Deterring Iran

washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … inionsbox1

"…How to create deterrence? The way John Kennedy did during the Cuban missile crisis. President Bush’s greatest contribution to nuclear peace would be to issue the following declaration, adopting Kennedy’s language while changing the names of the miscreants:

“It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear attack upon Israel by Iran, or originating in Iran, as an attack by Iran on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon Iran.”

This should be followed with a simple explanation: “As a beacon of tolerance and as leader of the free world, the United States will not permit a second Holocaust to be perpetrated upon the Jewish people.”… "

Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than the left wishes to believe.

the war on terror will escalate.

-Imp

I don’t see how any country in the world doesn’t already see an attack on Israel an attack on the US, nuclear or not is irrelevant. The anti government movement in Iran is very strong, only someone who knows nothing of Iranian culture and history could possibly suggest a military solution to a clash between the culture of the country and its representation by a fundamentalist, unpopular and tyrannical government. Kennedy didn’t stop the war, under his administration the bay of pigs disaster took place and in order to win the mid term elections in November, he wanted a tough stance against communism.

Beacon of tolerance? Leader of the free world? Have you ever been to Europe?

Even as someone who detests the Iranian government, I can clearly see that the idea that anti zionism is an anti jewish sentiment is more than misinformed. Justify the creation of Israel, so we can create Constantinople in Istanbul, the Persian Empire, Alexander’s empire, the Roman empire, the Mongol empire, the Islamic empire, and whatever other empire has existed in the last +2,500 years whose people can claim to be the rightful owners of the lands they conquered.

read the article…

-Imp

Applying the cold-war model to Iran is a bit ridiculous I think, they’re religious in insane ways past what communists were. I think a lot of this rhetoric has also been passed Iran’s way.

that’s the point…

nuclear armageddon is closer than you think…

singing peace and love and be a communist and accept all cultures gets one killed.

-Imp

Your right islam is not a culture we want to largely embrace, its religion, sacred values, cultural values, etc are all pretty twisted.

In awhile we may be dealing with a new generation of iranians who would like to distance themselves from the barbarism of the current situation, though, largely, extremism finds people in later age, so, they mightr just turn out fundamental as well.

I have read the article, and from the onset it implies a somewhat progressive conservative stance. I’ll try to address all the issues it raises which I see as incorrect. He states the uselessness of sanctions against Iran, of course everyone should already know this. Sanctions only ever cripple people, not governments. As for messianic and apocalyptic mullahs, I’d like to see a reference for that claim. Even assuming the claim is true, nuclear holocaust in 2-3 nations is not apocalyptic, just destructive. Ultimately, all military power lies with Khamenei. As for deterrence, being on a philosophy forum, I’m assuming everyone is familiar with the phrase “Arms keep peace” but this is the exact policy that put one government in severe debt and caused the other’s financial and political collapse during the cold war, so I don’t agree with his suggestion. As for the Kennedy romanticism, it didn’t really keep the peace. I remember watching a documentary on the History channel that claimed the US was on the verge of declaring war during the Cuban Missile Crisis if not for information that the nuclear warheads had not yet arrived, or something of the sort. Kennedy’s policy failed, and the avoidance of war was not due to Kennedy’s impeccable judgment, but a roll of the dice and Khrushchev’s greater desire to avoid war.
Any attack on Israel is already considered an attack on the US. The US has massively supplied Israel with funds and equipment during any of its conflicts in the past 60 years. As for “As a beacon of tolerance and as leader of the free world, the United States will not permit a second Holocaust to be perpetrated upon the Jewish people.”, this statement is just wrong. The US is not the beacon of tolerance and it’s not the leader of the “free world”, except militarily. The role of race/gender/celebrities and endorsements as opposed to actual qualifications in choosing the supposedly most powerful figure in its entire government and possibly the world bears testament to that. As for the Holocaust, the term along with Nazi is no longer a historical/political term, but a mere taboo term equivalent to the “boogey man” and is applied wherever an instant negative response is required.
Ultimately, the Iranian government, as weak as it may be, would never actually launch one or two nukes only to await the delivery of many more upon Iranian soil. Not that it cares about the people, but that would cause its own destruction, something it would never do. The military option is just ridiculous 1. Iran actually has a proper military, unlike Iraq 2. Iranians are highly nationalistic, and would fight any foreign invader indefinitely (even if the invader sympathizes with them, as was shown by the failure of the Mujahideen during the Iran-Iraq war) and the most definite point, 3. There are much more subtle options, such as funding for removal of the regime (similar to 1953, even though that regime wasn’t even unpopular, although financially unstable) for undermining a highly unpopular government, with a failing economy, ruling over an increasing antagonized people.
This statement also bothers me, “For the first time since the time of Jesus, Israel (known as Judea at the time) is the home of the world’s largest Jewish community.”. Known as Judea, why would he say that? What kind of audience would have such strong opinions on these matters and not know about Israel’s history? Who is he preaching to? Koifer may know more about this, but I believe the creation of a Jewish nation before the coming of the messiah is against the beliefs of some Jewish sects. Once again, the Iranian government has no intentions of genocide. There are thousands of jews living in Iran right now. Anti zionism and anti jewish sentiments are two different concepts, one that Europeans and Americans can’t seem to understand due to their own actions in history.
The last paragraph is just blatant appeals to sentiments and pure propaganda. The audience of this article, I presume, are people who already hold similar views or who are misinformed, and whose lack of knowledge the author is attempting to exploit.
As I said in the previous post, the anti government movement in Iran has been strong ever since the early 90’s and many demonstrations have taken part since then, resulting only in imprisonment, torture and death. The case of Ahmad Batebi and his infamous blood covered shirt being covered by the news more than any other. 18 Tir is a most memorable date for any student in all of Iran’s major cities.

