The) foreign policy advisers he has signed up make the Vulcans of Bush look like Howard Zinn and Ramsey Clark."
That's conservative commentator and former Republican presidential contender Pat Buchanan talking about the team that is telling current Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani how to think about international affairs in general and the war on terror in particular.
And here's the interesting part: Buchanan is suggesting that historian Zinn and former Attorney General Clark, as much men of the left as the former adviser to Presidents Nixon and Reagan is a man of the right, are a good deal more rational in their world views than the people advising Giuliani.
The neoconservative "Vulcans" -- as the circle around Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refer to themselves -- got Bush and the U.S. into the military misadventure that is Iraq. Now, an even more dangerous crew of Giuliani advisers looks to war with Iran.
Buchanan notes that the "team leader" of the group counseling the former mayor of New York on how to deal with global threats is Charles Hill, who the conservative columnist recalls is "a co-signer of the Sept. 20, 2001, neocon ultimatum to Bush, nine days after 9-11, warning the president if he did not attack Iraq, his failure to do so 'will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender to the war on international terrorism.'"
As Buchanan note, "Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11."
Then there's Daniel Pipes, a proponent of "profiling" Muslims at airports and in law enforcement initiatives, and nuary for espionage against the United States Michael Rubin, who wants to the U.S. to revoke a bar on assassinating people who get on the wrong side of Washington. And, of course, there is Norman Podhoretz, author of the recent Commentary essay, "The Case for Bombing Iran."
Podhoretz argues that the "war on terror"is "World War IV" and says he "(prays) with all my heart" Bush will bomb Iran.
Podhoretz, who says the attack on Iraq has been an "amazing success," "a triumph (that) couldn't have gone better," may yet have his prayer answered by Bush.
But on the chance that the current president might not deliver, Podhoretz and his soulmates are betting on Giuliani.
This all leads Buchanan to express his fears about the prospect that "a vote for Rudy is a vote for endless war."
He's right to worry. Giuliani, who has less foreign policy experience than any presidential contender since, well, George Bush in 2000, has sent the most powerful signal possible about the direction in which his presidency would be headed. And that direction is toward war with Iran.
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