Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Sunday, October 18, 2009

Iranian Myths

Commentary By Ron Beasley



Because the military/Industrial/media complex is set on a war with Iran this important OP ED has not received the coverage it deserves. - Five Myths About Iran's Nuclear Program:


Iran's expanding nuclear program poses one of the Obama
administration's most vexing foreign policy challenges. Fortunately,
the conditions for containing Tehran's efforts may be better today than
they have been in years. The recent disclosure of a secret nuclear
facility in Iran has led to an apparent agreement to allow in U.N.
weapons inspectors and to ship some uranium out of the country, and the
United States and Europe seem to be closing ranks on the need for
sanctions and engagement.



Of course, the matter is far from resolved; Russia and China are
sending mixed signals on their position, while even a weakened Iranian
regime remains duplicitous. But the prospects for developing a strategy
with a solid chance of success improve if we dispose of five persistent
myths about Iran's nuclear program:



1. Iran is on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon.



2. A military strike would knock out Iran's program.



3. We can cripple Iran with sanctions.



4. A new government in Iran would abandon the nuclear program.



5. Iran is the main nuclear threat in the Middle East.





Yes these are all myths and you can read the details in the original editorial.  I think he underestimates the importance of Israel's 200 nuclear warheads in the region but this is about right.

The real danger is not a nuclear-armed Iran but a Middle East with more
nuclear-armed nations and unresolved territorial, economic and
political disputes. That is a recipe for disaster, and that is why
there is no country-specific solution; we cannot play nuclear
whack-a-mole.

Of course this is not the sort of thing the hawks want to hear so we probably won't hear much about it.  It would mean Israel is wrong and that would be anti-Semitic.



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