Visiting Lebanon for the first time, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “was given an ecstatic welcome by supporters of Hezbollah“:

Thousands of cheering supporters thronged the road that leads from Beirut’s airport to the city, waving Iranian flags, throwing flowers, and chanting greetings in Persian as Mr. Ahmadinejad’s convoy slowly passed. [...]

After his arrival, Mr. Ahmadinejad appeared at a news conference alongside the Lebanese president, Michel Suleiman, announcing several bilateral agreements on energy, water, and other issues. Iran, which has long provided arms and training to Hezbollah, has also offered repeatedly to help equip the Lebanese Army if the United States cuts off its military aid here. Iranian money was crucial to the rebuilding effort after the 2006 war with Israel, an array of reconstruction projects directed by Hezbollah but whose benefits — apartment blocks and roads — were not limited to its followers.

The substantial political success of Hezbollah’s Iran-funded reconstruction of southern Lebanon is a major focus of my friend Thannasis Cambanis’ great new book, A Privilege To Die, which he discussed at an event at the Center for American Progress last month.

Looking at Ahmadinejad’s Lebanon visit in an article for Foreign Policy, Now Lebanon’s Hanin Ghaddar writes that, while “Iranian inducements have so far proved sufficient to muster an outwardly impressive public display of support for Ahmadinejad… the true feelings of the Lebanese are more complicated“:

“People are not stupid; they know how he suppressed the Green Movement in Iran,” said Mona Fayyad, a Lebanese Shiite researcher and writer. “He does not represent a democratic or fair leader for them, no matter how much Iran supported Hezbollah and the resistance.” Behind those Iranian flags and posters in Beirut lies no small amount of ambivalence.

Given the pressure he’s under domestically from both critics and erstwhile allies for his poor handling of Iran’s economy, now exacerbated by Western sanctions, it’s unsurprising why Ahmadinejad is seeking accolades abroad. But it’s also worth pointing out that one of the very few, if any, other countries where he receives this sort of welcome is the new Iraq.

Former Bush national security adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been on a tour of the media lately, eager to promote her recently released memoir.

On Tuesday, she appeared on Fox New’s The O’Reilly Factor. While most of Rice’s media tour has been focused on her childhood and upbringing, O’Reilly took the opportunity to ask her about her views on contemporary events. He asked Rice if the if the world is a “more dangerous place two years after” she left office. Rice replied that she thinks in the Bush administration made the world a safer place:

O’REILLY: Before we get to your book, Madam Secretary, is the world a more dangerous place two years after you left office?

RICE: The world was most dangerous in 2001, when we didn’t have a net to deal with terrorism. I think in that sense we made it a safer place from the time that we were in office. But Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon. That’s more dangerous. North Korea seems somewhat unstable with nuclear capability. That makes the world more dangerous. But, in fact, you’re always dealing with circumstances that are very difficult for a United States that has to lead.

Watch it:

While Rice may claim that Bush administration policies made the world a “safer place” from terrorism, the facts tell a different story. In 2007, terrorism experts and research fellows at Center on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank conducted a survey of terrorism incidents worldwide since the Bush administration-led U.S. war in Iraq. Their study found that terrorism incidents worldwide increased by seven times, or six hundred percent, since the Bush administration invaded Iraq.

More recently, researchers Robert Pape of the University of Chicago and James Feldman of Air Force Institute of Technology found that, “from 1980-2003, there were 350 suicide attacks in the world, only 15% of which were anti-American.” Yet after the Bush-led war in Iraq, “there have been 1,833 suicide attacks, 92% of which were anti-American.”

It should be noted that the Bush administration was well aware that its war against Iraq could lead to greater terrorism. A recently declassified State Department memo shows that the administration was privately worried that the war would “bring radicalization of British Muslims, the great majority whom opposed the September 11 attacks but are increasingly restive about what they see as an anti-Islamic campaign.” In July 2005, British Muslim extremists apparently radicalized by the war in Iraq detonated bombs throughout London, confirming the administration’s fears.

This past weekend, Georgia congressional candidates Rep. Jim Marshall (D-GA) and challenger Austin Scott (R-GA) squared off in a debate held in Atlanta. During the course of the discussion, both candidates were asked several times about immigration. When pressed on what he plans to do about the undocumented population already in the U.S., Scott briefly indicated that he supports a policy of mass deportation:

QUESTION: How would you propose to deal with the 10-12 million undocumented or illegal workers who are here now?

SCOTT: Yes m’am. I just think we just simply have to return them to their homeland, just as the way we do it right now with those that we are able to catch. It’s just that we’d have to step up the number of people and resources in those positions.

Watch it:

Perhaps Scott isn’t aware of the costs associated with “stepping up” immigration enforcement and implementing a mass deportation policy. Earlier this year, the Center for American Progress (CAP) estimated that a strategy aimed at deporting the nation’s population of undocumented immigrants would total approximately $285 billion over five years, amounting to $922 in new taxes for “every man, woman, and child in this country.” An earlier report backed by the Cato Institute similarly found that in the unlikely event that all undocumented immigrants were removed from the economy, it would reduce U.S. GDP by $2.6 trillion over ten years.

Even the most rabid immigration restrictionists usually don’t advocate a policy of mass deportation. Besides the costs associated with undertaking the project, pro- and anti- immigration advocates generally agree that it would be virtually impossible to hunt down every single undocumented immigrant and ship them back to their “homeland.”

Hardline anti-immigrant activists tend to prefer the “attrition through enforcement” approach — a harsh strategy used to “wear down the will” of undocumented immigrants through increased deportations, detentions, and anti-immigrant ordinances. According to these groups, many immigrants will choose to deport themselves at minimal cost to the U.S. taxpayer. However, research has shown that ramped up enforcement doesn’t drive most immigrants back to their home countries, rather it only pushes them deeper into the shadows.

Scott’s opponent supports focusing on the employer, stating “if we can cut off the jobs, that’s the most cost-effective way for us to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into this country.”

Our guest blogger is Sam Holdren, a social worker and progressive activist in Arizona.

The hypocrisy of anti-immigrant hardliners is becoming epidemic. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio defended fellow anti-immigrant hardliner Lou Dobbs Saturday after speaking at the Tucson Tea Party Rally about how tough he is on fighting illegal immigration. An investigation by The Nation revealed that Dobbs, who launched an all out assault on immigrants and the people who hire them while serving as an anchor at CNN, has relied for years on illegal labor to maintain multi-million dollar estate.

Following his speech, the Arizona sheriff downplayed the need to enforce immigration laws that target employers who hire undocumented workers, at least when it comes to his pal Dobbs.

In an on the spot interview, Arpaio proudly asserted that his department is the only agency enforcing Arizona’s employer sanctions laws, designed to punish people who hire undocumented laborers.

“I’m still the only law enforcement agency doing that,” said the Sheriff, “So I take it serious.”

But when asked about the allegations against Dobbs and California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, Arpaio changed his tune, suggesting the focus on immigration is purely political:

Let me put it this way. Years ago, before this became a big, big political situation, nobody cared. Many people hired illegals. They don’t know who they are. When you have a construction company and guys are digging up the ground. What do you do? You go up and say, you take the word of the owner of the place. So I don’t know what Lou Dobbs did. So if he did, so what?

Watch it:

Arpaio himself has been harshly criticized for being responsible for 26,146 deportations, but only arresting a business person under the state’s employer sanctions law once.

Who would ever think the world’s toughest sheriff, particularly someone who has made it his mission to enforce immigration laws, would so casually dismiss the practice of hiring undocumented workers? Add another name to the immigration hypocrite list.