Bumiller: The Same Neoconservatives That Pushed For War In Iraq Are Now Calling For An Attack On Iran
“New York Times” Washington bureau chief Elisabeth Bumiller on Friday’s “Morning Joe” and discussed her latest piece, “Trump, Iran and the Specter of Iraq: ‘We Bought All the Happy Talk'”.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST: Elizabeth, the Wall Street Journal editorial page this morning goes after MAGA isolationists, talking about how the real war has been the war that Iran has waged on America and the West since 1979. But there is a part of it where they suggest that these isolationists are so shattered by the experiences of Vietnam and Iraq that they fear every war is going to be a forever war. Well, you know, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, the overwhelming number of senators, certain late night talk show hosts on MSNBC, all supported the Iraq invasion and all said it looked like a cakewalk two or three weeks in. It would seem to me as you were writing, anybody who is not chastened by the lessons of our arrogance going into Vietnam and Iraq would be foolish. ELISABETH BUMILLER, NEW YORK TIMES: That’s correct. What is really interesting right now is how much this feels in many ways like the run up to the war in Iraq in Washington. It’s a huge difference, of course, there’s not more than 200,000 troops amassed in the Middle East ready to invade, ready to cross the border and march toward Baghdad. But there are the same people, the same neoconservatives now calling for an attack on Fordow. They are the same people saying that this can be done very quickly and easily. And there’s the same deep divide again with Trump’s base and in the country, because as we all remember, we were told it was going to be a cakewalk going into Iraq. We were told that the U.S. troops would be treated as liberators. And there was an initial euphoria after a three-week victory. And then we know what happened for the next close to nine years. So it feels very similar. And as we all know, Donald Trump campaigned three times as the president. He was going to end our forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I think what he’s doing right now is what we call coercive diplomacy. He has raged and threatened for several weeks now, threatened to assassinate the supreme leader, hoping that this would scare Iran into more negotiations.
