Iran and WMD

With the Iraq debacle still in full quagmirous misery, and with Americans still woefully pondering the implications of intelligence failures, deliberate exaggerations, and grossly incompetent war-making, now is perhaps an extremely inconvenient moment to have to deal with Iranian nukes.

Maybe that is why Bush has so far refused to deal with the problem.

Two interesting articles have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly.

The first ("Will Iran be Next" by James Fallows / Dec 2004) deals with America's options for dealing with Iran. None of them are promising, and I doubt many Americans will trust the current administration to use the military again. But if you want to think through the options with people who understand them, this article is the place to go.

The second ("The Perils of Primacy" by Benjamin Schwarz / Jan 2006 ) explains how America's alarming and increasingly evident first strike capability has undermined the "mutual assured destruction" that prevented the use of nuclear weapons during the cold war. This article focuses on Russia and China, but has implications for Iran as well, because the underlying observation is that America's capabilities, intentions, and actions may be causing potential adversaries to act in ways that increase the odds that these weapons will be used.

The Bushies have made what would have been a very difficult situation into a crisis in a strategically important region. Obviously, I despise Bush and the GOP, but I recognize that they will have to lead the way to resolution.

My point is that they will need to change their approach in a big way, or accept almost certain failure.

Again.

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