Charles Krauthammer cites the late brilliant physicist Richard Feynmann forecasting after World War II, during which Feynman worked on the Manhattan Project, that nuclear war was inevitable. CK sees three nuclear futures for the planet: two nightmares, one bearable. Nightmare One is fanatics starting a massive nuclear war. Nightmare Two is several cities destroyed by terrorist nuclear devices, causing a few million casualties and spurring liberal societies to jettison liberal democracy for a dictatorial order designed to prevent WMD attacks more efficiently than a liberal order can do. (The civil liberties crowd seems oblivious to this prospect, being permanently in denial.) The third is that liberal regimes act to defuse the Iran nuclear threat and establish a benchmark of preventing rogue states and terrorists from obtaining nukes, taking whatever action necessary.
CK is not sanguine that the West will act decisively against Iran. Sadly, as Michael Ledeen points out today on NRO, ignoring Iran's subversion in Iraq and negotiating over nukes shows that pessimists have reason to be gloomy. Ledeen says we must destroy the Iranian and Syrian regimes--start by strongly supporting democratic change in Iran and by bombing terrorist camps in Iran and Syria. The mullahs calculate, he writes, that our pursuing feeble negotiations, plus the severe damage inflicted by domestic critics on Bush, means that the US is paralyzed. The mullahs' calculation may well be right.
Comments