(Note to self: What has happened to Cliff? He seems to think that we should base our strategy on Zarqawi, not self-interest.) ~Andrew Sullivan

Does Sullivan actually know who Cliff May is?  Does he think that May was once upon a time a reasonable, well-informed person who held moderate or even conservative views about foreign policy?  This is Cliff “Foundation for the Defense of Democracies” May we’re talking about–he is the neocon who makes most neocons look timid and cautious in their promotion of global revolution and war.  At FDD, he is the team captain of a Who’s Who of hegemonist warmongers–only an outfit such as FDD could make Mario Loyola a “visiting fellow.” 

Sullivan is surprised that May is reciting the administration’s talking points?  It has become neocon SOP to cite Al Qaeda higher-ups to defend the Iraq war: if Zawahiri says X, we should believe him and formulate our policy accordingly.  Because Zawahiri says Iraq is vitally important to Al Qaeda, Iraq should therefore be vitally important to us–which means that neocons believe that we should have our strategy decided by the people who want us dead.  Of course, much like their support for the magical “surge” under any and all circumstances, the Cliff Mays of the world would assure us that the Iraq war was even more imperative if Al Qaeda leaders were constantly belittling the importance of the Iraq war.  It would go something like this: “You see, they have to constantly deny the importance of the central front in the war on terror, because we are winning in Iraq!  Because Zawahiri doesn’t say so!”   

P.S.  May cites Ayman al-Zawahiri as his authority for what we should do, not Musab al-Zarqawi as Sullivan claims.  Zarqawi is, of course, quite dead.  Not that Sullivan is paying attention to any of this.  Arabs with Z-names are all evidently the same to him.  For this he gets regularly paid and gets to blog at the site of one of the more respected journals in this country.  Clearly I have been taking the wrong approach to blogging success: the market apparently craves hysteria, inaccuracy and whimpering about how no one likes my book.  Now I just need to write a really bad book, and I, too, can enjoy the same kind of success.