Posted on 05/22/2008 11:13:51 PM PDT by The_Republican
At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had some 45,000 nuclear warheads. At the moment, Iran has none. But when Barack Obama said the obvious -- that Iran does not pose the sort of threat the Soviet Union did -- John McCain reacted as though his rival had offered to trade Fort Knox for a sack of magic beans.
"Such a statement betrays the depth of Sen. Obama's inexperience and reckless judgment," exclaimed McCain. "These are very serious deficiencies for an American president to possess."
But if Iran is the Soviet Union, I'm Shaquille O'Neal. There is nothing reckless in soberly distinguishing large threats from small ones, and there is something foolhardy in grossly exaggerating the strength of your enemies.
As military powers go, Iran is a pipsqueak. It has no nuclear weapons. It has a pitiful air force. Its navy is really just a coast guard. It spends less on defense than Singapore or Sweden. Our military budget is 145 times bigger than Iran's.
By contrast, the Soviets had far more nuclear weapons than we did, a blue-water navy, formidable air power and ground forces that dwarfed ours. In a conventional war, it was anything but certain that we could prevail, and in a nuclear exchange, it was clear they could destroy us.
Iran is a very modest adversary. Of course, even a Chihuahua can bite. The U.S. government claims Iran has provided arms and training to Iraqi insurgents -- never mind that it is allied with the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Hmmmmmm. Nope, no threat here.
Or is there?
I wonder how big of a Chihuahua it would take to detonate a nuclear device in New York or Los Angeles. Obama is an idiot.
The Soviet Union was restrained by the principle of mutual deterrence. The ruler of Iran wants, as his stated intention, to start a world war to bring in the 12th Imam or Mahdi.
A nuke in his hands, given the missile range of Iran's weapons could hit our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, also Israel, southern Europe and with a little extra power, Moscow, and China.
True he could not hit the USA in North America directly. He could, however, send a suicide mission on a container ship into a harbor.
Obama is a nut case, as is the article.
Yeah, Steve Chapman ... Let’s measure the worldwide impact if Iran drops one, just one, on Israel.
Idiot.
This author is a lightweight. Clearly current Iranian leadership would have no qualms about sharing nuclear technology with terrorist organizations who would love to make New York a wasteland.
I always love the liberals. They love to sucker punch President Bush when he cannot respond due to diplomatic realities.
In this case, I think the unspoken reality is that the west doesn’t want Israel to be given a need to unleash their nuclear arsenal. The whole Middle East could go up in flames along with our oil supplies.
I add the point about oil strictly for those readers who see no particular problem with the prospect of a radioactive Middle East. I would also point out that even though we don’t get the majority of our oil from the Middle East, market prices would make major swings with even marginal disruptions of world supply.
I sort of remember a few guys with airline tickets and boxcutters doing as much or more damage as Imperial Japan
This is why we need a real conservative, to stand up to what could be the quadrilateral of evil!
Um, no. Imperial Japan did a lot of damage, in so many ways, to a large chunk of the world. Conquering almost an entire continent doesn’t count for much these days?
US casualties in the Pacific War: 106,207 killed, 248,316 wounded and missing.
One thing that we are facing is a nuclear MiddleEast not just Iran but Saudi Arabia and other MiddleEastern countries are looking to nuclear deterrence. If action isn’t taken on Iran then the MiddleEast will become a nuclear powder keg.
I think the comparison was meant to be fatalities on 9/11 vs. fatalities at Pearl Harbor, not the entire Pacific war..... at least that’s how I assumed it was intended, because then it is quite plausible.
Jesus, can these old farts get thier heads in the 21st century and the threats of TODAY?
Asymmetric warfare...Iran does have organization, planning, and political will.
I’ll take a nuclear deterent against a strong adversary, as was the case with the U.S.S.R., than the risk associated with Iran’s handing a nuke off to some nutcase.
Threats are a combination the enemies ability and intent. Like the lethality of electricity is a combination of volts and amps. The Soviets were all volts. The Iranians are mostly amps.
The Soviets adhered to MAD. They well understood that one nuke would end it all for them, even if they could end us too.
The Iranians are not jobs, believe Allah will shield them, and well understand that we have a paralysis of the will when it comes to nuking cities full of people.
Had we nuked their bomb program two years ago, we likely could have set a precedent that would have prevented nut-job nukes for the next 20 years. But now, especially with an Obama POTUS, the Iranians have many reasons to think that they can build 100 bombs and intimidate us.
What will happen when the Vatican is nuked with a terrorist bomb? Will we strike Mecca? Of course not. They know it and we know it.
First Obama didn't simply say that Iran was a smaller threat, he said that they were a small threat.
Threats are a combination of the enemy's ability and intent. Like the lethality of electricity is a combination of volts and amps. The Soviets were mainly volts. The Iranians are mostly amps. A person can survive the millions of volts in a lightning bolt, because there are no amps, wheres 120 volts with 5 amps will kill you.
The Soviets adhered to MAD. They well understood that using just one nuke against us would end it all for them, even if they could end us too.
The Iranians are nut-jobs, believe Allah will shield them, and well understand that we have a paralysis of the will when it comes to nuking cities full of people.
Had we nuked their bomb program two years ago, we likely could have set a precedent that would have prevented nut-job nukes for the next 20 years. But now, especially with an Obama POTUS, the Iranians have many reasons to think that they can build 100 bombs and intimidate us from responding when they use just one.
What will happen when the Vatican is nuked with a terrorist bomb? Will we strike Mecca? Of course not. They know it and we know it. Which city full of innocent people will President Obama nuke in retaliation? Add to that question plausible denial by the Iranians, and the answer is obvious. i.e. He'll do nothing.
Will uranium forensics pin it to them? Not if they don't openly test or get their fissile material elsewhere. If the Iranians did have a black market Russian nuke or two, they would be hesitant to use them. However, if they also had 10-100 nukes of their own, then they could visualize a scenario very useful for them. e.g. Nuke NY, Rome, London, D.C., etc. with the Russian nuke, deny involvement openly, while the rest of the Islamic world accepted their leadership. A nuclear counter strike on them would certainly be limited and could be played as unjust. When they then detonated another preplaced bomb of their own in a Western city as “retaliation” and stated that they had another dozen ready to go, what would the West do?
MAD will not deter the Iranians for exactly the same reason that some people murder despite a death penalty.
Senator Obama is the second coming of Jimmy Carter. A man who painted a giant bullseye on the United States.
Which is more likely to kill a few hundred thousand Americans as a result?
So which is really more dangerous in terms of actual death and destruction?
What a fool.
There was a line in a movies that struck me once. It went something like this:
“I’m not afraid of the guy who wants 1000 nukes. I’m afraid of the guy who wants ONE.”
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