Fearing Fear Itself

October 29, 2007
Fearing Fear Itself

In America's darkest hour, Franklin Delano Roosevelt urged the nation not to succumb to
"nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror." But that was then.

Today, many of the men who hope to be the next president — including all of the
candidates with a significant chance of receiving the Republican nomination — have made
unreasoning, unjustified terror the centerpiece of their campaigns.

Consider, for a moment, the implications of the fact that Rudy Giuliani is taking foreign
policy advice from Norman Podhoretz, who wants us to start bombing Iran "as soon as it is
logistically possible."

Mr. Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary and a founding neoconservative, tells us that Iran is
the "main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11."
The Islamofascists, he tells us, are well on their way toward creating a world "shaped by their
will and tailored to their wishes." Indeed, "Already, some observers are warning that by the end
of the 21st century the whole of Europe will be transformed into a place to which they give the
name Eurabia."