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They went at it in this interview. Personally, I think Fleischer got the better of the discussion, ("I'm just wondering, do you ever let your guests answer without interrupting Chris?" "What's really troublesome is why you would twist my words. When I said we were 'wrong' you said that I acknowledged we were 'dishonest'. Chris, that reveals a lot about you.") because Chris Matthews was so eager to score points that he misstated Ari's positions in obvious ways, but feel free to judge for yourselves.
One point that I do wish Ari had hit on (not that I could have done any better in a live interview) about Iran is that Iran has no buffer RIGHT NOW (other than 100,000+ American troops, of course), but that's only a short-term situation. The Iraqi military currently numbers about 250,000, with another 340,000 police. Not only are they improving in quality rapidly, but they now have access to modern arms (as opposed to the surplus eastern-bloc crap they had under Saddam). They already got 280 M1 tanks ordered. (For those non-military types, the M1A1 is the world's premier main battle tank. During the Gulf War and the 2003 invasion, we didn't lose a single M1 to Saddam's Soviet-surplus tanks. Their rounds literally BOUNCED OFF in some cases.) Does anyone really believe that over the next couple of years the Iraqi army won't be every bit the match for Iran that they were under Saddam and then some?
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