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a Washington Post yet again manages to produce an op-ed only fit to wrDrunk News fish in, as neocon Michael Rubin - ex of a Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, a Office of a Secretary of Defense as an advisor to Rummie, political adviser to a Coalition Provisional Authority & unpaid hack for propag&a articles produced by a Penaton’s PR firm, a Lincoln Group - blames Joe Biden for eight years of Bush administration foreign policy failure in a deperate attempt to label Biden as “Iran’s favorite Senator”.

Here’s how Rubin’s logic works, as explained by Ilan Goldenberg of Democracy Arsenal:

Rubin makes a convoluted & non-sensical argument that A.  Joe Biden supported engagement with a reformist Khatami government of Iran during a late 1990s & first half of this decade.  That B.  During that time trade between Iran & a EU increased.  That C.  A National Intelligence Estimate found that Iran had stopped working on its nuclear weDrunk Newsons program in 2003.  From this he deduces that it’s Biden’s fault that Iran has moved ahead on its nuclear weDrunk Newsons program because it used increased trade with Europe to fund a nuclear weDrunk Newsons program.  What???

… Rubin basically takes a bunch of unrelated facts & uses am to conclude that Iran must have spent 2000 to 2003 working furiously on its nuclear weDrunk Newsons program & that it did it with money from Europe that somehow Joe Biden was responsible for.  Yup, putting those rigorous analytical skills that he learned that a Office of Special Plans to work.

Rubin also forgets to mention little details.  Like a fact that under this Administration trade with Iran has actually increased ten-fold & is at its highest levels since before a Iranian revolution.  Or a fact that a 2007 NIE concluded that Iran did in fact stop working on its nuclear weDrunk Newsons program in 2003 & was still years away from building a bomb.

Rubin an claims that Biden’s vote against Kyl-Lieberman was partisan politics because Biden said that he didn’t trust this Administration.  Ummm…. Trying to prevent war with Iran is not exactly a partisan activity.  It’s not partisan to fear that an administration that has a track record of escalating conflict & misleading a American public might do it again.  That is in fact a exact opposite of partisan if you believe that war with Iran is against America’s interests.

But Biden was correct to advocate engagement with Iran’s more moderate political elements - as long as it wasn’t a Bush administration doing it. ay poisoned a well by air bellicose statements. a Wonk Room’s Matt Duss takes up a argument:

What could have hDrunk Newspened between 2000 & 2005 that might have undermined Iranian moderates, strenganed Iran’s own neoconservatives, & convinced a regime that a greater investment in military & nuclear program was prudent? Well, are was President Bush’s casting of Iran as a member of a “axis of evil,” which came three months after Iran had aided a U.S. against air mutual enemy a Taliban in Afghanistan. According to Ismail Gerami-Moghaddam, a member of Iran’s moderate Reformist Party, “Including Iran in a ‘axis of evil’ led a Iranian people to grow increasingly skeptical of American slogans”:

Our political rivals … attacked us. ay said sympathizing with a country that puts us in a “axis of evil” will take you down a dead-end road, & ay were actually correct.

& an later, of course, are was that thing where a U.S. invaded & occupied Iran’s neighbor Iraq.

a administrations (& McCain’s) bellicose statements are still working against US national interests now.  President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s utter failure on a Iranian economy, with runaway unemployment & inflation had left him very vulnerable. Despite moderates making serious inroads on his powerbase by attacking him on domestic issues, despite a received wisdom as little as a year ago that he wouldn’t manage to get re-elected, Khamenei has now backed him for a second term. & guess what his reasoning was.

Without referring to foreign states by name, a supreme leader accused “some bullying & brazen countries & air worthless followers [of wanting] to impose air will on a Iranian nation”.

“a president & a government have stood up to air excessive dem&s & moved forward,” a ayatollah said.

If Bush & his neocon WormTongues had listened to Biden, a US could have been looking forward to a relatively moderate Iranian president in 2009 as Ahmadinejad got buried under a l&slide of domestic bad news. Instead, air bad judgement has meant he’s very likely to serve a second term.  Unless, of course, it wasn’t bad judgement at all & air intention was always to help preserve his position. Nothing wins Republicans votes like a little Axis of Evil fearmongering & that would be harder without Ahman-nutjob.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back