Irony or lunacy?

Inspired by Glenn Greenwald's examination of the nutcases that want to bomb Iran, Digby digs up an article from 2003 by Michael Ledeen at the National Review. An excerpt:

So the French and the Germans struck a deal with radical Islam and with radical Arabs: You go after the United States, and we'll do everything we can to protect you, and we will do everything we can to weaken the Americans.

Michael Ledeen is actually taken seriously on by many Republicans and members of the current administration. His grand conspiracy theory is especially ironic, considering today's news:

Three suspects allegedly trained in Pakistan by an Al Qaeda-linked group have been arrested for plotting massive car-bomb attacks on US troops and other Americans near US military bases and German airports, authorities said yesterday...

The trio in Germany allegedly planned simultaneous strikes on three soft targets that might have included nightclubs, bars, restaurants, or airports frequented by American soldiers and tourists, according to German and US law enforcement officials. Because the confiscated materials could have produced the equivalent of about 1,000 pounds of TNT, the casualty toll could have far exceeded the transport bombings that killed 52 people in London in 2005 and 191 people in Madrid in 2004, officials said.

I continue to hold out hope that people like Ledeen are actually engaged in a long-term punking of the right-wing media (National Review, FrontPageMag, WorldNetDaily, etc.). Perhaps they were inspired by Alan Sokal and are engaged in a long-term project to destroy right-wing credibility on matters of national security.

Of course this would have to be an extremely wide-spread Sokal-conspiracy, involving Douglas MacKinnon as well, who has his own crazy ramblings.