Bush may be setting a “Conciliation Trap” for the Democrats. Stephen allows as how the current group of Democratic leaders (with some exceptions) aren’t the most engaging people on the block. We could make a list of the humorless and the enraged here (supply your own), and I think it’s smart strategy, but I don’t agree with Stephen that Bush seems such an extreme lame duck – and that’s part of the reasons for the Dems perpetually sour mood. With some exceptions, the President seems to be getting a fair percentage of what he wants from Iraq to the Supreme Court. And as for whether his Iraq policy worked (nuanced or not) we may not know for decades. This was a big historical roll of the dice and those who think they can seriously measure its success now amaze me. But measure we do because that’sthe business of politics.
Roger,
I think we can be certain that the Iraq venture was absolutely necessary, and was wise, because of the nature of Saddam’s regime, and of the whole situation in the Middle East. The alternative was to let things fester, which we had done at least from the Carter through the Clinton administrations. That gave us 9/11. (I am not saying Iraq “was behind” 9/11, of course. But the entire Middle East, in a sense, was.)
Bush’s wisdom faces a much tougher test now with Iran.
Jamie Irons
When will people ever learn that President Bush is a genuinely nice guy? It comes natural to him. George W. Bush has always acted in a conciliatory manner with Democrats. I sometimes think that there isnít a mean bone in his body. Moreover, I often wish that he possessed a bit of the nastiness of either a Richard Nixon or Lyndon B. Johnson.
I believe the lame duck business is often over estimated re: POTUS.
Can he continue on with the major elements of his agenda or not? In the case of Iraq and the GWoT, the answer seems to be yes.
In the case of bringing some “conservatism” back into the federal court system, the answer seems to be yes.
In the case of significant overhaul of the Social Security system the answer seems likely to be no, but it was no anyway.
In the partisan case of leaving his party in a stronger position than it was when he arrived, that is still open. The Dems are running awful close to the abyss and show no outward signs of deciding not to go right on into it. So his hand in this case seems reasonably strong. Play it out and see if can win it.
Those, unless I’m missing something he’s pretty solid on the on half of his agenda, the other was a non-winnable hand and all poker players are familiar with those. It looks like he has a realistic opportunity to win three of the four hands his wants most to win.
That just doesn’t seem like “lame duck” to me.
As for setting a conciliation trap… Well, the Dems set that one up all by themselves. They’ve clearly demonstrated that they are not satisfied with merely being in opposition, they must demonstrate shrill opposition for shrillnesses sake.
If he reaches out his hand and says, “look, guys, we have a nation to run here and there’s no need for you to a swan dive into the abyss” he places himself in a position that is hard to lose from.
If the Dems chose to do the Swan Dive into the Abyss he can just stand there, shake his head, and claim he never wanted that and he reached out a hand for them to grab. If they decide to step back from the Abyss it will only happen through Dem infighting. Some Dems, somewhere, are going to have to start shouting that they will not allow the party to swan dive.
If that point Bush has made his point and won a small pot. But he won it nonetheless. If the Dems decide to try to work with the majority than he claim credit for extending the hand they reached out to grab to save themselves.
If the Dems decide to mill around the lip of the abyss without jumping he can simply say, “Heh, I tried to reach out, they are intent on fighting this to the bitter end, I have no choice but to return fire.”
I would say Bush’s position in at the poker table is just fine and dandy with him. I don’t see the lame duck part. He comes from the Party that still seems to believe POTUSes take their best shot while they are POTUS and then step aside. Unlike the Dems who seem to have convinced themselves that the proper role for ex-POTUSes is to never let the rest of us MoveOn.
Regarding Iraq, there’s another point that I don’t see made too often.
In the war against terrorism, we mean to show our dedication to the freedoms that we believe all people should have, our willingness to fight for those. A show of strength & resolve is required.
And the message we send this way is intended for both our enemies and our allies and would-be allies. People worldwide suffering in tyrannies must know that we will support them, should they choose to overthrow their rulers.
So exactly how credible would we have looked if we had ignored Saddam Hussein, the antithesis of those freedoms, a tyrant who had defied us for twelve years? How seriously would anyone have taken us if we had not done anything about him?
