Mad Podhoretz: The Ideologue Behind the Campaign to Bomb Iran

Norman Podhoretz is Editor-at-Large of Commentary [1], author most recently of World IV: The Struggle Against Islamofascism [2], and father of the neoconservative movement. He has met with President George W. Bush (in which he made the case for bombing Iran) and acted as a foreign policy advisor to the former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani. Podhoretz was one of the original signatories of the "Statement of Principles" of the Project for the New American Century [3] and received the Guardian of Zion Award [4] from Bar-Ilan University on May 24, 2007. Podhoretz is furthermore amongst the most (if not the most) vociferous ideologues in favor of bombing Iran, the case for which he first made in an article in Commentary, The Case for Bombing Iran [5]. The article then went on to be reprinted in The Wall Street Journal [6] and discussed widely in diplomatic circles and amongst policy makers in both the US and Europe.

The fact that anyone in their right mind might choose to listen to Podhoretz of their own free will is worrying to say the least, since he offers analyses that bear little semblance to reality. He knows little if anything about Iran and the wider region (he doesn't speak Farsi or Arabic), and yet continues to be regarded in some highly influential circles as an 'expert' regularly partaking in punditry across the airwaves of the corporate media. He cites no evidence for his accusations, merely rhetoric, since he feels that the burden of proof only exists for those demonic penumbra 'the Iranians'. His warmongering must be exposed and its true motivations unmasked: the desire to unequivocally underscore American empire and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.