Saturday Morning Cartoon Politics
Daniel Henninger points out that US politics must look like a Saturday morning cartoon show to outside observers. A boing and a splat and candidates head off in a new direction. Unfortunately, the rest of the world is still actually a dangerous place with dangerous people thinking about pulling off some dangerous actions.
Let's assume for argument's sake that Iran did stop its nuke program in 2003. Why, then, in 2006 was Iran performing test flights of the Shabab-2 and Shabab-3 ballistic missiles, the latter with a range of some 1,200 miles? Commenting at the time, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Iranians "are not unaware that the security environment is one in which if they actually were to do something, Iran would suffer greatly." But as of this week, they might not.
Indeed last week, just as the U.S. intelligence professionals were preparing to tell the world it could forget about Iran (as yesterday's news reports made clear the world is about to do), the Iranian defense ministry announced it has built a new 1,200-mile missile, the Ashura. In September, it put on display the 1,100-mile-range Ghadr-1 missile. If this is all an inconsequential feint, it's a remarkably big one.
North Korea in July 2006 tested the long-range Taepodong-2, a nuclear payload-capable ballistic missile. North Korea has exported its missile technology to Iran and Pakistan. And of course Hezbollah, in the same month North Korea was testing the Taepodong-2, fired thousands of Katyusha rockets at Israel, re-establishing the operational viability of short-range bombardment…………
……The Bush administration's effort to place a missile-defense system in Eastern Europe as counterweight to Iran's missiles was conventionally mocked by elite opinion as a rerun of Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars scheme." In fact, Japan, Australia, Germany, Italy, Israel and Denmark are all attempting to develop antimissile technology. France is building a short-range ballistic missile defense system, the SAMP/T. What are they all afraid of?
They haven't forgotten that other nations do not act in accordance with the wishful thinking of self-absorbed narcissists, apparently. The real problem for the Democrats right now is that they have firmly jumped on the "negotiate at all costs" bandwagon. With little regard for what the costs might be.
This Wednesday, after the NIE's release, the Democratic candidates had a fresh opportunity at an Iowa debate to describe how their presidencies would address Iran and the world. John Edwards chose to attack Sen. Clinton for voting in September to label Iran's Revolutionary Guards as terrorists. She and Sen. Obama, along with Democrats in Congress, said the new Iran intelligence estimate now mandates diplomacy only. Sen. Obama: "They should have stopped the saber rattling, should have never started it. And they need, now, to aggressively move on the diplomatic front."
But in a July essay for Foreign Affairs, Sen. Obama said nuclear weapons "in the hands of a radical theocracy" is "too dangerous." While he favored "tough-minded" diplomacy with Iran, "we must not rule out using military force."
Which version is one supposed to believe? The candidates seeking votes from their party's pacifists, or the person who wants to represent his country's interests in a hostile world?
We cannot afford to pretend that threats do not exist, nor can we be so arrogant as to think that the world will comply with our wishes and beliefs. That old boing and splat routine may play well in domestic sound bites but it doesn't really amuse the rest of the world. Instead it worries allies and emboldens those who wish us ill.
By old_dawg, Thursday, 6 December , 2007 @ 9:55 am
We need to be paying attention to what Iran is saying as much as what they are allegedly doing (or not doing). If they are repeatedly stating that they are developing nuclear weapons and plan to use these to bomb Israel/Europe/the US, we ought to take this seriously and act accordingly. If they are developing deliver systems for weapons of mass destruction, we ought to assume that they are working on the weapons themselves. In other words, if they are articulating a threat, we need to honro that threat.