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Doesn’t Play Well With Others

It would be hard to find a more discredited fount of foreign-policy wisdom than the man who said, “If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don’t try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs […]

It would be hard to find a more discredited fount of foreign-policy wisdom than the man who said, “If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don’t try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now.” But Richard Perle is still in business. (For the record, construction has yet to begin on that “grand square in Baghdad named after President Bush” that he predicted would be built within a year—in 2003.)

Today Perle takes to the pages of the Washington Post to argue that a preoccupation with multilateralism is crippling our ability to confront Iran. Better to go it alone and ignite another unwinnable war?

That seems to be what he wants. Here’s a dirty little secret: for Perle, nukes are a useful selling point but scarcely the central concern—rather like the Iraqi WMD that weren’t. Perle has said previously, “the problem in Iran is much bigger than weapons. The problem is the terrorist regime that seeks the weapons. The regime must go.”

That other world powers have concerns beyond “total war” disqualifies them. “Germany, Russia and China,” Perle writes in the Post, “[are] maneuvering for self-serving advantage in their dealings with the mullahs in Iran.” Yes, that is what normal countries do. It’s called national interest.

Comes news this morning that North Korea, another charter member of the Axis of Evil, may be responding to “clever diplomacy.” But Perle doesn’t let facts interfere with his “vision of the world.” Asked about Libya, which also managed to avoid a liberating leveling, he replied, “it is a weird case.”

If the Iraq architect has his way, we’ll plunge headlong into another abyss, without allies or end. Coalitions are for cowards, negotiation is appeasement, and the logic of deterrence that has thus far kept the world from incinerating itself no longer applies.

If you listen closely you can almost hear the children tuning up…or were they crying?

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