I strongly reject the ìtrapî thesis. This is not the way President Bush approaches other people. He is not even remotely Machiavellian. At most, Bushís something of a poker player. It is so hysterically funny when the leftists describe him as similar to Adolph Hitler. Bushís psychological makeup is exactly the opposite of the Nazi leader. Has the slander been repeated so often that many well meaning people now subconsciously believe it?
DT,
My take on GWB re: the “Machiavellian” of “diabolical” stuff is the same as yours. The “poker player” stuff probably get’s at his methodology much better. Hillary is a Machiavellian, political animal. Bush is a poker player.
But poker players are not the least bit reluctant to allow their opponents to create and walk into a trap of their own devising or, for that matter, to set traps. Desptie the famous song there’s more to it than “know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em”.
Poker players not only decide whether or not the hand they are playing can win the pot but they also practice “pot management”. So, for example, the way to maximize the size of the pot you are trying to win may not be by raising the bet some large amount. It may be the right move to simply see the bet or make a small raise to keep your opponents in the game. A poker player has no problem with allowing his opponents to overplay their hands.
In the Alito matter the Dems overplayed their hand very badly. To try and demonstrate “spine” or “guts” or whatever it was they wanted to demonstrate they kept tossing chips onto the pile when they shoulda folded.
The case of the “Mad Dash to War in Iraq” was, IMO, a very good example of Bush as poker player. He reached a point where it became clear to him that everyone else at the table was trying to bluff him into folding and he just called the bluffs. The UN was bluffing, France was bluffing, Saddam was bluffing… They all shoulda folded and cut their losses.
Knuck,
The idea of Bush as poker player I find quite convincing, the more so since I’ve taken up the hobby of playing Texas Hold ‘Em as a way of relaxing.
I didn’t play poker in college, and I didn’t know GWB (he was a class ahead of me at Yale, Class of ’68) but I had a friend who did play poker with Bush; in the end his conclusion was “Never play poker with George W. Bush.”
I don’t think a good poker player is necessarily Machiavellian, but he may appear to be so to his opponents, as his success at the table may appear almost magical.
By the way, from the very little I knew of Bush from my days at Yale, I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined he would become president, let alone the kind of (in my view) great man he has become.
Jamie Irons
Per our Constitution, Bush will continue to more or less run our foreign policy and more or less reshape the judiciary, the two areas that Roger notes he has gotten some stuff done. But I can’t think of single domestic policy objective that he is likely to achieve in the next three years. There is a slight possibility, I suppose, for success with the amnesty/guest worker initiative. But even with this matter, I wonder if his non-Republican support level is too low for him to risk angering his base by fighting on immigration reform.
From a partisan Democratic perspective, I’m disappointed, and I give him credit, for appearing to be a little less bullheaded over the past few months. His decision to mothball his social security phase-out plans is bad news for Democrats heading in to the midterms.
Also, now that Scalito is confirmed, can we all the drop the “look at the Democratic Party do a ‘Swan Dive into the Abyss’” pretenses? I acknowledge it’s very effective weapon to use against us, since like everyone we hate to lose and since, as some of you may not realize, we recognize that the overall electorate is more conservative than we are and that our views are sometimes unpopular. But despite all the feigned concern about our alleged attempt to commit political hari-kari by voting to filibuster him, I don’t imagine that anyone save already committeed Republicans will remember after a week.
How might I describe the Bush administration if I were to pretend to be another second rate Richard Neustadt imitator? I would consider calling it ìthe group of nice people.î President Bush has surrounded himself with folks who go out of their way to cut slack and be polite towards everyone around them. And yet, I sense that even the presidentís supporters often fail to realize this obvious fact. The leftist slime job has been that effective. Karl Rove and Dick Cheney may not among oneís favorite people. Still, they appear to be quite easy going and not even slightly nasty. None of Bushís people would have felt comfortable working with either Richard Nixon or LBJ.
It was interesting to me to watch the commentary after the speech on FoxNews.
Barnes and Kristol both indicated that they were prepared for much harsher criticism during the speech.
Rove has been much harsher in his shaping of the debate over the last few weeks.
Why should the President set himself up as an opponent to bi-partisanship, and a critic of honorable Democrats?
Why shouldn’t he offer the olive branch to those who are principled, and respectfull of the office?
That’s certainly not every Democrat, but enough to be able to make a difference in getting an agenda through Congress.
markus – what a lot of people will remember in several weeks time, the Democratic applause for NOT DOING ANYTHING to “save Social Security” and possibly Hillary rolling her eyes.
