Posted on 05/08/2006 7:02:04 AM PDT by Tolik
The debate in the U.S. over how to contend with Iran as it pursues nuclear weapons goes like this:
Many conservatives worry that the Bush administration - stung by the backlash over Iraq and the president's sinking poll numbers - has sworn off the military option. They argue that endless discussion and attempts at diplomacy have only emboldened the Iranian theocracy.
Liberals counter that Iran's weapons program is over-hyped in the manner of Saddam Hussein's phantom nuclear arsenals. They worry we will soon stage another preemptive attack - if for no other reason than to wag the dog and shore up the president's approval ratings. And even if Iran gets the bomb, they argue, so what? Don't we already live with a nuclear Islamic Pakistan?
Most Americans, though, probably understand the current U.S. position. We are resigned to the fact that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is both unhinged and eager to get his own nukes - and that we must somehow stop him at the 11th hour.
For Ahmadinejad and Iran's ruling mullahs, there is little downside to pursuing and perhaps eventually obtaining a nuclear weapon. The issue helps divert attention from the country's domestic problems, humiliates Western diplomats and threatens rival Gulf oil producers. Plus, Ahmadinejad can brag that Iran is now the Islamic state that most worries Israel while blackmailing European capitals soon in missile range.
Meanwhile, the United States, for a variety of understandable reasons, is not eager to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. A current parlor game imagines the nightmares of such a preemptive strike: It would be hard to know whether we eliminated all the centrifuges. Oil prices would get even worse. Some Shiites in Iraq might turn on our troops. Terrorists could be unleashed with dirty bombs in Western cities.
So, in the lull before the storm, the U.S. should pause, and allow its critics a chance to offer some utopian third-party or multilateral solution.
The solutions bandied about so far? Let the "seasoned pros" in Europe play the good, diplomatic cop to the "unpredictable, eager-for-a-fight" American bad cop. Or involve Russia and China in more diplomacy in hopes they will value regional stability over their own economic interests. Then there's the U.N. option - could the international body redeem itself after the oil-for-food scandal with sanctions and embargoes?
But given recent history, and how hell-bent Iran's leaders are on pursuing its nuclear program - for weapons, not, as they so often profess, merely for energy - it is hard to imagine that, on their own, these proposed solutions will amount to much.
The good news is that Iran, like all ossified societies in the current era of globalized communications, is unstable. The eighth-century theocrats in charge there could find their own citizens questioning whether a bomb is worth international ostracism and the threat of military strikes.
At the same time, what's happening now in Iraq must be of great concern to the Iranian leadership. Jawad al-Maliki, the new Iraqi prime minister, for example, is a nationalist. He, like other Iraqi Shiites, has shown he is not willing to be an Iranian pawn. As Ahmadinejad promotes death, how will Iranians react to images from Iraq of life-affirming free citizens in a new democracy?
In other words, will Iraq's new liberality prove more destabilizing to Iran than Ahmadinejad's agents can to Iraq? As Iraq's 300,000-strong army emerges as a well-trained and equipped force, one suspects the answer is yes.
Notice: George Bush has been relatively silent during the crisis; Ahmadinejad is the one losing his composure on center stage. Nearly daily he shouts to the cameras about wiping Israel off the map or unleashing his Islamic terrorists throughout the globe.
In the brief present window between Iran's enrichment and its final step to weapons-grade production, we must keep calm and give Ahmadinejad even more rope to hang himself. As his present hysteria grows, exasperated Europeans or jittery neighbors in the region may even prod the U.S. to take action - indeed, to be a little more unilateral and preemptive in letting the Iranians know that their acquisition of a nuclear weapon will never happen.
For now, our best peaceful weapon in the little time that we have left is, oddly, our own quiet and hope that a democratizing Iraq stabilizes, and in turn destabilizes undemocratic Iran. So let the loud Ahmadinejad continue to make our case why such a psychopath cannot be allowed to become nuclear. Meanwhile, give confident multilateral internationalists their long-awaited chance at diplomacy, and prepare for the worst.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com
Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/ NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
Well, the Israelis are going to sanction them anyway.
Plenty of talk that Jack Straw, the UK's Foreign Secretary was fired becuse he was too soft over iran, especialy bombing them.
Which sugests that it will happen, as the new Foreign Secretary, will not argue with Blair.
