I don't know how long it will take for Iran to complete its nuclear bomb, and neither does Patrick Clawson. Iran presents dangers that are intolerable, and in the past we have more often underestimated than overestimated the speed with which others could produce these devices. There is no sign that "Iran may well back down." On the contrary, Iran has grown more defiant and belligerent during the years that Clawson hails as the acme of Western unity.

Resident Scholar Joshua Muravchik

Stephen Wrage unleashes big gusts of condescension unredeemed by even the trace of an argument. Peter Abbott manages a few arguments, although they are mostly incomprehensible. Is "torture" an aspect of neocon thought? Of course not. Does Abbott have evidence to the contrary?

As for my socialist past, Abbott mangles the facts. True, he and I thought of ourselves as "third camp" socialists in high school, which only meant that we rejected both capitalism and communism. This hadnothing to do with Max Shachtman. Later, in college, I did become the leader of the YPSL and did admire Shachtman's peerless anticommunist oratory. Shachtman had broken with Trotsky before I was born. It's laughable that this would make me a "semi-Trotskyist." Finally, Abbott claims I migrated with Shachtman to Reagan via Scoop Jackson's presidential campaign. Yet Reagan became president in 1981, Scoop's one presidential campaign that amounted to anything (and in which I worked) was in 1976, and Shachtman died in 1972. If Shachtman was communicating with him from beyond the grave, Abbott owes us a fuller account.

Flynt Leverett claims that we could have "finish[ed] the job against al Qaeda" were it not for the invasion of Iraq. But he doesn't sayhow, or why he didn't reveal this strategy during the long interval before we invaded Iraq. He also advocates a "serious strategic engagement" with Iran and Syria, whatever that means. Iran has been promoting "Death to America" since 1979, and its current president extols the vision of "a world without America." Why, exactly, would this regime wish to pull our chestnuts from the fire in Iraq? After falsely claiming that I accuse all Democrats of appeasement, Leverett mentions two Democrats who he says are not appeasers and then proceeds to lambaste them for it. Thus, he seems to be saying that the Democrats are not sufficiently given to appeasement.

Finally, Iraq is not by a long shot "the most important foreign-policy issue of [our] careers." We neocons have been right in our hard-line stance on the infinitely weightier issue of the Cold War, for which we were castigated by many of the same folks who flay us today. We were right, unlike most Democrats, in supporting the forceful eviction of Iraq from Kuwait. We were right, unlike the "realists," in our hard line against Serbian aggression in the Balkans. And, I dare say, we will be proven right in our conviction today that America must wage a war against terrorism.

Joshua Muravchik is a resident scholar at AEI.