Responding to my Iran post from yesterday, Kevin Sullivan writes that I make “a couple of critical errors in this Iran/Soviet Union comparison.”

First, I should say — and I think it was obvious — that I wasn’t making a broad comparison between the Soviet Union and Iran, but rather making a specific comment about the difficulty of drawing conclusions about trends within two often frustratingly opaque regimes.

Sullivan suggests that “it’s false to argue that the [Iranian] presidency is without clout or efficacy,” noting that “Iranian presidents — like Rafsanjani in the late 1980s, and Khatami in the late 1990s — have challenged the Leader on matters of economic isolation, domestic security and the freedoms of Iranian citizens.”

That’s true, but the key thing here is this: They lost. I don’t argue that the presidency is “without clout or efficacy” (though, as Akhbar Ganji pointed out in the piece I quoted, Khatami himself protested that the presidency had been reduced to a factotum) but the presidency operates within a structure that is dominated by the supreme leader’s office.

Sullivan writes that to “focus narrowly on Khamenei and the Royal [sic] Guard, would put us in the same place we were in the 1970s: out of touch with the situation on the ground, and disconnected from the concerns of ordinary Iranians. These decisions, as President Carter learned in 1979, have an impact on foreign policy.”

This is a little odd. We were out of touch with the situation on the ground in Iran in the 1970s mainly because we were the deeply committed sponsor of an oppressive Iranian regime that represented the crux of U.S. regional security strategy. That regime was overthrown, then they kicked us out. It’s a rather different situation now. I certainly don’t think that Iranian popular discontent should be disregarded, but we’ve been hearing these sorts of arguments about the restive Iranian population for years, and while I have no reason to believe that they aren’t true, Khamenei and his allies have consistently proven expert at deflecting calls for reform and preserving their regime, the main levers of which remain firmly in Khamenei’s hands.

Yesterday on MSNBC, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was back to defend President Bush’s legacy. One of the flack’s favorite subjects is the Iraq war. Last month, he went on CNN and said that Saddam Hussein — not the Bush administration — was actually “the big liar.” Yesterday he dragged out a long-recycled talking point: Saddam was behind 9/11. He also claimed that President Obama owes Bush a big “thank you”:

FLEISCHER: It was in part because of Iraq and large part because of the economy that Barack Obama won. Having said that, I also think Barack Obama should say thank you every day that he inherited a world without Saddam Hussein in it. The one thing people are going to remember the most is that he kept us safe. [...]

But after September 11th, having been being hit once, how could we take a chance that Saddam Hussein might not strike again? We got a report saying al Qaeda is determined to attack the United States. Well, that’s not a surprise. Of course, they are. It doesn’t say where, it doesn’t say when, it doesn’t say how. So, if you get a report like that, what do you do?

Watch it:

Let’s go over it again: Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Of course, Bush and his ilk tried to convince the public that there was a connection in order to push for the invasion of Iraq.

In the past year, Bush administration officials have continued to defend this lie. As recently as December, Bush said that he stood behind his decision to push this discredited connection in order to go to war, even if the facts were wrong. Condoleezza Rice argued in July, “In the post 9/11 environment, you couldn’t let a threat to international peace and stability like that [Saddam] Hussein] remain.” Vice President Cheney is refusing to even admit that they were ever wrong, saying in March 2008, “Now, was that a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda? Seems to me pretty clear that there was.”

Over at the Wonk Room, Matt Duss looks at “the massive success of George W. Bush’s presidency” in Fleischer’s world, writing, “So Bush deserves no blame for the attack that occurred in the first year of his presidency, but he deserves full credit for the fact that no more attacks occurred for the rest of his presidency. I find this argument to be an insult to snake oil.”

(HT: Wayne Schneider and TP Zoo)

Fresh from the stunning success of Freedom’s Watch, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer appeared on Hardball last night to promote the achievements of George W. Bush. It was almost like having Ari back in the press room when he floated this whopper in defending the Iraq war:

After September 11th having been hit once how could we take a chance that Saddam might strike again?

Old habits are hard to break, I guess. According to Fleischer, the massive success of George W. Bush’s presidency is really the story of three successes:

1. Fifty-five months of continuous job growth (before the economy tanked in the worst crisis since the Great Depression.)

2. He bequeathed to President Obama a Middle East without Saddam Hussein (but with an Iraq held together by the presence of American troops, with an empowered and unchecked Iran and full of newly radicalized, trained, and networked terrorists.)

3. George Bush kept America safe (after the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history.)

As to the first point, you should be reading my colleague Pat Garofalo. As to the second, this is like arguing that, even though I accidentally burned your house down, you should thank me because I’ve solved your termite problem for you. As to the third, watch Fleischer’s ridiculous indignation when Chris Matthews points out the obvious:

MATTHEWS: We were attacked on your watch. If you start getting into who was attacked when, we suffered the worst domestic calamity in history on your watch. If you guys start getting into ‘whose watch was good,’ you guys blew it. I don’t know if you can do it that way.

FLEISCHER: Chris, how dare you.

MATTHEWS: That’s like saying –

FLEISCHER: Chris, if we get attacked again, are you going to say that we got attacked on Barack Obama’s watch? We got attacked by terrorists! That’s who’s to blame for it, Chris. I think what you just did is shameful.

So Bush deserves no blame for the attack that occurred in the first year of his presidency, but he deserves full credit for the fact that no more attacks occurred for the rest of his presidency. I find this argument to be an insult to snake oil. And does anybody doubt that, whether or not Matthews would blame Obama for another terrorist attack, Fleischer, along with an entire Volkswagen full of conservative clowns, would? Is that even a serious question?