Norman Podhoretz

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Norman Podhoretz (b. January 16, 1930) A leftist commentator during the 1960s, he became associated with the neoconservative movement during the early 1970s. In 2007, his role as foreign policy advisor to Rudy Giuliani's Republican presidential campaign and public advocacy of an American attack on Iran brought renewed attention to his thought and works.[1]

Contents

[edit] Early life

The son of Julius and Helen (Woliner) Podhoretz[2], Jewish immigrants[3] from the Central European region of Galicia,[4] Podhoretz was born and raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Podhoretz's family was leftist, with his elder sister joining a socialist youth movement.

Podhoretz received bachelor's degrees from both Columbia University — where he studied under Lionel Trilling — and the Jewish Theological Seminary. He later received a BA with first-class honors and an MA from Cambridge University. He also served in the United States Army (1953-1955).[citation needed]

[edit] Career

Podhoretz served as Commentary magazine's editor-in-chief from 1960 (when he replaced Elliot E. Cohen) until his retirement in 1995. Podhoretz remains Commentary's editor-at-large. In 1963, he wrote the influential essay, “My Negro Problem — And Ours," in which he described the oppression he felt as a child from African-Americans, and concluded by calling for a color-blind society, and advocated "the wholesale merging of the two races [as] the most desirable alternative for everyone concerned."

From 1981 to 1987, Podhoretz was an adviser to the U.S. Information Agency. From 1995 to 2003, he was a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the 43rd President George W. Bush, the highest honor the U.S. president can bestow on a civilian, in 2004, the same year as former CIA director George Tenet and the Commander of US Forces in Iraq General Tommy Franks.

Podhoretz is married to author Midge Decter, and is the stepfather of Rachel Decter (Elliott Abrams' wife) and father of syndicated columnist John Podhoretz.

Norman Podhoretz was one of the original signatories of the "Statement of Principles" of the Project for the New American Century.

Podhoretz received the Guardian of Zion Award from Bar-Ilan University on May 24, 2007.

He currently serves as a senior foreign policy advisor to Rudy Giuliani in his presidential campaign.[5]

[edit] Political Views

[edit] Iraq

In the leadup to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Podhoretz argued strongly for military intervention, claiming that Saddam Hussein posed a direct threat to the U.S. Prior to the start of the war in Iraq, Podhoretz wrote in September of 2002 that "Saddam's development of weapons of mass destruction sufficed all on its own to make him a legitimate target in a preemptive war of self-defense."[6] [This quote occurs in Podhoretz' article but it is during a discussion of the Bush docterine and should be properly attributed to Bush rather than Podhoretz.]

[edit] Iran

Podhoretz is currently arguing that the United States should attack Iranian nuclear facilities, based on similar claims about WMD that he made about Iraq. According to The Sunday Times, Podhoretz believes that "Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran are merely different fronts of the same long war."[7] Podhoretz describes recent diplomatic efforts with Iran as equivalent to appeasement of Nazi Germany prior to World War II. He also contends that the War on Terror is a war against Islamofascism, and constitutes World War IV (World War III having been the Cold War), and advocates the bombing of Iran to preempt Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons.[8] His book on that subject, entitled World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism, was published by Doubleday on 11 September 2007.

In a recent article, Podhoretz explicitely stated his view that Iran should be attacked: "In short, the plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force."[9] He then went on to consider the consequences of bombing Iran:
The opponents of bombing—not just the usual suspects but many ... who have no illusions about the nature and intentions and potential capabilities of the Iranian regime—disagree that it might end in the overthrow of the mullocracy. On the contrary, they are certain that all Iranians, even the democratic dissidents, would be impelled to rally around the flag. And this is only one of the worst-case scenarios they envisage. To wit: Iran would retaliate by increasing the trouble it is already making for us in Iraq. It would attack Israel with missiles armed with non-nuclear warheads but possibly containing biological and/or chemical weapons. There would be a vast increase in the price of oil, with catastrophic consequences for every economy in the world, very much including our own. The worldwide outcry against the inevitable civilian casualties would make the anti-Americanism of today look like a love-fest. I readily admit that it would be foolish to discount any or all of these scenarios. Each of them is, alas, only too plausible. Nevertheless, there is a good response to them, and it is the one given by John McCain. The only thing worse than bombing Iran, McCain has declared, is allowing Iran to get the bomb. [9]