Seems to me that the Democrats strategy is to shout louder when their ideas aren’t popular, whether or not those ideas hold weight or validity. It’s as if we spoke a foreign language, and by them speaking louder we would just understand a little bit better.
Jamie,
I’m not much of a poker player – once in a while among “Ol’ Buddies” for the nickle, dime, quarter stuff. And when we play it is a hodge-podge of various games I’ve long since forgotten how to play. I find it amusing because it is a combination of what you know vs. what you don’t but can make SWAGS at vs. what you have no way to know vs. ideas you have about how other people will behave. And then there is the occassional just plain luck, both good and bad.
As far as I can see it there are definitely skills involved (I don’t have much command of them). And from what I can surmise of GWB he probably has those skills in abundance. He seems darned adept at making the most of the hand as it’s dealt.
By the way, from the very little I knew of Bush from my days at Yale, I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined he would become president, let alone the kind of (in my view) great man he has become.
Perhaps Yale is too far up the pedigree ladder for this to be the case, but how many of the folks we knew in college match what we thought they might become. In my case, for example, I am not dead or homeless or in prison which, I suspect, would have been the common expectations for me this many years along
Jamie Irons: “I think we can be certain that the Iraq venture was absolutely necessary, and was wise, because of the nature of Saddam’s regime, and of the whole situation in the Middle East. The alternative was to let things fester, which we had done at least from the Carter through the Clinton administrations.”
“Fester” how? What precisely was “festering” in Iraq under Saddam that made invasion “absolutely necessary?”
Bostonian,
“So exactly how credible would we have looked if we had ignored Saddam Hussein, the antithesis of those freedoms, a tyrant who had defied us for twelve years? How seriously would anyone have taken us if we had not done anything about him?”
Well, if by “ignore”, we mean no major changes in the containment policy, we did ignore Hussein for those twelve years with very little downside in terms of international credibility. Are you going to try to make the case that the people and governments of the world would be more upset with us if we hadn’t invaded Iraq than they have been with the invasion itself?
keith_indy –
For better or worse, Democrats speak loudly on issues on which we are united, and on which we think we will only piss off Republicans, rather than independents. Stonewalling on SS privatization helps Democrats, which is why Bush is mothballing the whole idea. He knows that the more he talked about his plans last year, the less popular they became.
Shochu John,
What precisely was “festering” in Iraq under Saddam that made invasion “absolutely necessary?”
Saddam was paying $25,000 to every family of a suicide bomber in “Palestine.”
He was sheltering celebrated terrorists, including Abu Masab Al-Zarqawi, who got medical treatment at Saddam General (or whatever the hospital’s name may have been).
He had used WMD’s both against his own people and a neighboring state. (The WMD issue is not yet a closed book.)
He had violated a score or so of UN resolutions with relative impunity.
He had violated his cease-fire agreement with us innumerable times.
He had attempted to kill an American president.
He was killing his own people at a rate far above the (admittedly terrible) rate that Iraqi civilians are being killed, and have been killed, since the invasion.
And on and on and on…
I mean no disrespect, but I am tempted to use your question as an answer to that oft-repeated query of why the Democrats are no longer taken seriously on questions of national security.
Jamie Irons
re: nice people.
Yes they are. And honorable. Can there any doubt that they would stand for impeachment and even leave office to protect whatever it is in the “terrorism surveillance” program that they believe must remain secret? And they would do this based on the word of the people that work for them (and had also worked for the previous administration) – i.e. they didn’t dream up this stuff on their own, and they didn’t say “no you can’t do it, it’ll offend Congress” but rather “we’ll figure out a way” (to find a legal vehicle to authorize you to do what you can to protect the country, and protect you from any consequences).
Sadly, there’s some question about what the “lovable rouge” that preceded them would have done in similar circumstances (child that he is), as well as his cohort (who likely contributed to raising the “Wall” – in the presence of “no controlling legal authority” wrt foreign political contributions – and the anxiety all administrations have faced when law enforcement is exposed to foreign intelligence collections that entangle U.S. persons).
Jamie — I remember Bush right after 9/11 talking about how we would respond “at the time and in the manner of our own choosing.” One could say the same in response to all of the reasons you give as to why an invasion was “absolutely necessary.”
