Author: Andrew Sullivan

My colleague writes the following sentence:

Since we all know that only Israelis and their neocon supporters in America seek a military attack on Iran's nuclear program, Bahrain must be under the control of neocons.

This is a preposterous distortion of the opposition to all-out war against Iran. It has been extremely well known and debated for years that the Sunni Arab autocracies fear and despise the idea of a Shiite or Iranian nuclear capacity as much as (if not more than) the Israelis do. Some of this is simply understandable fear of what mischief Iran could do with a nuclear umbrella; some of it is rooted in pretty vile anti-Shiite prejudice; much of it is about maintaining their own power and influence in the region. The idea that confirmation of this represents in any way anything new about the situation is silly. The most passionate rant I have ever heard on the subject in person was from the King of Jordan. In my recent post wondering why Israel refuses to budge on colonizing the West Bank, for example, I wrote:

Why would Netanyahu not be more willing to make concessions on illegal settlements, in order to bolster relations with the US and the Sunni Arab states that are crucial to Israel's strategy to isolate Iran and weaken Hezbollah and Hamas?

The question is whether another war by the US against a Muslim nation in an attempt to delay its development of a nuclear weapon (according to the same intelligence sources that insisted that Saddam Hussein was developing a nuclear weapon) is a prudent course of action. Of course the Sunni dictators would like to neuter Iran, while having someone else take the blame. They can easily deflect the anger and outrage of their own populations … against the US and/or Israel. The question is whether it is in the interests of the US to launch what would become very swiftly a Third World War against a third Muslim nation in a decade in order to advance the short-term interests of a few Arab dictators and to preserve a nuclear monopoly for Israel?

Remember, by the way, when the neocons were all about not trusting or listening to the autocrats of the Arab world? It was all about a space for democracy then. Now that the argument about democracy seems to lead directly and urgently to a viable Palestinian state (a far more promising option for Arab democracy than Iraq), the neocons have fallen back in love with the Arab dictators. Funny how that happens, isn't it?

Their intellectual inconsistency is remarkable, unless you accept that their core view at any given time has very little to do with theories of democratization, and much more to do with whatever they believe is in the interests of the Israeli right at any given moment.

Every now and again, you stumble across a passage in literature that seems so fresh and contemporary, you sit up straight – or feel a cold chill go down your spine. A Dish reader was browsing through George Bernard Shaw's play, "Geneva" (Collected GBS, vol. V, pp. 687-88) and came across this exchange about a new figure on the political stage:

"What an amazing young woman! You really think she will get in?"

"Of course she will. She has courage, sincerity, good looks, and big publicity…Everything our voters love."

"But she hasn't a political idea in her head..[S]he is a complete ignoramus. She will give herself away everytime she opens her mouth."

"Not at all. She will say pluckily and sincerely just what she feels and thinks. You heard her say that there are lots of people in Camberwell who feel and think as she does. Well, the House of Commons is exactly like Camberwell in that respect."

“The aim of an artist is not to solve a problem irrefutably, but to make people love life in all its countless, inexhaustible manifestations,” – Leo Tolstoy, as quoted by David Brooks in a column on the great Christian writer.

"To be on the internet is to never be alone. … Sophomore year of college was the last time I remember attending a party I didn’t want to go to in spite of myself, the last time I remember choosing people I didn’t really like over solitude. How dumb of me to think that I don’t do this online every day now," – Alice Gregory.

Denis Dutton leans on Darwin to provide an answer:

While you were having a life, the Dish was purring along all four days of the holiday. Among the posts you may have missed, check out Lincoln's beard-trendiness in his day, my absurdly passionate defense of the Pet Shop Boys, the 49th Odd Lie Of Sarah Palin, (it's about Trig), Hugh Hewitt's epic Von Hoffmann Award on Tom DeLay, why America, in the end, will not endorse Palinism, how Sarah Palin's public display of her kids truly is unprecedented and disgusting, and one of the best Thanksgiving Proclamations of all time.

This also has to be easily, in my view, the favorite in the Shut Up And Sing Contest. But you will decide the winner in the end, of course.

Have they told us they will launch a war against Iran by Christmas? My take on the latest Wikileaks dump here.

Daisy Banks interviewed international terror expert Jessica Stern on why terror appeals to some:

War simplifies life. So does terrorism. There is an enemy. The enemy is evil, and we are good. There is a reason for living and all the ordinary confusion of life falls away. The adrenaline becomes addictive. … It’s ironic that the mission of [Al Qaeda] shifts so regularly and is so highly dependent on the audience they are trying to reach that you do question the extent to which bin Laden believes his own rhetoric.

Bin Laden started out with the goal of forcing Soviet troops out of Afghanistan. Next he aimed to force US troops out of Saudi Arabia. Next he claims to be representing the interests of all the world’s oppressed. At one point Zawahiri tried recruiting African-Americans with messages referring to Malcolm X. Now al Qaeda claims to be fighting global warming and is urging followers to help those suffering from the floods in Pakistan.

So you think al Qaeda has gone too far in trying to be all things to all people?

Yes, I do.

An insight into the mind of the far right: an essay decrying the excessive modern power of the executive branch, without mentioning the presidency of George W. Bush. It goes straight from FDR to Obama.