[edit] Vietnam

In an editorial to the Wall Street Journal on the sixth anniversary of 9/11, Podhoretz contends that the retreat from Iraq should not be similar to the retreat from Vietnam. He argues that when the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam, it sacrificed its national honor by a disgraceful show of weakness and cowardice.[10]

Yet in 1982 James Fallows wrote a review of Podhoretz's book "Why We Were in Vietnam" for the New York Times. He accuses Podhoretz of "changing his views" and "self-righteousness" on the subject of Vietnam, noting that in 1971 Podhoretz wrote that he would "prefer just such an American defeat to a 'Vietnamization' of the war."[11]

[edit] Soviet Union

In the early 1980s, Podhoretz was extremely skeptical that fundamental reform was possible in the U.S.S.R., and sharply criticized those who argued that U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union should be one of detente. In his book The Rise of Neoconservatism, "Ehrman details Podhoretz's anger at Reagan for not establishing sufficiently strong policies toward the Soviets."[12]

[edit] George W. Bush

Podhoretz has praised the current president of the United States: "George W. Bush (is) a man who knows evil when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly courageous willingness to endure vilification and contumely in setting his face against it." He goes on to claim that Bush has been "battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory."[9][6]

[edit] Books

  • 1964: Doings and Undoings: The Fifties and After (essays on American writers)
  • 1967: Making It (autobiography) ISBN 0-394-43449-8
  • 1979: Breaking Ranks: A Political Memoir
  • 1980: The Present Danger: "Do We Have the Will to Reverse the Decline of American Power?" ISBN 0-671-41395-3
  • 1982: Why We Were in Vietnam (history and argument) ISBN 0-671-44578-2
  • 1986: The Bloody Crossroads: Where Literature and Politics Meet (essays on Camus, Kundera, Henry Adams, Kissinger, Solzhenitsyn, Orwell et al.) ISBN 0-671-61891-1
  • 2000: Ex-Friends: Falling Out With Allen Ginsberg, Lionel & Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer (memoir) ISBN 1-893554-17-1
  • 2001: My Love Affair With America: The Cautionary Tale of a Cheerful Conservative (autobiography) ISBN 1-893554-41-4
  • 2002: The Prophets: Who They Were, What They Are (about the classical Hebrew prophets) ISBN 0-7432-1927-9
  • 2003: The Norman Podhoretz Reader: A Selection of His Writings from the 1950s through the 1990s, edited by Thomas L. Jeffers; foreword by Paul Johnson ISBN 0-7432-3661-0
  • 2007: World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism ISBN 0-385-52221-5

[edit] Further reading

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20590
  2. ^ Norman Podhoretz - NNDB
  3. ^ Contemporary Literary Criticism | Norman Podhoretz
  4. ^ Biography of Norman Podhoretz
  5. ^ Giuliani's War Cabinet The American Prospect, Sept. 25, 2007
  6. ^ a b Podhoretz N., "In Praise of the Bush Doctrine,", Commentary Magazine, Sept., 2002
  7. ^ Baxter, Sarah. "Neocon godfather Normal Podhoretz tells Bush: bomb Iran." The Sunday Times. Sept. 30, 2007
  8. ^ Podhoretz N., "The Case for Bombing Iran," The Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2007. Accessed May 30, 2007.
  9. ^ a b c [1] "The Case for Bombing Iran", Commentary Magazine, last accessed November 26, 2007
  10. ^ Podhoretz N., "America the Ugly" The Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2007. Accessed September 11, 2007.
  11. ^ Fallows, James "In Defense of an Offensive War" The New York Times, March 28, 1982. Accessed January 3, 2008.
  12. ^ "The Rise of Neoconservatism," The Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring, 1996

[edit] External links

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