The Iranian threat considered

Specifically, considered by Thomas Lippman and Juan Cole in Don't exaggerate Iranian threat Newark Star-Ledger 05/19/06.

They emphasize that Iranian President Ahmadinejad - who I heard Newt Gingrich on TV a few days ago call Iran's "dictator" - actually has relatively limited power over Iranian foreign and military policy.

And they remind us that Iran presents no "existential" threat to Israel, literally that Iran is not in a position to threat Israel's existence.

They argue in the form of rhetorical questions that even an immediate prospect of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons would not justify preventive war against it:

Even if we assume that some people in Iran would then truly plan and intend to fire those warheads at Israel, are we also to as sume that the entire Iranian leadership - military, political and clerical - would acquiesce in such a plan? And are we to assume that these people in the leadership, whoever they may be five years or a decade from now, are collectively insane and suicidal, in ways that Stalin and Khrushchev never were? Are we to believe that they would initiate a nuclear catastrophe, a step no other nation has taken in the 60 years of the nuclear era? Do we think Iran is unaware that Israel has nuclear weapons and multiple means of delivering them? Do we believe the Iranians are prepared to shrug that off and plunge ahead to their own doom? Do we think the people and leaders of Iran are willing to give this whole new meaning to the term "suicide bomber"?

(Cole notes at his blog that they intended to modify the wording of one paragraph, which doesn't make it clear that, as Cole argues, Ahmadinejad's alleged threat to "wipe Israel off the map" is actually a bad translation.)

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