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Right-wing talking heads such as Bill O'Reilly and Glen Beck are doing their best to push the US into confrontation with Iran. But I'm struggling to understand what's our beef with Iran. As was true with Iraq, there's a public reason-- a reason that drives support for a policy-- and there's a real reason. The real reason is that Iran represents a competing center of power against the US in a sensitive part of the world. The public reason, so far as I can tell, is lingering animus over the Carter hostage crisis, statements by Iranian leaders on the holocaust and Israel, and hints of an ambition to amass a nuclear arsenal. It's hard to be concerned that Iran wants the bomb since all of its neighbors-- China, Russia, Parkistan, Israel-- are in the nuclear club. The only country that has ever used an atom bomb occupies territory on its border and embraces a policy of preemptive war and regime change. Under those circumstances, Iran's expansion of its military in all dimensions is a rational response to the realities its faces. We co-existed with China and Russia for fifty years, two nations that were far more of a threat than Iran is, and ultimately it's the balance of power that keeps the peace. Power has simply shifted from Eurasia and the Pacific to the Middle East. There may be reasons why it's in our interest to fight Iran, but anti-Jewish rantings isn't one of them. I stipulate that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's words are false and offensive. But my response is: So what? Does the right to free but ignorant speech stop at our beaches or is it a core, universal value? If it's the latter, then what does it matter if Chavez calls Bush a devil and Castro calls Cheney a baboon, so long as they don't act on their words against our national interests? Ahmadinejad, Chaevez, and Castro are first and foremost politicans, and they'll play to their base, no less so than our politicians, with rhetoric. The worst mistake that we can make is to think that these folks either are crazy or are clowns. A more prudent assumption is to think that they're acting in concert with what what they think are their interests, and it will take accurate intelligence as well as a leap of empathy to fathom those interests. It behooves us to be clear about this, especially since countless lives are at stake. What is obvious to me is that rhetoric isn't intentions. Nor are capabilities intentions. To use an example: If you told me "I'll kill you", that doesn't give me the right to kill you. If you held a gun while saying the same thing, again, I would have no right to take your life. Why? Simply, the subjective perception of threat is not an adequate predicate for taking actions that cause harm, as there is a disportionality between my action in response to your words. There are exceptions. If you're waving a gun in my house, a reasonable person may consider that killing you is justifiable. But the legal standard for taking physical action against another person is high for a reason-- to prevent irreversable acts to occur based on possibly irrational impulses. There is a middle ground between doing nothing and commencing World War III as Beck and O'Reilly would have us do. This includes expanding intelligence, shows of force, and-- daring thought-- talking to rather than at the Iranians. My kids are in elementary and middle school, and like all school-ground kids, they know that sometimes they must stand up for themselves. However, I've tried to drill into them that they can defuse almost all situations that involve harm to themselves and others by using their words and charm, a lesson that is lost on the Bushites and neo-cons, preferring as they do violence and bluster to thought and discourse. |