Posted by Guest
(Post 1049486)
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?
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