And we will be blamed for it.
Nope. We are going to grandstand a bit [and why not? It could be fun] and claim that a reduction in the nuclear stockpile it is going to take represents a significant nuclear disarmament move. The trick is to do it with straight face.
It would be no joke. Our effort in Iraq would go down the toliet and the entire region would be inflamed from Algiers to Kabul. AQ and UBL would be delighted as volunteers would flock to them to destroy Israel and the US.
We would be better off politically if we did it rather than the Israelis. I doubt they would use nuclear weapons in any event. We definitely won't.
If you think anti-Israel sentiment is high now, not only in the Middle East, but in Europe, Africa, and Asia, let Israel be the first country to use nuclear weapons since 1945 and only the second country to do so in history, and the reaction will be horrendous for both the short and long term interests of Israel. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the only islamic country with nuclear weapons, will have some hard decisions to make. And the billion plus muslims around the globe will launch their own jihad against Israeli interests everywhere.
The US will not/not use nuclear weapons against Iran in any preemptive attack.
"Horrendous reaction" is nothing compared with survival. Besides, behind that "horrendous reaction" there will be VERY poorly masked universal sigh of relief, which would obviously subtract a lot from "horrendousness". How was it put? "A dog barks, but the caravan moves on its way", or something similar.
Staging a preemptive nuclear attack against Iran, would not guarantee Israel's survival. It would place it more in jeopardy.
Besides, behind that "horrendous reaction" there will be VERY poorly masked universal sigh of relief, which would obviously subtract a lot from "horrendousness". How was it put? "A dog barks, but the caravan moves on its way", or something similar.
BS. The vast majority of countries don't perceive Iran to be a direct threat, even a nuclear Iran. Very few countries would give a "masked universal sigh of relief," knowing full well the consequences that would ensue. Israel would become an international pariah. Anyone who doesn't understand that the use of nuclear weapons is a significant departure from the use of conventional arms, is a fool.
Ask yourself a simple question: and who would miss Iran?
About 70 million Iranians and one billion Muslims. That is indeed a simple question.
In 1 billion muslims there will be a lot of ululation and candy passing - you forget or purposefully overlook sunni/shia fissure. So that leaves only the Shia outside Iran. So even to a simple question you managed to provide a wrong answer.
No, they are still Muslims in much the same way that Catholics and Protestants are Christians. They still go together with the Sunnis, Wahhabis, Sufis, Nizaris, etc. on the haj to Mecca and Medina. They still use the Koran. They still pray five times a day facing Mecca.
So that leaves only the Shia outside Iran. So even to a simple question you managed to provide a wrong answer.
I have lived in Iran, Indonesia, and Saudia Arabia for a total of nine years and travelled to many other Muslim countries. You are wrong.
Or pray for peace and guidance then prepare for the worst.
I don't doubt VDH here, but it is simply amazing to me how some liberals insist after all this time that Bush is playing to the poll numbers. Two points here - he isn't Clinton and he isn't running for re-election.
I may be wrong about this but it seems to me that both Russia and China have run the numbers on this and decided that an Iran with nuclear weapons is preferable to U.S. hegemony in the Middle East. Both of these nations have nukes of their own sufficient to glassify Iran should it come to that. An Israel destroyed is no skin off their collective nose. And so the question becomes whose long-term strategic interests are served and whether a general nuclear war in the Middle East is considered a risk sufficient to offset the gains those countries anticipate with the U.S. confounded and the Middle East destabilized.
These are very fine calculations in the Game Of Kings and are more often wrong than right. Given that Iran is likely to possess such weapons and retain its current government, the next question that arises is to whose benefit a destabilized Europe becomes. Were I the Europeans I should be very concerned about that.
Our family is prepared. I have been praying very hard these past few months to know if we could do anything else to prepare for a nuclear strike, and all I have felt is that with our bomb shelter, year supply of food, a three month water supply, and 72 hour kits packed and ready to go, we are as prepared as can be for any sort of nuclear contingency.
I pray for my country, president Bush, and all governmental leaders who have a hand in these choices and decisions in regards to a nuclear Iran. In the end individual family civil defense measures are the only true safety in the nuclear world we live in. That and being prayerful...
Jenny Hatch
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1562389/posts
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.