Cyrene, you have repeatedly demonstrated your lack of understanding of Iranian politics, culture, history and society. As someone who’s actually lived in Iranian society and seen the people for who they are at liberty in their homes and not how the media portrays them on the streets on TV, is reasonably informed of Iranian history and culture through more than just random internet sites, took part and witnessed the heroism and sacrifices of university students who dared to stand up for their rights and wants, only to end up being imprisoned, tortured or even killed, with no real gains, your comments are not only blatantly misinformed, but offensive. Just stop.

You have a lot of liberal minded bullshit, I understand plenty of iranian society and plenty about the society of other islamic nations.

  • Yes, We Should Worry About IranDo we really want to relive the Cold War nuclear nightmare?
    By Fred Kaplan.

You live in a fantasy world where you would like to ignore the real issues in favor of liberal minded bullshit which you constantly put a spin on.

Tell me that I don’t know about muslim nations, I could write you a list of human rights violations from Iran if that would help you.

No Cyrene. You don’t. Let’s take the most obvious examples of your lack of understanding in this specific topic:

You cannot possibly claim to know anything of modern Iranian history after this simple statement. There’s a little picture at the bottom of this post. It’s probably the most publicized picture of that time. If it means anything to you, then you should stop repeating the same arguments. If it doesn’t, you should stop claiming to know anything of Iranian society and the “new generation” who “mightr turn out fundamental as well”.
To that post I replied with the statement that you knew nothing of Iranian society, culture, and history, to which you reply with a random internet article about deterrence and nuclear war. What?

Liberal? What does that mean? I’m not American, nor do I live in America, nor am I discussing American politics. Please explain.
Bullshit? Why are arguments from the perspective of someone who’s actually been in Iranian society, read a couple books on the country, and seen the contrast between the government and its people, actually gone out to the demonstrations, “liberal minded bullshit”, while the arguments of some teenager who lives in America, has probably never known any ethnic Iranians, has never been to the middle east or Iran, and cites the internet whenever he can not “bullshit”? Do you bunch Iranian society in the same category as that of Saudi Arabia?

