This is a bit of a different post for me, since it comes from a reply I wrote on a bulletin board. Still, it represents something I had wanted to address anyway, so here it is.
I've been thinking about Iran a lot recently, and it is bothering the shit out of me. It didn't get a lot of press, but last August, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, issued a fatwa that declared the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons un-Islamic and forbidden. In no uncertain language, he declared that Iran will never seek these weapons.
Now, it is tempting to doubt everything coming from anywhere within the "axis of evil," but I don't think Iran would make its main religious authority look like an asshole by turning around and developing nukes anyway. "Behold our un-Islamic nukes!" doesn't seem like the type of chant that the Iranian throngs are likely to throw around. It doesn't have the ring of the current favorite, "Death to America!"
Also, is there any strategic purpose for an Iranian nuclear weapons program? No. If Israel so much as smells a nuke cooking in Iran, it will not hesitate to light that whole area up with the nukes everyone knows it has (between 100 and 200 warheads, according to what I've read). Iran knows this. Iran also knows that it can't play chicken with the major nuclear powers, since it knows that we can turn that whole region into a glowing parking lot whenever we want.
So it worries me when I see reports in the Washington Post that suggest that the Bush administration might even be considering the tactical use of nuclear weapons to take out underground facilities in Iran. I tell you, nothing quite warms up a region's opinion of you better than poisoning part of it with radioactive residue. I'm also sure that the Russians and Chinese would appreciate our lighting off a few nukes in their neck of the woods.
There haven't been westerns made in many years that feature heroes in white hats and villains in black hats. World politics also doesn't work like that anymore. Not everything the United States does is good, and not everything our enemies do is bad. So while it is tempting to believe that everything out of the mouth of an Iranian official will be a lie, maybe we need to accept the idea that it is occasionally the truth. Iran swears it is not working on a weapons program. Why not try believing them? If we find out anything to the contrary, the entire world will turn against them, and they will look like schmucks. Try another unilateral assault based on shady evidence, though, perhaps nuking a sovereign country in the process, and the joke's on us. We become the terrorists.
With that, I step down from my soapbox.
Well, almost.
To date, North Korea is the only country to publicly (and vociferously) announce the development of nuclear weapons in response to U.S. aggression. They even pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (which Iran has signed) in 2003. North Korean propaganda is like anti-U.S. porn (see left). So why the hell aren't we talking about North Korea? Is it possibly because the Koreans don't prostrate themselves before Allah five times a day? Hey, I'm plenty concerned with how closely associated Islam seems to be with international terrorism, but are we really that much more comfortable in a new cold war with some godless communists than we are with an Islamic system of government?
I've been thinking about Iran a lot recently, and it is bothering the shit out of me. It didn't get a lot of press, but last August, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, issued a fatwa that declared the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons un-Islamic and forbidden. In no uncertain language, he declared that Iran will never seek these weapons.
Now, it is tempting to doubt everything coming from anywhere within the "axis of evil," but I don't think Iran would make its main religious authority look like an asshole by turning around and developing nukes anyway. "Behold our un-Islamic nukes!" doesn't seem like the type of chant that the Iranian throngs are likely to throw around. It doesn't have the ring of the current favorite, "Death to America!"
Also, is there any strategic purpose for an Iranian nuclear weapons program? No. If Israel so much as smells a nuke cooking in Iran, it will not hesitate to light that whole area up with the nukes everyone knows it has (between 100 and 200 warheads, according to what I've read). Iran knows this. Iran also knows that it can't play chicken with the major nuclear powers, since it knows that we can turn that whole region into a glowing parking lot whenever we want.
So it worries me when I see reports in the Washington Post that suggest that the Bush administration might even be considering the tactical use of nuclear weapons to take out underground facilities in Iran. I tell you, nothing quite warms up a region's opinion of you better than poisoning part of it with radioactive residue. I'm also sure that the Russians and Chinese would appreciate our lighting off a few nukes in their neck of the woods.
There haven't been westerns made in many years that feature heroes in white hats and villains in black hats. World politics also doesn't work like that anymore. Not everything the United States does is good, and not everything our enemies do is bad. So while it is tempting to believe that everything out of the mouth of an Iranian official will be a lie, maybe we need to accept the idea that it is occasionally the truth. Iran swears it is not working on a weapons program. Why not try believing them? If we find out anything to the contrary, the entire world will turn against them, and they will look like schmucks. Try another unilateral assault based on shady evidence, though, perhaps nuking a sovereign country in the process, and the joke's on us. We become the terrorists.
With that, I step down from my soapbox.
Well, almost.
To date, North Korea is the only country to publicly (and vociferously) announce the development of nuclear weapons in response to U.S. aggression. They even pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (which Iran has signed) in 2003. North Korean propaganda is like anti-U.S. porn (see left). So why the hell aren't we talking about North Korea? Is it possibly because the Koreans don't prostrate themselves before Allah five times a day? Hey, I'm plenty concerned with how closely associated Islam seems to be with international terrorism, but are we really that much more comfortable in a new cold war with some godless communists than we are with an Islamic system of government?
1 comments:
But the Iranians are a giving people! They just pledged $50 million to the Palestinians. And 200 people have apparently volunteered to give their lives to kill Westerners.
Post a Comment