Andrew and Adam have been fileting the Weekly Standard already today, but while I’ll happily defer to them on education policy, the Standard’s blog is advancing some honest-to-goodness foreign policy nonsense that shouldn’t go unremarked.

Here they are grousing about Obama’s claim that “the continuation of a presence in Iraq as Sen. McCain has suggested is exactly what, I think, will fan the flames of anti-American sentiment and make it more difficult for us to create a long-term and sustainable peace in the world.” Now, this is so painfully obvious as to be banal, but here’s the Standard’s response:

Never mind that farm subsidies–as in the policy Obama defended vociferously while pandering to Iowans a few months back–leave the poorest people in the world starving and without jobs.

Now, farm subsidies are truly a terrible idea. But if the Standard somehow believes that we’re hated in the Islamic world because of sugar subsidies, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell them. The list of evidence to the contrary is too long for this forum, but here’s just a start:

“American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies…Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies.”

‑Defense Science Board, Report on Strategic Communication, 2004.

“All of our panelists agreed that U.S. foreign policy is the major root cause behind anti-American sentiments among Muslim populations and that this point needs to be better researched, absorbed, and acted upon by government officials.”

‑Government Accountability Office, “U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: State Department Efforts to Engage Muslim Audiences Lack Certain Communication Elements and Face Significant Challenges,” May 2006.

“[Deputy Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz also estimated the U.S. cost of Iraqi ‘containment’ during 12 years of U.N. sanctions, weapons inspections and continued U.S. air patrols over the country at ‘slightly over $ 30 billion,’ but he said the price had been ‘far more than money.’ Sustained U.S. bombing of Iraq over those years, and the stationing of U.S. forces ‘in the holy land of Saudi Arabia,’ were ‘part of the containment policy that has been Osama bin Laden’s principal recruiting device, even more than the other grievances he cites,’ Wolfowitz said.

Implying that a takeover in Iraq would eliminate the need for U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, and thus reduce the appeal of terrorist groups for new members, Wolfowitz said: ‘I can’t imagine anyone here wanting to spend another $ 30 billion to be there for another 12 years to continue helping recruit terrorists.’

-Washington Post, March 2, 2003

We could go on like this for days. Farm subsidies are dumb enough on their own, we don’t need to delude ourselves into thinking they’re what’s to blame for 9/11. In fact, if the Standard and its adherents continue with this sort of fantacism, we’re going to continue avoiding the real root of our terrorism problem, which is evident enough that the above sources and anyone else paying attention can see it all too plainly.