"Whenever right-wing warriors want to urge a new war with Iran, they invariably cite [Michael] Ledeen, who serves as "Freedom Scholar" at the American Enterprise Institute, a contributor to National Review, and some sort of regular contributor to "Pajamas Media." Simply put, there is no more ridiculous, deceitful, untrustworthy and just outright laughable political figure of influence than Michael Ledeen.
"To begin with, Ledeen is plagued by the single most absurd yet fundamental contradiction one can imagine. His central argument, repeated over and over and now a staple in neoconservative mythology, is that Iran has been at war with the U.S. continuously ever since 1979. We just haven't fought back yet.
"Yet Ledeen played a central role in brokering the sale by Israel to Iran of highly advanced weapons as part of the Reagan administration's Iran-contra shenanigans in the 1980s. A military confrontation with Iran would likely subject U.S. troops to attack from the very same nasty weapons which Ledeen and his friends provided to Iran during a time when, Ledeen and neoconservatives now insist, Iran was waging war on the U.S. As Scott Lemieux, among many others, has noted, providing arms to a country "waging war against the U.S." -- as Ledeen did with Iran in the 1980s if his central premise is to be believed -- is called treason.
"Ledeen's credibility-destroying pronouncements are too numerous to chronicle here. In January, he declared in Pajamas Media that "Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, is dead." Days later, Khamenei appeared in public and gave a major speech, and continues to live. Even Michelle Malkin's Hot Air called Ledeen's announcement "a major embarrassment" for Pajamas. Identically, Ledeen has repeatedly announced that Osama bin Laden is dead, even after he is proven to be alive. This individual -- with this ludicrous record, who does not speak Persian, and who has never even set foot in the country -- is the right-wing's leading and most respected "Iran expert" when it comes to urging war.
FOR AN EVEN MORE AMAZING ARTICLE BY MICHAEL LEDEEN, go here to Hullabaloo:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/serious-madmen-by-digby-glenn-greenwald.html
Both of these articles found from links on Juan Cole's Informed Comment blog.
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