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Originally Posted by Guest
Ok, I have thought about it. Why do you believe that Iran is going to use nuclear weapons against us? The same thing was said about USSR. The same thing was said about North Korea, a far crazier government than anything in Iran, the same was said about Pakistan, a very severe Islamic state, far more so than Iran which is actually very westernized.
Perhaps these countries simply believe as we do that deterrence is the best defense or as it was called MAD. Iran certainly faces a nuclear threat from Israel, a country which has already shown its willingness to strike first when it feels its safety is endangered. If Iran had the bomb, would it be to protect it from Israel or to use it on us. What possible interest would Iran have in using nuclear weapons against the US with the 100% certainty that if they did, in 15 minutes Iran would be a smoldering uninhabitable wasteland for the next century.
It is the starting point of where we cannot reach the same conclusions that we don't start with the same assumptions. I believe that the US is a wonderful but not perfect country. I believe that it has been wrong in many of its international adventures and tends to think it should project its military might to get other countries to cower. I believe that might does not make right, in fact just the opposite. Like Gandhi and King and Mother Teresa, America can achieve its long term goals by showing some humility, by admitting our flaws, by being clear in our objectives for a better world. Sadly you don't understand liberalism at all if you believe what you have typed. And that you would reduce it to gender neutral bathrooms suggests you need to somehow stop thinking about sex all the time. Liberals don't think America is rotten. We do tend to believe that racism is rotten, that sexism is rotten, that homophobia is rotten, that segregation was rotten, that letting children starve is rotten, that denying health care is rotten, that Columbine and Oklahoma City and 911 were all rotten. But no liberal that I know believes that America is rotten and it is very sad that you are so unable to see that. Most liberals I know would not make such conclusions about conservatives.
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I’ll start with your latter points first. I’ll accept at face value what you say that you personally don’t think America is “rotten” but I’ve known enough liberals in my life to know you tend to be the exception. Many are driven by guilt, some by envy and increasingly, by a hatred of things religious in general and Christian in particular. It’s a sliding scale of self-hatred and America hatred, with the Bill Ayers type being at one end and the harmless academic on the other. No conservative that I know is in favor of anything you identified as rotten by the way. The whole debate has always been about the perfectibility, or imperfectability of human nature, and thus the best means to achieve socially desirable ends. It also gets into the inescapable reality that people are not, and never have been, equal in terms of productivity, hence unequal outcomes are not only predicable but normal. But, I digress … and back to the main topic.
You still did not get my point about the difference between a secularist / atheist regimes (USSR, North Korea) and an apocalyptic theocratic regime of the Radical Islamic type. They pose a distinctly different threat profile and which enters into the deterrence equation. It’s apples and oranges …not all apples.
The former are DETERRED by the thought of a life ending exchange. That doesn’t mean they won’t probe and exploit weakness, because indeed they will. The latter can potentially be inspired by the thought of going to a greater glory by eliminating the Great Satan, and particularly when mixed with a millenarian apocalyptic world view of the 12th Iman etc. Now, this is not to say that every Iranian leader would be blind to the obvious which is, if they did attack the US, Iran would be likely be counterattacked. (ie likely because a lot would depend on the intestinal fortitude and courage of whoever would be President … it’s not a given).
I’m saying this … if we allow Iran to get nukes, the risk is very high that, and at some point inevitable, they will get a crazy theocratic leader who may THINK he can get away with it. The fact that he can’t is irrelevant if he thinks he could and is rationalized by Islamic fundamentalist zeal. Iran, in this instance, would attack us covertly and never admit it. They could easily find a limitless supply of suicide bombers who would be happy to infiltrate into New York or DC with a small portable nuke… the two most likely targets. Another tactic, and one they have been known to practice, simulates the launch from a nondescript merchant vessel of the coast of the US, and wherein the missile carries an EMP device intended to detonate over the Midwest. One shot, and most of the electricity / electronics in CONUS would be gone for a year or more … our economy would be in effect be destroyed because nothing would or could move.
I agree that the people of Iran are much more inclined to be pro-American, and is one reason Obama dropped the ball when he failed to give them support in their uprising a few years ago. Had he done that, we would not be in the mess we’re in. But, in any regime where the leaders control the guns and police, it doesn’t matter what the people think. China, North Korea, the list goes on.
I’m also arguing that the safest path, and best way to avoid war, is to instill fear in your opponent and never contempt. Iran was terrified of Reagan and that’s why they released our hostages on the day he was inaugurated. By contrast, not only are they unafraid of Obama, I think they hold him in contempt which explains why they’ve dispatched their naval flotilla to Yemen.
Now let me ask you a simple question. Do you think we should allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapons capability?