Max Sawicky wrote, >Interestingly, in the neo-conservative circles in which he runs, Ledeen is >known not so much as an Iraq-hawk, but rather as an Iran-hawk.
Ledeen's 1985 _Grave New World_ is chock-a-block full of recrimination at what he saw as the Carter administration's loss of Iran. Sort of a "who lost China?" redux.Viewing the invasion of Iraq as a prelude to massive presure on Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia actually makes more sense -- albeit a macabre and megalomaniacal sense -- than the feeble WMD, 12 years is enough, Saddam is a tyrant, al Qaeda link official justifications. Remember, the speech writers just threw in North Korea so it wouldn't look like Bush was singling out Islamic countries. This farce would be funny if it wasn't so murderous. Or to torture the tragedy/farce cliche, what would the repetition be to a "mourning play" [trauerspiel]? The right used to talk about overcoming the "Vietnam Syndrome", the reluctance to resort to armed conflict. I think what Ledeen wants to overcome could be thought of as the World War I/World War II/Hiroshima Syndrome, the reluctance to engage in total war for the glory of war. It will be interesting to see if our poet-warrior spends the duration sitting on his "freedom chair" at the AEI or if he takes up arms in middle age like his idol D'Annunzio (supposedly). I hope if he does, he shaves his head first so we can admire the glint of desert sun reflecting off his sublime cranium. I'm not an expert on D'Annunzio. Ledeen is. But from reading Ledeen's account of D'Annunzio's exploits, it strikes me that they may well have been fictional -- sort of an earlier "tail-gunner Joe" from the days when it would be easier to fake and harder to expose such histrionics (or perhaps not?). In a similar vein, when I read Ledeen's September 13, 2001 NRO column "Who Killed Barbara Olson" the prose struck me as eerily, calculatedly overwrought. http://www.nationalreview.com/contributors/ledeen091301.shtml Tom Walker 604 255 4812
