Iran...and panic ensues

Never let it be said that I don't read across the aisle, as it were. Loathsome though the task may be, I make a point of engaging with conservative political commentary as much as my constitution will allow. And while I still maintain that the vast majority of mainstream conservative writing is pathologically dishonest and childish, there is one magazine, American Conservative, that I respect and check in on with some regularity.

Now, let me put this disclaimer right out there from the beginning: I am no more a conservative than is the moon a fire-breathing watermelon. It should not be construed that I endorse any of the views expressed in this magazine unless I specifically state otherwise, citing examples (as I do below). What I do admire about AC is that it is intellectually honest, it does not toe any party lines, and it is unabashedly (are you sitting down?) opposed to the Iraq war and the Bush Administration. Sure, there have been a recent rash of conservatives who've finally realized that Bush has betrayed their principles, along with everyone else's, but AC was there years ago. This is a magazine truly committed to the idea of limited government and limited power overseas, and as such it has made some very astute critiques of the Bush admin from the beginning - in many cases hitting the same targets as commentators on the Left.

I bring this up today, because of a recent article in AC by physicist and biologist Gregory Cochran in response to all the recent saber-rattling hype over Iran's alleged "nuclear threat." It is astonishing, isn't it, that after erecting so may straw men, and getting found out for it, that our government still thinks we're going to buy it? Already, the leaders of Israel and the U.S. are declaring President Ahmadinejad the latest "Hitler". There sure seem to be a lot of Hitlers lately.

Cochran is one conservative who doesn't buy it. Regarding the Bush regime, he and I share the same mantra: "Watch what they do, not what they say."

They’re primarily concerned with countries that produced none of the 9/11 hijackers, had nothing to do with the attack, and had been hostile to the kind of fanatic Sunni fundamentalism that drove those attacks—countries like Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Administration policy—in particular the invasion of Iraq—has obviously exacerbated the threat of Islamic terrorism, for example radicalizing the bombers in London and Madrid[...]The usual suspects say that some state may eventually give terrorists an atomic bomb. That is, give the crown jewels of its national power into hands it doesn’t control, in much the same way that the great powers at the end of the 19th century were always handing out battleships to anarchists.

Anyone looking for evidence that present-day Iran parallels Germany circa 1936 need only look at the numbers:

Iran’s GNP is 20 to 40 times smaller than that of the U.S., and the Iranians are hardly sophisticated technologists. If they tried hard, if they spent a huge fraction of their GNP on weapons, they might be able to spend 1/30th as much on arms as we do. But they’re not trying hard.

In truth, Iran hasn't embarked upon any military adventures in years: there is no pattern of aggression and conquest, no frantic military buildup.

And to conclude:

The simplest explanation for the current Iranian nuclear program is that it is an attempt at deterring the U.S. from invading. It is not part of an offensive strategy. Any kind of force projection strategy would require a general conventional military buildup, and no such buildup is underway.

This is the sort of picture of reality that our mainstream politicians are making every effort to obfuscate - I say "mainstream politicians," and not simply "The Bush Administration," because I've seen little evidence that those in our government who oppose Bush are making any effort to correct our distorted perspective on Iran. This is something we need to keep in mind - and why even a total Democratic takeover of congress next week would still a be a long way away from where we need to be in our foreign policy.

There is a historically demonstrable rule-of-thumb that should always be kept in mind when parsing through the rhetoric of our Janus-faced party system - both parties will always name the same foreign enemies. They intrinsically share the same world-view. Rather than engage in serious discussion as to who is or is not a genuine threat, they prefer instead to engage in public pissing contests about who will deal with the alleged threat better. They are committed to winning your votes, not to discovering the truth. This is why there was so much cross-party support for the invasion of Iraq. Bush did not "deceive" anyone with faulty intelligence - Democrats saw a political opportunity and they ran with it, intelligence be damned. Like Bush, they believed that victory in Iraq would be a cakewalk. Their hubris is as vast and tragic as the president's. Today, stoking fears of a nuclear Iran is a great way to make Bush seem weak - and for Bush to suggest that the Democrats are weak. Since it benefits both parties to portray Iran as a threat...Iran becomes a threat.

I do not wish to suggest that we should be complacent about Iran and President Ahmadinejad, who has made some very hostile and ignorant comments. Nor do I wish to imply that he is a mindless blowhard - at times, he can be quite eloquent. Instead, I humbly submit that there are far better ways of judging the intentions of the leader of any country than by taking literally the political rhetoric he employs in the course of his job (which is, after all, the manipulation and superficial appeasement of the public that elected him). Actions speak louder than words. This is the same standard I apply to leaders in my own country. Our presidents routinely make use of convenient boogey-men to rally domestic support. So do all presidents, everywhere.

Unfortunately - as my wife recently pointed out to me - the mainstream media in the U.S. has been happy to cherry-pick Ahmadinejad's speeches for those few gems of outrage most likely to offend, to the exclusion of all else, and has fabricated all kinds of extreme interpretations of his words that are insupportable in their true context.

So that you can judge for yourself, here are the full texts of his UN speeches in 2005 and 2006.

Lest we think that this is all academic, let's recall what's truly at stake - our ability to recognize and be prepared for genuine threats to ourselves and others. Aside from the obvious danger of a "cry-wolf" syndrome both domestically and abroad, there is the risk that energy and resources will be expended on opposing a regime that does not merit the attention - with all the broken lives, wasted resources, and ill-will that it generates - leaving us spent and bereft of allies when a true catastrophe arises (as in Darfur).

If we prefer to see our globe as a hive of lunatics in which we are the only oasis, if we paint "here be dragons" on all of our maps, we may very well end up fulfilling our own dark prophecies.