{"id":383,"date":"2004-03-24T12:49:56","date_gmt":"2004-03-24T12:49:56","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:08:32","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:08:32","slug":"drezner_on_clarke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=383","title":{"rendered":"Drezner on Clarke"},"content":{"rendered":"

Go read Daniel Drezner on Richard Clarke<\/a>, one of the most sensible commentaries on the subject that I’ve seen. Two key quotes:<\/p>\n

So, does Clarke have a personal incentive to stick it to this administration? Absolutely. Does he know what he’s talking about? Absolutely. Can what he says can be ignored? Absolutely not.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and<\/p>\n

55 years ago, George Kennan and Paul Nitze had different positions on how to wage a containment policy, with Nitze taking a much more aggressive posture in NSC-68 than Kennan did in “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” I’m not sure that it’s ever been decided which position was right. The same will likely be true of current debates.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Update:<\/b> The Washington Post has a good editorial<\/a> on this as well. Here’s a key quote…<\/p>\n

Mr. Clarke describes Mr. Bush’s questions about a possible Iraqi role on the day after the Sept. 11 attacks as irrational; in fact, they were entirely reasonable. Iraq was an indisputable threat when Mr. Bush took office — one, like al Qaeda, that the Clinton administration had aptly described but failed to counter. Moreover, within days of asking those questions, Mr. Bush put Saddam Hussein on a back burner and ordered a U.S. military operation against al Qaeda’s base in Afghanistan — a tough decision that Mr. Clarke wrongly takes for granted. <\/p>\n

\nWhat the former czar really objects to is the president’s move, some six months later, to expand the war on terrorism to Iraq and other rogue states capable of supplying terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Clarke, like Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and some others in the Democratic Party, argue for a narrower war, focused on al Qaeda. We disagree with that view, but it represents a legitimate alternative to Bush administration policy. Does Mr. Kerry support it? There — more than in the what-ifs about decisions made before Sept. 11 — lie the makings of an important debate. <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What they said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Go read Daniel Drezner on Richard Clarke, one of the most sensible commentaries on the subject that I’ve seen. Two key quotes: So, does Clarke have a personal incentive to stick it to this administration? Absolutely. Does he know what he’s talking about? Absolutely. Can what he says can be ignored? Absolutely not. and 55 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}