Here is a link to the following story in today's paper by Charles Krauthammer, "Applying Cold War deterrence plan to Iran is silly." Here is my rebuttal to his article.
This article's point was that conservatives often time say that we shouldn't fret about Iran because we stood up to the Soviets who had 30,000 nuclear missiles starring us at the face. We deterred the Soviets so we could deter Iran. Charles Krauthammer thinks that this is dangerous and foolish. Iran can't be deterred because. 1) Iran isn't rational 2) Iran wants Israel to go away. 3) Iran can easily wipe out Israel with nuclear weapons
Basically Charles Krauthammer has a long of history of Neo-Conservative rants but I am sick and tired of the story about Iran being the boogeyman. I think the story is based on faulty logic and and generic assumptions.
1.
His first argument. Deterrence assumes that both participants are
rational actors otherwise it won't work. True. Krauthammer assumes
that the Soviet Union was rational but then declares Iran irrational and
therefore incapable of rational thinking. Oh deterrence doesn't work
because of the nature of the Iranian regime Krauthammer says. Iran has
had its history of support for suicide bombers and the Soviet Union
didn't. So therefore we have to blow them up now in case they develop a
nuke in 5-10 years to challenge Israel's nuclear monopoly.
Bogus: Comparing the Soviet Union to Iran is a worthless analogy.
Did the Soviet Union have a history of Western Imperialism, a U.S.
backed coup of a democratically elected leader, (1953), and a history of
U.S. intervention in the Middle East. Mr. Krauthammer apparently cites
the Hezbollah attack on U.S. troops in Beirut in 1983 as the reason why
we must kill Muslims in Iran. (oh somehow this is rational). Yes, most
likely Iran supports Hezbollah, but the suicide attack was because of a
desire to end occupation, not because of a desire to spread their
Islamic Revolution throughout the Middle East. Krauthammer assumes that
Iran isn't rational because they supported the removal of U.S. troops
from Beirut. It would occur to me that this is a very rational, (not
moral), argument. Of course suicide bombing is the worst evil to
commit. But the process to remove an occupying force with that method
is an entirely reasonable response. So if the United States wanted to
remove Iranian soldiers from Canada through a suicide attack that
wouldn't be a rational move? Just because they believe in the return of
the "Madhi" doesn't make them radicals. How many other religions
believe that in the future some Messiah like figure will appear and lead
the righteous to salvation and the unrighteous to destruction and
eternal punishment? Answer: Every major Monotheistic religion does.
Once again Krauthammer assumes that the belief in the "end times" is a
reason why Iran will ignite a nuclear bomb in Tel-Aviv. Never mind the
fact that Iran's leading cleric says that seeking nuclear weapons goes
against Islam, and is a "great sin".
2. The nature of the
grievance. Here again Krauthammer assumes that since the Iranian
clerics and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad want the Israeli state to "go away" that
that implies they will nuke Israel as soon as they develop one. If
this line of thinking is true then the millions of Republicans that want
"Obama" to go away are also secretly plotting his demise. This doesn't
make sense. Why is it that if you don't like something that you
automatically want to destroy it too? I don't like smoking cigarettes
but I don't want to deprive the rest of the public their right to enjoy
them if they want.
3. The nature of the target. Oh Iran can't
wait to bomb Israel because it is "easy" to do. One bomb would wipe
them out. If Krauthammer logic is sound then the fact that Israel has
over 100 nuclear weapons pointing at Iran and Iran has none pointing at
Israel would cause the Iranians to worry that their country could be
destroyed very easily by 100 nuclear weapons. Why is it radical
if they want to build one to deter the Israeli government? Oh but in
Krauthammer eyes only Israel is allowed nuclear weapons, god forbid
there be a nuclear free zone in the Middle East. Israel having a
monopoly on nuclear weapons in the middle east will always entice other
nations to develop one. Why can't they figure this out?
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