Knowledge of a country comes through knowledge of its human rights violations?
Nonetheless, it seems you do not understand my arguments. I’m not arguing for the government, I’m arguing for the people, who you so conveniently generalize as “fundamental”. Even in Iran, even in the government, there’s a recognition of the American government and the American people as two separate entities. If you can’t realize that for other countries, then I just don’t know what to say.

You might be interested to know that the revolution was in fact more of a communist/socialist movement. who had gained increasing influence in the Shah period due to their association with Farah, that got ‘hijacked’ by the mullahs. Interesting to see pictures where many women that came to demonstrate FOR the islamic government weren’t even covered. You can cite all the internet articles you like, but unless you actually read a couple of books on Iran from a political, historical as well as a social perspective, and actually live in the society, and see how it’s come to have the government it currently has, and stop using profanity as shock value like in all your arguments, there’s no point in me arguing with a wall.
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THere are statistics y’know, showing how much of a random population of muslim citizens believes in X, Z, Y, F, theres statistics are taken from the general population. Its a straw man arguement, i’m distinguishing between muslims and active muslim governments.

First off, I tend to worry more about Bush pushing the button than I do about Iran’s activities. Because the difference is that Bush actually has weapons to launch. In terms of ability to lead with circumspection or restraint, there isn’t much difference personally between him and the crazy guy in Iran. Well, except that the crazy guy in Iran is mostly rhetoric, whereas Bush has built himself a track record. And he’s made a point of contemptuously disregarding the other Constitutional powers that are supposed to check him. I still can’t believe he hasn’t been impeached; it shows how far we’ve strayed from our foundations of democracy.

With that said, I think the OP linked to such an unrealistic op-ed piece that it’s almost a waste of effort to comment. Is this Krautheimer dude suggesting that the U.S. make it official that we’re taking responsibility for Israel’s survival? What are the ramifications of that and, more importantly, do we have the control necessary to actually enforce that? How exactly would we accomplish that?

And how is this sort of rhetoric not furthering the destabilization of the Middle East? After all, which power player in the last five years has done the most to destabilize the Middle East? (Hint: it’s not Iran.)

I agree with Rouzbeh that assuming that all of the Iranian people – or even most of the religious leaders there – are extremist zealots is a mistake. Iran has never attacked its neighbors. And there have been clerical leaders there who’ve declared that nuclear aggression is against the tenants of Islam. On the other hand, Israel has repeatedly and frequently threatened and attacked its neighbors and it has an arsenal of several hundred warheads (one would think this serves as a pretty good deterrent on its own). I wonder that after making this accusation about an apocolyptic Iran in his article, the author turns around and characterizes Jews as an “…ancient people openly threatened with the final Final Solution” (gotta wonder how that’ll be accomplished by bombing Israel, since at least as many Jews live outside of Israel as live in it). And, come to think of it, has anyone heard George W. Bush’s view of the end of times? Again, IMO that’s where we ought to consider implementing controls until he’s finally left the building and they’ve changed all the passwords.

Really, it’s amazing to me that anyone thinks the United States retains the ability to nation build through threats of force or to adequately control what either Israel or Iran will do. The idea that the U.S. acts as an Israeli protectorate in such a manner is just not workable. This is such a blatant overassumption of US power to control world events. We don’t have the bully pulpit when all the players have nukes (or when we can’t stop them from obtaining them short of bombing them off the planet because we think they do). Just as it was with the Soviets, because there’s no military solution to this that won’t result in unimaginable death and destruction, there’s never been a substitute for making diplomacy first priority when it comes to handling these matters. Post 9/11 hype or not, the need to deal with this by keeping an ongoing open dialogue with the parties involved has not changed. I think we’ve lived with this dysfunctional neo-con mess for so long that the fundamental necessity of the U.S. to behave as a world leader diplomatically has been lost. That’s so seriously wrong. If we don’t get back to a federal government capable of doing the necessary work (both internationally and domestically) in November, I’m concerned that life as we’ve known it will be threatened in a way that we can’t fix. Maybe it already has been. And that seems more like a terrorist victory than it does a U.S. one.

Genie - Well-written. I agree in toto.