Say my enemy commits some sort of transgression, and I conclude that as a result of the transgression he deserves to be eliminated. Say I also conclude that eliminating him by necessity entails that I pay an enormous price, far higher than the price that I am likely to have to pay as a result of a decision NOT to eliminate him. Under these circumstances, choosing not to remove him might actually be IN MY INTEREST.
I know you would rather debate whether Saadam was deserving of being overthrown. In general, its easier to argue. Harder to argue that it was IN OUR INTEREST, as a matter of dispassionate cost/benefit analysis.
Murtha’s just-mailed letter to Bush is a real eye-opener for me: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/02/01/john-murthas-letter-to-b_n_14939.html
I say this as someone who supported the war for humanitarian reasons and because I agree with Bush that Middle East political reform and democratization is in our long-term interest.
Let me address these issues point by point:
Palestine, bombers’ families: I hear this one a lot and it confuses me. Are the families of suicide bombers to be held responsible for the actions of their family members? How is that ethical? Families of suicide bombers have often lost their main breadwinner and on top of it are subject to reprisals for the suicide bombing action. Now, I am in NO WAY excusing suicide bombing. It is a terrible act, but think about it this way. If there were a charity in the United States that gave financial assistance to families who main breadwinner was in prison, would you consider such a charity unethical? Yet this would be subject to the same accusations of incentivising the crime as would Saddam’s fat checks.
Zarqawi – This is simply passing off poorly founded conjecture as fact. The rumor was that he had a leg amputated in Baghdad. If so, it must have been a clean miss because the U.S. Military now believes him to have both his legs. In addition, before the invasion displaced him to his current hellraising position, he was operating in Iraqi Kurdistan, not under Saddam’s control. Also, even if he did go to Baghdad for treatment, the question then becomes, is there any reason to believe Saddam knew he was there?
He had used WMDs in the past. If it were 20 years ago, you could argue that taking Saddam out was a pressing concern. As for the present, the WMD issue is pretty well settled, he had nothing worth noting and no way to make it.
As for the rate of civilians killed by Saddam’s government, it was under 100 a year for over a decade before the invasion. If you don’t believe me, go over to Human Rights Watch and check it. This is not an improvement. His lifetime total is awfully high if you include the 80′s, but that was pre-contatinment.
As for the rest of it, UN resolutions, ceasefire agreements, and generally being a pain in the butt, what of this makes him a threat that must be dealt with through a costly war? Seems like an overreaction to me.
I agree with David, Bush is a nice guy.
He is not really into the silly partisan, backtabbing, self defeating antics that have become so typical in the present day Demcoratic party. And no, he is not a lame duck.
I too think the war was inevitable and necessary and if Murtha and his colleauges did not agree they should have found alternatives to dealing with Saddam years ago.
After all Murtha was in Washington for years before Bush ever got there and while Democrats today might like to live out this fantasy with Saddam as victim and Bush as villain the truth is Democrats like Clinton and Albright etc had their chance to resolve the situation. And instead they created the Food for Oil program and the Iraqi Liberation Act.
Besides, if the Democrats really feel that way they need to start demanding that Saddam be put back in power.
Well, it was always a do it now, or do it later proposition. Saddam wasn’t going to change, and the inspection/sanction regime wasn’t going to last much longer.
Doing it later, likely would have carried a higher price.
Doing it later, also would not have led to any thawing in the Middle East.
Murtha is a windbag, I’ll give you that. But his view of history is, shall we say, myopic.
Victory in WWII was declared after 3 years, 5 months. Of course, the Soviets then proceeded to enslave 1/2 of Europe, and we “occupied” the other half, and STILL HAVE TROOPS THERE TO THIS DAY.
How about we get the facts, and then decide what they mean.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/1/31/124955.shtml?s=ic
“We have 220,000 Iraqi troops now,î the lawmaker explained. “By the end of the year, we will have 300,000. All the experts agree that it will take 10 divisions of Iraqi troops to do the job ñ thatís 325,000. At the present rate, we will be at that level in June of 2007.î
“The number of our troops will go down to just an administrative levelî at that time, he added.
Inhofe, who has made 10 trips into the Iraq area of operations, pointed to what he saw as real progress in the country.
“Violence did not spike just before the last elections,î he pointed out, noting that the number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were down 30 percent; suicide bombings down 70 percent; with no incursions in two months along the once infamous and bloody airport road from Baghdad – where the average at one time was 10 incursions a week.
