Screenshot of the Tuesday edition of MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" by Kevin Gosztola
Screenshot of the Tuesday edition of MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports"
American foreign policy makers have a few countries that are routinely regarded as evil no matter what the evidence. A few examples include: Iran, North Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Chad, Somalia, Syria, etc.
There's no limit to what a foreign policy maker will hypothesize on the airwaves, and this has been especially true in the case of North Korea attacking South Korea. In discussions about how the U.S. should respond, neoconservatives have appeared on television to cheerlead the idea of a nuclear response.
In the case of Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, he appeared on Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC on Tuesday to suggest the following:
HAASS: "I think what you need to is retaliate when they do things like this. Retaliate and you need to be prepared for something bigger and you need to have very clear messages to North Korea. If they for example continue to do things like that, they will be retaliated against. If they for example take any of their newfound nuclear capabilities and transfer them to a country like Iran or to any of the terrorist groups, we ought to be very clear that, that would lead to our taking extraordinary military action, perhaps seeking regime change. I think the United States needs to take a much tougher line with North Korea, and stop imagining that we're somehow going to resume these negotiations that are in turn going lead to North Korea's de-nuclearization. It's simply not in the cards". [emphasis added]
Just like movie buffs love to play the trivia game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," foreign policy think tank leaders and members love to play "Six Degrees of Iran."
Basically, any foreign conflict or incident especially ones that the U.S. could have played a clear role in exacerbating must somehow be connected to Iran. Usually, policy makers are able to do this in one degree like Haass did on MSNBC. Sometimes you have to involve other countries so you include China or you mention Somalia or Chad and how terrorists there might be able to transfer nuclear weapons to Iran.
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