy Giuliani, the leading GOP presidential candidate, have chosen to receive and -- by all appearances -- follow.
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Josh Marshall has more on this, including the video.
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