“We used to get 550 tips a week from Iraqis; now itís 5,000 a month,î Inhofe said.
********
Sounds like we are making progress.
If all you cared about was saving American lives in the short-term, then withdrawing now might be the way to go. But that to me sounds like a political decision in the best interests of politians, not the best interests of our country.
If that were to occur, then when Iraq fails (by becomming a terrorist sanctuary, or a full-blown civil war occurring) we would have to be back in there, with less support from allies, and with no support or trust from Iraqis. Making the job that much harder, and that much costly for us.
SJ – depends on the family. As to breadwinner – Saddam’s $25K redefined the word.
–what of this makes him a threat that must be dealt with through a costly war?–
[Some of the] Same reasons why NorK and Iran – unfinished business.
Notice how they’re all biting US in the rear at the same time?
Shochu,
Do you really think that the Lebanese would have had the guts to stand up to Syria finally if we had not demonstrated that we believe so much in democracy that we’d go to war to take out Saddam?
Do you really think that Qaddafi would have coughed up his weapons if we had not taken out Saddam Hussein?
Consider some alternate universe, where instead of destroying the Ba’athist regime, we’d submitted a few resolutions to the UN security council (or done some similar diplomacy). In this alternate universe, do you think that Lebanon is free of Syria? Do you think that Qaddafi gave up his weapons?
I could not care less if the elites of the world are angry. I do care that the citizens are, but they have been lied to, steadily & consistently by the elites, so I can’t blame them too much.
Maybe it’s time for the Left to MOVE ON, don’t you think?
I mean, how many times can we refight the war about the war?
Is there a single Democrat with ideas for the future?! And PS: “We can do better” is not an idea.
Surrender John
Here’s a link to the Saddam torture videos at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy blog.
link …
Watch all 4 chapters and then come back here and explain why you are defending Saddam. He is a monster and a mass murderer and he should have been destroyed long ago. If not us, who? If not now, when? You really make me sick, SJ.
Warning: the Saddam torture videos are “extremely graphic and shocking”.
klrfz1 — your last post was stupid addition to this thread. North Korea is just as brutal to their people as Saadam was — does this mean I am “surrender Markus” because I think that an invasion to liberate those people would be a mistake? All military actions need a dispassionate cost/benefit analysis. Iraq costs are currently a quarter trillion and counting, plus whatever was the number of young, dead Americans that Cindy Sheehan had on her T-shirt the other night. Benefits are there too. And reasonable people can argue over how the division between the two factors out. Don’t switch the topic to how big of a monster Saadam was. It is an appeal to the emotions, not the intellect.
Bostonian,
re: cedar revolution, It’s interesting that you credit this to the invasion of Iraq rather than to what actually triggered it, the assassination of Rafik Hariri. But, as long as we’re creating the feekings of democracy and empowerment wafting off Iraq for creating popular uprisings that were actually caused by the death of an important political figure, why not just go ahead and credit it for the Tiananmen Square demontsrations as well? Democracy not only wafts over countries, but back in time as well.
re: Qhaddafi. He got a sweetheart deal in exchange for some secondhand Pakistani centerfuges. He’s been trying to improve politcal and economic relations with the U.S./West for some time so that when his besuited son inherits the family business (i.e. Libya), he will be in a position to make some real cash. If this were a sudden reversal in Libyan policy rather than a cotinuation of it, you may have a point. What further undermines your point is the Iranian reaction to the situation in Iraq. They are utterly fearless because they know we don’t have the manpower to threaten them because we’re committed in Iraq. Qhadaffi knows the same.
As for what everyone else thinks, it is important if you are trying to make an argument about credibility on the world stage. If you want to say that we’ve lost credibility because everyone else is wrong, as you seem to be now saying, that is an entirely different argument altogether.
I don’t know what “left” you’re talking about that needs to move on here. Personally, I’m not really that “left” and furthermore, I didn’t bring the subject up. I am merely responding to poor arguments that others are making here.
Keith Indy,
You are using a very narrow definition of progess. I am thrilled that the airport road has finally been secured, but country-wide, there are half again as many daily attacks at the end of 2005 than there were at the end of 2004. Is this your notion of progress?
Also, you give this two option now or later thing with respect to invading Iraq, and yet you have not yet demonstrated why it had to be done at all.
