Why Can't We Have Cool Super-Villians, Like in the Comic Books?

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is the organization that came up with the brilliant idea to invade Iraq. You would think that the failure of that "project" would give the organization reason to pause and think about any further "regime changes," and yet members the group are still trying to play Stratego with American foreign policy.

Neoconservative publication Commentary Magazine held a dinner this week to honor one of its former editors, Norman Podhoretz. Convicted felon Scooter Libby got a standing ovation, and the Christian Science Monitor writes that "Commentary [Magazine] advocates passionate support for Israel, and regime change in at least half a dozen countries deemed hostile to US and Israeli security and interests."

One of the evening's keynote speakers, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, delivered a regime change hit list, with a country-by-country breakdown:

Ambassador John Bolton's speech on why regime change, notwithstanding the problems in Iraq, "has to be something that's in our toolbox as we go forward." … He also supported regime change in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the first Persian Gulf War, and in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

Then, moving briskly to present-day examples, Mr. Bolton backed regime change in North Korea and Iran. As for Cuba, he said that "actuarial tables will take care" of it, referring to the aging Castro. Sudan, he said, was not a sufficient threat to American interests to justify a policy of regime change. Burma, he noted, recently was reported to be entering a contract with Russia for a research nuclear reactor, but "I don't think that's a regime that warrants regime change." Venezuela, he said last year purchased 100,000 AK-47s. "Not yet but maybe" was Mr. Bolton's position on regime change in Venezuela. Syria is the "hardest" case, Mr. Bolton said, seeming to think that what came after Assad there might be worse. Think Progress