But what if they pass the 'global test?'
Posted on 10/06/2004 5:55:19 PM PDT by Retief
How do you maintain that the current administration's policy toward North Korea—a country that, when Bush first took office, had two nuclear weapons and now has six—is the best way to deal with that country.
Hanson: Two or six nukes—the administration still inherited a situation in which the Jimmy Carter/Bill Clinton solution of food and oil for good nuclear behavior failed miserably, despite post facto efforts to explain away the disaster. The Americans now have bad and worse choices only—how do you negotiate with a lunatic with nukes who has utter contempt for the United States, and can wipe out a Japan or Taiwan in a matter of minutes? So we get the present plan of apprising China of the bleak scenario in its own soon-to-be nuclear-armed neighborhood—all in response to its own laxity in allowing its client to go nuclear. Once rogue nations go nuclear, we have no good options—either containment through overwhelming deterrence that we hope works with madmen or prayers for eventual internal revolution.
It should be a cornerstone of U.S policy that under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons—no circumstances whatsoever since to do so would mean the entire Middle East would be held as nuclear hostage.
(Excerpt) Read more at victorhanson.com ...
There's only so much we can do. If a nation is hell-bent on aquiring WMDs--and a preemptive strike is not an option--it mostly likely will aquire them sooner or later. That is why a strong nuclear deterrent force (and eventually an anti-missile system which is just starting to come into service) is really the only option.
No hope for internal revolution in North Korea - the people have been isolated for so long that a good majority know nothing else beyond their own bleak existence.
Not so in Iran - they see the world outside - the filters have been imperfect - revolution is possible.
But they might wait until after the nukes are available - having nukes might cement the new regime's position with respect to the mullahocracy.
But what if they pass the 'global test?'
Could it be because JFnK would give them the fuel and then monitor them?
I don't think so. North Korea is isolated, the people are starving, and the country isn't fueled by petro-dollars. North Korea will eventually collapse and the problem Will take care of itself much like the Soviet Union collapsed.
Iran, on the other hand, is the number one sponsor of terrorism in the world and is backing terrorists against our troops in Iraq with massive amounts of petro-dollars.
Why the emphasis on Iran, which is years off getting the weapons when NK actually has them?
Would you rather fight two enemies that both have, nukes, or one enemy that doesn't? Iran doesn't have nukes yet, and let's keep it that way.
Slight correction: There's only so much that we are WILLING to do. On the otherhand, there is nothing that the enemy is not willing to do, as evidenced by 9/11, the beheadings, and the murder of children in Beslan, Russia.
If a nation is hell-bent on aquiring WMDs--and a preemptive strike is not an option--it mostly likely will aquire them sooner or later.
Why isn't a preemptive strike an option? We have the weapons, but not the will. The enemy has the will, and will soon have the weapons.
It's the job of the POTUS to protect the American people. I want him to stop Iran from acquiring nukes by any means necessary.
God helps those who help themselves. God does not fight on the side of evil, and the Islamofacists are evil and we are good. Our cause is just, therefore conquer we must.
We are the first, last, and best hope for humanity on this planet. We must not fail. As Wretchard posted at the the Belmont Club:
Prayers for the Americans to find the courage and the will to defend themselves and their children from evil.The will to resist evil is the most fragile commodity in the West. It is a flame burned so low that Al Qaeda thinks that one strong blast of wind will extinguish it forever. It flickers so feebly that one American Presidential election or a single battlefield catastrophe could set the stage for the embrace of a thousand years of darkness . . .
That last quote about resisting evil is fantastic. If you're godless, as the left is, is there really an "evil", or is it just someone else's alternative viewpoint? Why does Carter love Castro, why did Clinton invite Arafat to the White House? Carter may teach Sunday school, so I'm told, but he is quite evil.
I'll say this about good and evil, each one of us is one or the other, there is no in-between. If you sit on your butt and watch others tortured/killed, you're pretty stinkin rotten. That's why I never liked FDR, even though he's always being given kudos (I guess Pat Buchanan therefore fits into this mold as well).
The only conduits for good and evil are man, not some tidal wave, or meteor, etc (although is could be possible that the big fella may look down on us one day and say, "I've had enough of this crap, and send a meteor, and no Bruce Willis is going to save that day). So when the Bin Laden's of this world go on the offensive, you sissies on the left, put away your stupid tissues and candles and those worthless UN resolutions and reach for your glock.
Enough said
Don't worry Israel will take care of it soon.
Poor Israel. Maligned by the world, surrounded by enemies and subjected to relentless attacks by brutal, ruthless, Islamofacists, and endlessly condemned whenever it attempts to defend itself.
Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh, scream, or just look away and pretend I don't see.
Beslan: Chechen nationalists
Beheadings: Westerners who were foolish enough to remain (either out of greed or misplaced compassion) in an uncivilized land in a Hobbesian state of nature were killed by "natives". European seekers of fortune have been killed by savages since the Age of Exploration began, only difference is that the cannibals and headhunters of old did not have video cameras.
9/11: American involvement in a part of the world where it clearly does not belong and where the framers did not intend us to be (i.e. the Middle East) comes back to bite us on the backside.
"I want him to stop Iran from acquiring nukes by any means "necessary."
Oh yes, the Iranain nukes. We can't go around trying to stop every soverign state that wants to develop WMDs from doing so. What would you have Dubya do, use atomic weapons to stop Iran's nuclear program? The important stuff is pretty heavily reinforced if I recall. Maybe we can invade Iran. That worked really well in Iraq didn't it. The solutions are politically impossible. That is why a strong nuclear deterrent and a missile defense program is so important. Besides, what nation with a handful of nukes (and no long-range delivery system) is going to use them against a nation with thousands of both.
The biggest worry here is that IRAN is not a rational state and deternce may not work. There are people in IRAN that would be glad to launch a nuclear jihad and sacrifise their popluation.
Here is Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani famous quote, one of Iran's top leaders:
"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in its possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world", Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told the crowd at the traditional Friday prayers in Tehran.
By damage he means 75 million people in Iran versus serveral billion muslims around the world.
Another concern is that they will transfer nuclear weapons and materials to their terrorist agents in other parts of the world as they do with conventional weapons today.
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