Friday, February 17, 2012

War with Iran? Really!


It seems foolhardy to hear politicians rattling sabers at Iran, implying or even saying that they will go to war if Iran attempts to get nuclear weapons. There are definitely dangers inherent in Iran’s procuring nuclear weapons, but going to war with them does not seem to be the only answer.


The United Kingdom and France, our allies, are part of the nuclear club. Pakistan and India are nuclear, and while they frighten one another, we have not threatened to go to war with them. And, while it is not official, we all know that Israel has nuclear capabilities.


We ignored China until they detonated a nuclear bomb in 1964. Prior to that, we had not recognized the entirety of mainland China, calling Taiwan “China” after Mao Tse Tung and the Communists drove Chiang Kai Shek’s Nationalist forces onto that island. I always thought it a bit absurd that we did not “recognize” a land mass of 3696100 square miles (according to Britannica Encyclopedia), but that’s all we did when China went nuclear. We just didn’t officially notice them.


Because the former Soviet Union had actual weapons of mass destruction, we were engaged in a Cold War from the end of World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall in1989. That Cold War period lasted four decades and countless lives were lost containing Communism. We fought wars in Korea and Vietnam ourselves and financed wars by surrogates across the continent of Africa and Latin America.
And how about North Korea with nuclear weapons? No one has ever accused their leaders of sanity, have they?


I’d just as soon no one had the kind of power to annihilate entire populations, but, as my grandmother always said: If wishes were horses, we’d all take a ride. Like it or not, several countries have nuclear weapons, and, therefore, we have to learn to co-exist with them. We have used diplomacy and sanctions as well as working with other nations to keep those we fear at bay. Iran’s Arab neighbors are keeping very vigilant about Iran’s acquiring nuclear weapons, and so I hope that Israel does not get trigger happy too quickly. I fully understand why Israel is so leery about a nuclear-armed Iran, but I also hope that they do not start a war with Iran and drag us into it.


Let us not forget that we invaded Iraq on the unfounded belief that they had nuclear weapons. Remember President Bush’s speech to the United Nations? “Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year,” he told the U.N. General Assembly in New York in 2002. In September of that same year, National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice said on CNN: “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” As it was, Iraq had no nuclear weapons, but nearly 45,000 Americans died in that war and thousands more were wounded. We’re still in Afghanistan. Do we really want to wade into another war in the Middle East unless there is absolutely no other way?


Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Isn’t that how it goes? Wars have
unintended consequences. Iran’s new strength is partly a result of our having weakened their arch nemesis: Iraq. For decades, Iran and Iraq kept one another in check by fighting against or preparing to fight against one another. When we invaded Iraq, the U. S. and Iraqis had to concentrate on first squelching insurgents and then rebuilding a government and bombed-out buildings and infrastructure. With their eye off the Iranians, Iran grew stronger and more bombastic. There was no enemy on their border any more. We had seen to that.


Yes, Iran is a problem. But then so is North Korea with nukes and a crazy man at the helm, civil war and unrest in parts of the African continent, a weakening European market, a U. S. Congress who can’t play well with others, crumbling infrastructure in our own country, and so much more. Saber rattling and bellicose talk are of little use. As the old saying goes, talk is cheap. furthermore, loud talk is even less valuable. Dealing with the complex world in which we live requires a multiple pronged approach, not just guns blazing. Our foreign policy has to be more sophisticated than threats of war at every turn. We cannot afford to lose more lives and money to force our ideas on another country. How much of the world can we occupy? How many countries can we control? There are better ways. Instead of politicians standing around talking tough, we need statesmen and women, sitting around a table, thinking, reasoning, and strategizing. Please! More grownups in the room!