Also, who in their right mind thinks that the U.S. has the moral authority to determine the fate of Iran?

I’m afraid of the U.S. government and police, not Iran.

An Italian court called it “the Libyan business of Billy Carter.”
Most Americans remember it as “Billygate” — the scandal that erupted in 1980 after it was learned that the president’s brother had visited Libya in 1979 and had received a $220,000 loan in connection with an oil deal.

Col. Muammar Qadhafi’s regime was also said to have paid him $50,000 to help smooth U.S.-Libyan relations. And
Billy Carter was said to have met with Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat on the trip. The affair
alone may not have cost President Carter reelection, but it didn’t improve his odds.

What concerned the Italian court was the role in exposing “the Libyan business” played by Francesco Pazienza, who in 1980 was a highly placed Italian intelligence agent.

[...]

In Italy, Mr. Pazienza is also charged with a host of other offenses, all of which he denies, including extortion, cover-ups of right-wing terrorism that killed scores of people, cocaine possession and “criminal associations of a Mafia type.”

Mr. Pazienza already has been convicted, in absentia, of some charges. Among them: that he abused his intelligence job by using extortion and fraud to obtain embarrassing facts about Billygate, and that he obtained the facts “in collaboration with” Michael Ledeen, an American journalist, commentator, conservative think-tanker, and consultant on terrorism and other matters for the State and Defense departments. Mr. Ledeen wasn’t indicted.

[...]

Billy Carter wasn’t the only one allegedly getting money from a foreign government. Mr. Pazienza says that Mr. Ledeen sometimes worked for Italian intelligence and received at least $120,000 from SISMI, plus expenses, in 1980 or 1981. At least some of the money was paid into a Bermuda bank account, Mr. Pazienza says. At SISMI, Mr. Pazienza says, Mr. Ledeen warranted a coded identification: Z-3.

Mr. Ledeen says he was never called Z3 “that I can remember.” He says a consulting firm he owned, ISI, undertook work for SISMI either late in 1980 or early in 1981 and the price “may well have been $100,000, I can’t remember.” SISMI may have paid another fee for other work in 1980, Mr. Ledeen says. He says his travel expenses were also paid. And he says, “I had, I think, for a period of a few months, a personal account in Bermuda.” He declines to discuss further “any of my personal finances.”

Mr. Ledeen is vague about the nature of his work for the Italians, referring to one project as “risk assessment.” But witnesses before an Italian parliamentary commission have testified that he helped train Italian intelligence agents. Federico Umberto D’Amato, who has held several top security jobs and is known as “the J. Edgar Hoover of Italy,” testified before parliament in 1982 that “Ledeen had collaborated with the Italian services” and, after the Moro case {the 1978 kidnapping and murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro} taught courses {in Italy} “together with two former CIA agents.” The late Gen. Giuseppe Santovito, the head of SISMI and Mr. Pazienza’s superior at the time, gave similar testimony.

Mr. Ledeen, however, denies ever teaching any such courses.

“we are talking about America, and Americans love to fight and love to win.”

“As for radical Islam, I think you’ll find them less vigorous and less united once we’ve smashed them. But we’re taking too long, that’s the main problem these days.”

And now he tries to spin the line that he didn’t want an aggressive invasion, that he wanted a political solution, and that he foresaw the tragic consequences of a military invasion.

If that was so, why would he beat the drums so loudly. Did he think he could get the gov’t to pay attention to him once the war got started and adapt his political recommendations.

If we accept the 2nd proposition, then he is clearly an idiot, but the truth is he is a slimy liar with an appetite for war.

And he wants us to respect his suggestions for developing peace and liberty in the middle east now? It’s no wonder the founding fathers told us to keep out of foreign entanglements, when vultures like Ledeen are drawn into foreign policy think tanks to fulfill their delusions of grandeur.

He says he was against military action against Iraq and saddam yet said this-

“So it’s good news when Scowcroft comes out against the desperately-needed and long overdue WAR against Saddam Hussein “

Later on he contradicts this by claiming he is and has been wholly opposed to military action against Iran.

Not just a liar, a poor liar at that.