Yes, but does Iran want to invade Poland?
Fareed Zakaria makes a number of good points about the differences between Iran and 1930′s Germany, points that we too have made previously, but he makes an unsupportable inference from them, in our view:
To review a bit of history: in 1938, Adolf Hitler launched what became a world war not merely because he was evil but because he was in complete control of the strongest country on the planet. At the time, Germany had the world’s second largest industrial base and its mightiest army. (The American economy was bigger, but in 1938 its army was smaller than that of Finland.) This is not remotely comparable with the situation today.
Iran does not even rank among the top 20 economies in the world. The Pentagon’s budget this year is more than double Iran’s total gross domestic product ($181 billion, in official exchange-rate terms). America’s annual defense outlay is more than 100 times Iran’s. Tehran’s nuclear ambitions are real and dangerous, but its program is not nearly as advanced as is often implied…
Ahmadinejad strikes me as less a messianic madman and more a radical populist, an Iranian Huey Long. He has outflanked the mullahs on the right on nuclear policy, pushing for a more confrontationist approach toward Washington. He has outflanked them on the left on women’s rights, arguing against some of the prohibitions women face. (He wants them to be able to attend soccer matches.)…
Even Ahmadinejad’s most grotesque statement, implying the annihilation of Israel, is likely part of this pattern. Iran is seeking leadership in the Middle East, and what better way to do so than by appropriating the core grievance of the Sunni Arabs: Israel….
If we could contain the Soviet Union, we can contain Iran. Look at your calendar: it’s 2006, not 1938.
Maybe Iran can be contained, but maybe it can not. It seems unwise. however, to hinge US policy on the 100% bet that containment will work. It is even more unwise to base that bet on believing precisely the opposite of what Iran and Ahmadinejad say are their objectives.
It is true that Iran is weak militarily, but then again, Iran does not want to invade Poland and France and occupy Europe — at least in a conventional sense. But there is no reason to believe that Ahmadinejad is not utterly committed, for example, to the destruction of Israel, an objective that might be accomplished without the need for a large conventional military, or a dynamic Iranian economy; having Hezbollah, long-range missiles, some suicide shock-troops and nuclear weaponry might well be sufficient to the task.
In the end, Zakaria wants to make the point that the US government — and particularly its conservative elements — characteristically overestimate the capabilities of our adversaries, and that this is what is happening with Iran: “Washington has a long habit of painting its enemies 10 feet tall — and crazy.” Maybe if Iran would curb its worldwide funding of terrorism, its lust for nuclear weaponry and delivery systems, its messianic commitment to the destruction of Israel, and its ideolgical indoctrination to suicide-murder, the US and the West might not have reason to paint an Iranian threat as “10 feet tall — and crazy.”
UPDATE
The WaPo reports that the “Iranian people love America, and they do not, not, not, like Ahmadinejad.” Who knew? Maybe they should get a democracy or something.
September 4th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
“It’s different than it was, but you ‘gotta’ know the territory.”
This is the first time in human history a war can be fought, by carrying mass destruction around in suitcases. When Islamic Fascists have the means, it will be too late to protect ourselves.
Today’s nuclear ability in the hands of the Natzi’s or Japan, would have eliminated the need to fight radical Islam, because there would probably have been no Islam at all.
And, we’re on our way to appeasing ourselves out of existence.
September 6th, 2006 at 11:39 am
I think the core of his article can be found here:
“Tehran’s nuclear ambitions are real and dangerous, but its program is not nearly as advanced as is often implied. Most serious estimates suggest that Iran would need between five and 10 years to achieve even a modest, North Korea-type, nuclear capacity.”
So, unless Iran can pull of some wicked-sharp shady arms dealing in unprecedented (by any nation) levels to get some actual nukes, they’re dead in the water, so to speak.