Exclusive: For the past three years, Official Washington has viewed the Syrian civil war as “white-hatted” rebels against “black-hatted” President Assad, but finally some of the “gray-hatted” reality is breaking through, though perhaps too late, Robert Parry reports.
Exclusive: It is perhaps not news that the U.S. government bases wars on illusions, such as the nonexistent WMD in Iraq, but it is rare when there is a broad consensus before the conflict begins that a war’s success rests on a “fantasy” like the chimera of “moderate” Syrian rebels, reports Robert Parry.
The neocons – along with their allies in Congress and on the Washington Post’s op-ed page – remain determined to sabotage a diplomatic rapprochement with Iran, demanding that its leaders be confronted, not engaged, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar notes.
As wretched as the Iraq War was, the absence of any meaningful accountability for the U.S. policymakers and pundits who made the catastrophe happen is nearly as stomach-turning. Every day the same faces show up on the TV talk shows and Op-Ed pages spouting more of their “wisdom,” as Adil E. Shamoo notes.
Establishment foreign policy writers Vali Nasr and David Ignatius have criticized President Obama for not listening more to supposed experts on world affairs — and concentrating decision-making in the White House – but some of those experts have suffered from their own groupthink, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar notes.
“Tough-guy-ism” toward Iran holds that only a “credible threat of war” will force Tehran to capitulate to Western demands on its nuclear program. But the real hold-up to a peaceful settlement may be Iran’s fear of “regime change” aggression if it makes too many one-sided concessions, ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar says.