Many will recognize this argument from the run-up to the Iraq War. Saddam Hussein has a mighty stockpile of WMDs, we were told, and he might give them to terrorists that would use them against the United States. This, and the constant association of Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, allowed Perle and other supporters of the Iraq War to justify a conventional war against Iraq as part of the "war on terror." And that same argument is at the basis of this book.
Unfortunately, much of the shabby and even dishonest use of information that characterized the buildup to the Iraq War are also evident in this book - even making full allowance for the fact that it's a manifesto that doesn't pretend to be a balanced or scholarly treatment of the subject.
How many times has the story about Mohammed Atta's alleged meeting with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague been discredited? Yet there it is again on page 45, described as a "fact." They even haul out the crackpot argument by "our American Enterprise Institute colleague Laurie Mylroie" that the domestic terrorist and murdered Timothy McVeigh may have been supported by a foreign power - although they put it in a footnote and say, with magnificent understatement, that the evidence on that is "not yet conclusive." (p. 232n. For more on the dubious scholarship of Mylroie, see Armchair Provocateur by Peter Bergen, Washington Monthly Dec 2003 and an informative brief sketch by Joe Conason, Salon.com 12/03/03)
For anyone who's not already a cheerleader for this viewpoint - and how many Americans really are ready to invade Syria, Iran and North Korea? - these shabby claims are a red flag to ask tough questions about even the factual claims. Here again, it's valuable to keep in mind a characteristic of fanatical writing. Extremists are often copious in their use of sources and factual claims. Anyone who wades for the first time into those dark, swampy waters where Holocaust denial, neo-Confederate advocacy or anti-evolution polemics dwell may be surprised at the volume of seemingly scholarly citations.
Tags: an end to evil, david frum, richard perle
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