Sen. Tom Cotton: very smart, knows his facts, absolutely sincere -- and far scarier than Ted Cruz

My impressions of Sen. Tom Cotton have been based on sound bites of news;  and thus I have tended to think of him as another right-wing kook in the same category as Ted Cruz and other wingnuts who will say anything just to get media attention and rev up the anger of their base.

Not so.   Cotton is a greater threat to progressive policies because he is so smart, has such a command of  facts, both historical and current global affairs, and because his passionate commitment to his assumptions and beliefs about our place in the world is so genuine and so deeply felt.

Unlike Ted Cruz, he seems to be acting from those strong beliefs rather than for political gain.   That is, winning is a means to changing the world, not just for the sake of having power and perks and attention.

What gave me this new view of him was an in-depth interview by Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic magazine (online April 13, 2015), supplemented by an earlier Atlantic article by Molly Ball (Sept. 17, 2014).

Growing up in rural Arkansas, even as a teenager, Tom was described as focused, intent and serious, pursuing his ambition to go to Harvard, where he discovered political philosophy and wrote his senior thesis on the Federalist Papers.   A Harvard professor recalled him as “very smart, but not a future professor—a man of action.  He was always very political, wanting to be engaged.”  Friends saw him as someone who always accomplished what he set out to do.

He went on to graduate from Harvard Law School, a clerkship with a federal judge, and then a short stint with a Washington law firm before joining the Army and serving three years as an infantry officer in Iraq.   He could have opted for the safer military lawyer corps, but he wanted to be involved in the fighting.

Goldberg said this of him:  
"I went to speak to Cotton . . . because he is quite obviously positioned to lead the most hawkish wing of the Republican Party. He is exceedingly bright, and blessed with a wonk's mind—I will readily admit that his knowledge of Middle East minutiae is impressive, even if I disagree with much of his analysis. And he is a superior standard-bearer for the confront-Iran-before-it's-too-late faction in the Senate because, as an Iraq combat veteran, he cannot be labeled a chickenhawk."

In a nutshell, Cotton believes that the agreement negotiated by the G5+1 nations and Iran is not "a deal" but a list of concessions by the United States.  While he gives lip service to wanting a stronger deal, he clearly believes that a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities -- and soon -- is the only thing that will prevent a future nuclear armed Iran.  He argues that:  "If we agreed to the kind of proposal the Obama administration has made, then military confrontation may be further off, but it might also be nuclear."

Beyond his strongly held views about what needs to be done about Iran, however, what makes Cotton a formidable force to be reckoned with are his underlying views of America's role in the world -- and his ability to back up those views with historical facts and a certain kind of logic.  As Goldberg said, we may disagree with his analysis, but Tom Cotton is an impressive debater -- at a completely different level of discourse than Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, Ben Carson, and Mike Huckabee, who make outlandish claims they can't back up.

The difference is that Cotton has facts and examples clearly available on the tip of his tongue, and he is articulate in his arguments.   No "Oops" moments for him.   And he sticks to principles and beliefs.   He doesn't wander into flights of fancy or sound bites to rev up anger.   He reasons based on a clear-cut set of principles and ideas -- even when those principles are wrong, in my opinion.

This new respect for Sen. Cotton's intellectual grasp and articulate discourse does not mean that he has won me over.   Far from it.  I disagree strongly with many of his underlying premises and his pessimism about other nations.  He has clearly divided us and our enemies into good and bad.  We should not trust that they can change, or that they might even have self-interests that would coincide with our own self-interests.   His is a world in which we must maintain power and control from a position of supremacy;  nothing Iran can do will result in his trusting them;   he thinks it is naive and dangerous to do so, even with all the inspections and verifications built into the proposal.   He says simply and confidently:  "They will cheat."

I think he ignores that our relationships in the Middle East, and especially with Iran, have a long and complex history and that we bear some responsibility for their mistrust of us, just as we do of them.   Nor does he believe that negotiating with a former enemy can work -- enemies must be subdued by our superior forces.   Cotton also obviously does not trust in the possibility there is a new mood in Tehran, one that gives them incentives to want to rejoin the world as a respected nation, whether as a nuclear power or not.   

So let's give peace a chance.  To do that, Tom Cotton is going to continue to be a formidable opponent.   He's already being touted by some as a presidential candidate for 2020.

Ralph