Paul Craig Roberts Praising Ahmadinejad

Paul Craig Roberts Praising Ahmadinejad

I used to admire Paul Craig Roberts quite a bit--a long time ago. But over the last few years, he seems to have gone off the deep end. A couple of years back, Roberts was comparing current tax policy to slavery, and I pointed out how tremendously ignorant that was. And here. Now I see that he is praising President Ahmadinejad of Iran:

Although our Founding Fathers would have comprehended and endorsed Ahmadinejad’s speech to the United Nations, present-day Americans would find it strange should they happen to hear about it.

Unlike their forbears, Americans today live a material life, not a spiritual one. Americans are far too likely to dismiss Ahmadinejad’s words about obeisance to God and justice as the mumbo-jumbo of an “Islamist extremist.”

The hubris of Americans and their belief in U.S. “exceptionalism” would cause them to reject Ahmadinejad’s holding the US, its NATO puppets, and Israel accountable before the UN General Assembly. So successfully has Ahmadinejad been demonized by the propagandistic US media that his speech would be dismissed out of hand by the arrogance of those who regard themselves as the salt of the earth.

Does anyone know what happened? I can understand libertarians who become enamored of non-interventionism as a foreign policy--but this is hardly sufficient reason to be saying nice things about Ahmadinejad, who is about as fiercely antilibertarian as I can imagine.

I can understand libertarians who think that we are too easy on Israel. We have historically given them the benefit of the doubt, and this has certainly contributed to Arab hostility towards the United States. But anyone who talks about holding "Israel accountable before the UN General Assembly" and doesn't seem to be concerned about holding countries that are far worse than Israel on human rights and aggression responsible for their actions isn't a libertarian at all.

I can understand Christians who are concerned about the materialist focus that the left has taken in this country--that only wealth matters, and everything is irrelevant. But Roberts' hostility to the Bush Administration makes very little sense in that regard. If wealth was all that mattered, we would have bought off Iraq in 2002, not invaded them. Wars are always more expensive than paying the Danegeld.

So, what happened to Roberts?