Regime change in Tehran is the best nonproliferation policy. Even if the next Iranian government refused to give up the weapons program, its need for Western economic assistance and its desire for reintegration into the global economy and international order would at least cause it to slow today's mad rush to completion and be much more open to diplomatic discussion. A new government might shelve the program for a while, or abandon it altogether. Other nations have done so. In any event, an Iran not run by radicals with millennial visions would be a much less frightening prospect, even with a nuclear weapon.It's not just the "evil" neocons who see regime change as an increasingly likely solution to the Iran problem. See also, Richard Haass, "Enough Is Enough: Why We Can No Longer Remain on the Sidelines in the Struggle for Regime Change in Iran."
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Regime Change Iran
Here's Robert Kagan on changing regimes in Iran:
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11 comments:
"Other nations have done so. In any event, an Iran not run by radicals with millennial visions would be a much less frightening prospect, even with a nuclear weapon."
i can't see this possibility as long as there is a union of state with the moslem religion in iran.
its not the radical politician that is the problem but the radical mullahs of the religion that is the problem.
and i'll go even farther by saying if it is not iran it will be another moslem religious state that will create a problem if for no other reason than the fact israel continues to exist.
Iran has not threatened the US. It does not occupy the territory of any of its neighbors.
As much fun as the Neocon Wars have been, another illegal, aggressive war just isn't affordable right now. Besides, as Justin Logan has documented, the usual suspects are again shamefully manipulating intelligence to justify intervening in Iraq, all too similar to what preceded the invasion of Iraq.
And this Newsweek article offers a much more accurate description of Neocons than the one you linked to:
"These are men for whom too much came too easily in life, so it was all too easy for them to view our troops as mere tools to implement their visions," says the military-affairs columnist Ralph Peters, a retired Army intelligence officer. (Peters is perplexed and irked when called a neocon himself. "I'm not qualified," he says. "I served in the military, didn't go to a prep school, didn't go to an Ivy League university, and didn't have a trust fund. And I'm physically fit.")
That's right, Old Reb, let's all just sit around with our heads up our asses and let that insane Iranian Hitler someday soon lob a nuke in the direction of Tel Aviv, or maybe Riyadh, Baghdad, or whatever.
Then, after the war starts in earnest, and there will be a war, in which hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent people will be killed.
Then skyrocketing oil prices set of a global economic melt-down that will bring instability and chaos to billions of people all over the world.
Who knows? It might just touch off wars all over the globe, as economics is almost always a factor in armed conflict.
Then you can come in here and tell us all that it's really okay, though, because Iran didn't launch that missile at us.
As for your quoting NewsTweak, you may be among he twelve readers that rag has left.
-Dave
Old Rebel,
i don't think anyone would disagree that we cannot afford to enter into another war at this time.
any war is aggressive. but what war are you referring to that was "illegal"?
Dave,
Ahmadinejad is no Hitler. Hitler was the absolute dictator of a major industrialized nation. Ahmadinejad has limited power, and he has not shown any hostile intentions.
Killing people based on speculation that they might do something bad is pure insanity.
Haven't we learned our lessons from Iraq?
Old Reb,
It just so happens that on the exact same day you are in here telling us how illegal it would be to take preemptive action as it regards Iran, it's chief mad mullah (of the very type The Griper refers to above), Ayatollah Ali Weird Beard Khamenei pops up and calls for the outright destruction of the nation of Israel:
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's supreme leader predicted the destruction of Israel in comments posted on his Web site on Wednesday, in some of his strongest remarks in years about the Jewish state.
In the past, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called Israel a "cancerous tumor" that must be wiped from the map, but the new comments mark the first time in years he has openly speculated about Israel's demise.
"Definitely, the day will come when nations of the region will witness the destruction of the Zionist regime," Khamenei was quoted as saying. "How soon or late (Israel's demise) will happen depends on how Islamic countries and Muslim nations approach the issue."
You can find the entire AP story here:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9DG89G80&show_article=1
Perhaps the idea of a bunch of incinerated Jews and Arabs doesn't concern you all that much, but it does me, along with most other people on Earth.
If we have the power to prevent this before it even starts, yet sit by and do nothing - thus allowing it to happen, then we are not just an irresponsible people, but an immoral one at that.
Any military conflict Iran might cause in that region could easily spread well outside of it, and very quickly, too. It doesn't take much to trigger a world conflict, either. WWI got its start when some obscure Archduke and his wife each caught a bullet in Sarajevo one summer afternoon.
Twenty years later, the conflict resumed in the form of WWII, which could very possibly have been prevented, at least in the European Theater, as Hitler could have been easily stopped long before his tanks and artillery moved across the Polish border that fateful morning.
Churchill tried to warn people about what was coming, as he could see it as plain as day. Not only that, but Adolf himself had written an entire book signaling his intentions, but nobody was paying attention, or were looking the other way. After all, it was a European problem and didn't affect us, right?
Naivete, indecision and rose-colored glasses got a hell of a lot of people killed in the last century.
We could, I guess, simply ignore the lessons of that history, and thus live it all over again.
-Dave
Dave,
"the destruction of the Zionist regime" isn't the same as a threat to wipe out the people of Israel. It's instead a prediction that the Israeli government will fall.
Why would Iran attack a nation with over 200 nukes and a first-class army?
The Griper,
Although I don't approve of the UN, the fact is, the US ratified the UN Charter. Articles 41 and 42 of Chapter VII of the UN Charter specify than member nations must obtain UN Security Council approval to go to war. And Article VI, Section 2 of the Constitution makes treaties the law of the land.
Old Reb,
"the US ratified the UN Charter. Articles 41 and 42 of Chapter VII of the UN Charter specify than member nations must obtain UN Security Council approval to go to war"
i don't know where you get that idea from in those two articles.
The Griper,
You asked, 'what war are you referring to that was "illegal"?'
And the answer is "Iraq." We don't need another war, period. We're still busy losing the ones we're already in.
Old Reb:
,Why would Iran attack a nation with over 200 nukes and a first-class army?
Gee, maybe because they are a nation run by 7th century illiterate camel-washing morons?
Who knows?
-Dave
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