Sandy, as for unfinished business biting us in the rear, I’d say that our invasion of Iraq is biting us far more firmly in the rear than either Iran or North Korea.
klfrz, I am aware that the straw man is your main specialty, but the, “You’re a Saddam Lover” is not even a good straw man.
It’s too early, and I fear I have to issue a correction on this one, “But, as long as we’re creating the feekings of democracy and empowerment….” should be, “But, as long as we’re crediting the feelings of democracy and empowerment….”
It wouldn’t be if we were allowed to finish the job in 91, which was my point.
Finished Korea in 53, finishined Khomeini in 79…
Shochu,
I’m sure you think you’re very clever, but the fact is you didn’t answer me at all.
I didn’t claim that the Lebanese had demonstrated “because” of us. I claim only that they had the courage to demonstrate because of us.
Try again.
Bostonian,
And yet you bring up absolutely no reason why you think that they had the courage to demonstrate because of the invasion of Iraq. I simply don’t see how one leads to other. Hence, my rather sarcastic response. If you provide some basis for this assertion, I would be happy to discuss it with you.
SandyP,
Do you have any reason to believe the invasion and occupation of Iraq would have gone better if done in 1991 instead of 2001?
or rather, 2003.
All right, I’ll spell it out in a little more detail (but I cannot truly believe you haven’t heard this argument before).
The Lebanese felt brave enough to demonstrate because they knew that THIS TIME they had an ally, a large, well-armed ally, on their side, which would considerably mitigate the risks to their lives. I.e., hope against hope, they could believe that there is a chance that this large well-armed ally would intervene militarily. Moreover, they knew that Syria could not be quite sure that we would do nothing.
It’s analogous to the reactions of the prisoners of the Soviet gulags when they heard the president of the most powerful nation on earth refer to the government that jailed them as an “evil empire.”
***
As for your question to SandyP, what’s the point? How many times are you going to fight the war about the war?
OK, Bostonian, let’s play it your way,
Let’s say that instead of going home, the Syrians decided to invade Lebanon to reassert their authority. Who would have stopped them? Us? With what army? Where would we have gotten the troops to do it. Transfer them from Iraq, Afghanistan, what?
Wheras if we didn’t inavde Iraq, we would have a lot of free troops at our disposal to intervene as we did in 1991. So, how did our intervention in Iraq make people in Lebanon safer? Again, I cite Iran which is misbehaving more since since Iraq invasion.
As for the Soviet GULAG, perhaps your analogy would be more compelling if the prisoners heard Reagan’s speech and started a mass uprising because they knew that Reagan would launch an invasion of Siberia if the Red Army tried to put the insurrection down.
Again, I didn’t start this discussion, but if people make silly statement about Iraq, I am going to challenge them.
Maybe this is just a little too nuanced for you, SJ, but I’ll try it again.
What I pointed out was that the Lebanese *felt* that they had our honest support. They could not be certain we would support militarily, but then again, with crazy Texan, maybe he would. Likewise, Syrian government could not be 100% certain that it was safe to do as it liked, and the Lebanese knew that the Syrian government was in that state of uncertainty.
My reference to the gulags was to point out that there is historical precedent for US actions to give people hope and courage.
As for Iran, I don’t know precisely what you mean by “misbehaving.” The reports out of Iran have indicated political upheaval, but mostly at a low level and quickly suppressed. It’s hard to tell if the Iran people are taking any courage from our actions in Iraq.
Or did you refer to the mullahs’ behavior? Well, they disagree violently with our goals. I would predict that they do exactly what they are doing.
My point is that the US would, in fact, be much more likely to intervene on their behalf had the Iraq war not happened. If you want to make the case that they would feel the opposite to be true, perhaps you would care to give some reason why you think they would have such a mistaken impression. My point in mentioning Iran was referring to the Iranian leadership, inasmuch as the fact that we don’t have much in the way of military might to spare is not a lesson lost on people in the region. So then, what leads you to the conclusion that those in Lebanon and Syria have a mistaken impression of the situation as opposed to the Iranian government, which has the correct one?
As for the GULAG analogy again, it fails to be relevant on even the modest standards you have set for it. About how many guests of the Soviet penal system had occasion to listen to Ronald Reagan’s greatest speeches on the inside? That is, of course, unless you think the USSR was recording Reagan’s speeches, translating them, and piping them into their prisons to boost prisoner morale.
These arguments do not lack nuance, only plausibility.