BECK: I am so afraid that we are going to see Lebanon fall into the hands totally of Hezbollah...that you're gonna start to see Iran come into Iraq. The entire Middle East is gonna be on fire. And we are going to find ourselves like Ray Nagin found himself with buses in a parking lot.
LIEBERMAN: Yeah.
BECK: Why is it there aren't more politicians saying, Guys, this is World War III. We are in deep trouble.
LIEBERMAN: Yeah, I mean, I don't know the answer to that...Everything you just said about the Middle East is right....If we walk away [from Iraq], then the Iranians will as sure as I'm talking to you surge into Iraq, certainly take over the south and all the oil that's there....We'll have 200-dollar barrel oil, we'll be paying six or seven bucks a gallon. And that'll just be the tip of it. I mean, there'll be instability and war throughout the Middle East. We've got to wake up to this....
$200 a barrel? Let me get this straight, if Iran knocks Iraq's southern oil fields off line, which produce roughly 1/2% of the world's oil, prices will triple? That is utter non-sense. But not as non-sensical as Lieberman's position that we need to attack Iran, thereby knocking a full 5% of world oil production off line. Using Joe's math, that would cause oil to cost $2,100 dollars a barrel. Joe's numbers are simply scare tactics.
Furthermore, and I've been telling this to people I've been talking to lately, you just can't stroll in and steal another country's oil. It's not like robbing a bank where you're in and out. You have to stay to pump out the oil and the locals usually don't accept that lying down. Eventually, you realize it's not worth the effort.
On to the next exchange:
BECK: I've been saying this before we even went into Iraq, that we're trying to change the face of the Middle East. The weapons of mass destruction was a nice side benefit. We were trying to go and pop the head of the snake in Iran. That's what we were trying to do. And I don't think anybody had the courage or could actually come out and say that with world politics the way they are.
LIEBERMAN: Well, you're right. And I think if I fault the administration for anything before the war -- 'cause I think we did the right thing in going in to overthrow Saddam -- it's that they oversold the WMD part of the argument....
The WMD was a nice side benefit? The administration oversold the WMD part of the argument? It was the only reason the American people were told as to why we had to go in. I certainly didn't hear Joe Lieberman saying this was being oversold back in 2003, but that isn't even the worst part of this exchange.
If the end game of this fiasco was always to confront Iran, who the fuck decided the best way to do this was to strategically place our military in quicksand for the confrontation? If Joe knew this all along, as he is suggesting he did by agreeing with Beck, this man, or any man for that matter, should never have anything to do with the security of this nation ever again, period.
As a reader of Josh Marshall noted the other day, anytime a military force has to play the role of an occupying force, it becomes degraded as an offensive force. Our military has been severely degraded by this operation and Lieberman thinks that is the way to confront a robust Iranian military. It's just plain stupid.
And on it goes:
BECK: I have said before we went in that we are sitting at 1939, right before World War II, that some were engaged in this but most of the world was in denial in 1939. I think this Hezbollah peace treaty is our Chamberlain moment and 1941 is right around the corner.
LIEBERMAN: Well, there are very, very severe echoes of all that. I agree...
Again, this is just more fear mongering, although I do agree with Beck about it being 1939, just for different reasons. You see, lately I've been trying to decide whether the US more closely resembles 1939 Germany with its fascist regime, or 1939 Japan, with its insatiable appetite for foreign natural resources. I can't decide about that, but I have decided it's time for Joe to go.
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