Your Thoughts Exactly

The specific idiot is Charles Krauthammer, who “rights,” (get it?) for the Washington Post and is a contributor to Time as well. His latest article titled “Today Tehran, Tomorrow the World,” discusses the danger of Iran receiving nuclear weapons, which gives me a nice launching point for discussing my own personal views on the U.S.’ Iran policy, while debunking his.

Kraut’s (get that one?) argument goes something like this: nuclear weapons are exceedingly dangerous, and should only be given to those countries that can be assured to use them responsibly. Iran, under Ahmadinejad is the exact opposite, a country who is specifically building nuclear weapons to use them irresponsibly. Krautie goes on to compare the beliefs of Irani’s to those of medieval Europeans, to claim that Ahmadinejad believes that the 12^th imam of Islam will resurrect himself in two or three years, and if Iran gets nukes, every other ideological regime and terrorist group will be buying them at the local bazaar.

I am glad that Mr. Krauthammer associates millennialism and the idea of basing your foreign policy on the basis of messianic resurrection as medieval and foolish. I wonder, however, if he shouldn’t be spending more time looking at the White House rather than the clerics of Tehran. Our current President (you know, the guy with the secret nuclear codes,) is a Born-Again Christian who believes in messianic resurrection. And seems to have a jones for interfering in the affairs of The Promised Land. And who throughout his five and a half years in the most powerful office in human history, has consistently used Biblical language as a means of communication and metaphor, especially with regards to the U.S.’s dealings with non-Christian enemies.

The issue of religios destiny's influence of leadership is under-studied, but really a scare tactic on the part of the author. The real issue is that Krauthammer and most people want the power of nuclear weapons, and specifically the security guarantee they provide to be concentrated in an elite group of nations, with U.S. approval. This is an unrealistic with. Like all technologies, once nuclear weapons were created, the destiny was for them to be spread to other countries. Patronizing attitudes such as Mr. Krauthammer’s will not solve any issues with regards to keeping nuclear war from happening in the future. The U.S.’s credibility on this argument (“crazy countries shouldn’t be allowed nukes because they will use them,”) is severely undermined within the international community because we remain, to this day, the only country to actually use nuclear weapons. And we have about 10,000 of them while most countries have zero. The U.S. is not in a position to hold anyone over anything from a moral high ground with regards to warfare at this point.

So what should we do about Iran? Yes, the current leader makes some frightening statements about the destruction of Israel. Delaying the process of nuclear proliferation in Iran, through the Russian enrichment of uranium to be shipped back to Iraq is a good first step to quell the fears of a maniacal destruction of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, or whatever.

But eventually, be it 2, 5, or 20 years from now, Iran will get nuclear weapons. There is no way to stop it from happening, other than a worldwide, coordinated effort to eliminate all nuclear weapons stocks from all countries, and ensure no plutonium or uranium is converted. That will not happen.

Iran is a country on the road to liberalization, due to the will of its own people, slowly moving out of the colonial 20th century and the reign of the West supported Shah. Ahmaddinejad’s popularity in Iran, and he is popular among young people espcially, is because, contrary to his hard-liner image he has not curbed the liberalization of social freedoms of the Khatami regime, while rallying the Iranian people around the idea of Iran (and Islam,) under attack from an invading West, led by, of course, the U.S. Of course we play right into this perception by invading the countries to Iran's east and west, flying recon missions over their territory, declaring Iran an "Axis power," and threatening to use force. This goes back to Thucydides and Athens and Sparta. Why do you think Iran is helping the insurgency in Iraq? Because they think they are next in line on the Bush Invasion Chart. Keeping the U.S bogged down in Iraq keeps them from turning their attention to Iran.

This is a classic realist scenario for conflict, states, without the central presence of some organization to determine conflict, continually build up under the guise that the “other,” is a threat, with each further buildup only reinforcing the threat and need for further defensive measures, until eventually conflict occurs.

To avoid this trap, we need to disengage from saying things like “all options are on the table,” and let the conflict be mediated by other countries who share the same interest as we do, (EU, Russia.) as U.S-Iran relations have deteriorated to the point where trust is an issue. The hawks in the defense department do not need to worry about "looking strong," to scare Iran: The Bush Administration has already proven they will invent reasons to invade someone if they have to. The threat is there without vocalization.

Then, we need to focus on setting up Iraq and Afghanistan as governments that function without the guarantee of protection from the U.S. military. As long as the reinforcement of the military remains the preeminent reason for the rule, we will present a threat to Iran’s leadership by effectively surrounding them, making the idea of nuclear weapons (and guaranteed defense from invasion,) more palatable.

Finally we should make connections to Iran through backchannels: student exchange, trade if possible. This is more of a long-term strategy for bettering the image of the United States in Iran and vice versa. Avoiding behaviors like detaining Muslims permanently without trials and torturing prisoners might also help.

This does not have to be a problem for us. Yet I do not trust our leaders to see things this way. Since it is clearly us vs. them and good vs. evil to people like Krauthammer and members of the Bush Administration, whatever motives we have for whatever actions we undertake, are clearly well-intentioned. We all know who suffers from such a prism: American soliders, the citizens of the Middle East, and the image of the U.S. Oh well, guess we just got to grit our teeth and bear it for another two and a half years.

# posted by Marmaniac @ 8:14 AM