Iran so far away
So here's a question I just simply don't even begin to have an answer for: What do we do about Iran?
With Iraq it was fairly obvious from the get go that they a) weren't involved in 9/11 and b) weren't really capable of attacking anybody. I mean we'd been bombing them and monitoring them and all sorts of things for a decade at that point. It was easy to be anti-war then, even if it meant your President might sic the NSA on you.
Iran is different. They're religio-fascist (more terrifying than the secular kind!) and they certainly have the sort of sovereignty and economic stability to get some sweet nuclear mojo going. This article makes the case that a Nuclear Iran would enter the same sort of historic MAD showdown as the USA/USSR and India/Pakistan. Nukes for everybody means nobody gets nuked, right? But even if Israel can strike back I wouldn't underestimate anybody's willingness to kill that many Jews at once.
So what to do? Air strikes? Nuke them ourselves? Invade the country? Let's not forget that we need their oil and, if we're looking at the world as a zero sum game, we don't want China to have it. All of this - oil, Israel, China, burgeoning Democracy, etc - brings up so many nasty questions about our duties as world police (are we fighting Israel's fights?), our duties to our own national security (we're not in the middle east!), our duties to the world (don't we want the standard of living in China to go up?), and our commitment to our already overwrought lifestyle (oil!) that it makes my head spin.
This is such an atrocious problem that it makes me extra sad we've been wasting the past 3 years dicking around in Iraq creating new worries rather than dealing with the actual problems that already existed in the world. It also makes me glad I'm not Condoleeza Rice. This shit is intense.
With Iraq it was fairly obvious from the get go that they a) weren't involved in 9/11 and b) weren't really capable of attacking anybody. I mean we'd been bombing them and monitoring them and all sorts of things for a decade at that point. It was easy to be anti-war then, even if it meant your President might sic the NSA on you.
Iran is different. They're religio-fascist (more terrifying than the secular kind!) and they certainly have the sort of sovereignty and economic stability to get some sweet nuclear mojo going. This article makes the case that a Nuclear Iran would enter the same sort of historic MAD showdown as the USA/USSR and India/Pakistan. Nukes for everybody means nobody gets nuked, right? But even if Israel can strike back I wouldn't underestimate anybody's willingness to kill that many Jews at once.
So what to do? Air strikes? Nuke them ourselves? Invade the country? Let's not forget that we need their oil and, if we're looking at the world as a zero sum game, we don't want China to have it. All of this - oil, Israel, China, burgeoning Democracy, etc - brings up so many nasty questions about our duties as world police (are we fighting Israel's fights?), our duties to our own national security (we're not in the middle east!), our duties to the world (don't we want the standard of living in China to go up?), and our commitment to our already overwrought lifestyle (oil!) that it makes my head spin.
This is such an atrocious problem that it makes me extra sad we've been wasting the past 3 years dicking around in Iraq creating new worries rather than dealing with the actual problems that already existed in the world. It also makes me glad I'm not Condoleeza Rice. This shit is intense.
1 Comments:
Funny because I assume that (had they had the blogging ability), many in Britain would have had much the same to say about nascent American military aspirations (sans the nuclear power of course). Now look where we are!
Which is only to say this: As we perch on our self created pinnacle overlooking and overseeing the rest of the world perhaps we might do better to allow some things to take their natural course rather than impose our "how do we keep you where you are because if you move it may affect our perch" sensibilities. I mean really, how often has our imposition and "what should we do" - ness worked anyway? Stellar job with the Hussein, right?
I say it is about time we looked inward and started asking what can we do about all the crap going on here.
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