Hunkered Between Santorum and Paul Lies Peace Through Total War
In these kinds of questions, it is all about the probability of false negative versus false positive errors and the calculation of which error the country is willing to live with.
If we bomb Iran and destroy what appears to be their nuclear bomb building installation, there will be some very negative consequences–oil price through the roof & a recession for instance. For the sake of argument let’s say there is a 90% chance that they never would use that capability against us–that’s probably high, but lets use it for the sake of this argument. That means there is a 90% chance we will made an error in unnecessarily bombing the Iranian facility and this error will bring about some moderately bad results. In other words, high possibility of error resulting in relatively bad results.
But now weigh the 90% probability of a false negative error with a 10% chance of a false negative error–that is to say, if we don’t bomb the facility and the produce a bomb, there is a 10% chance they would use it against us. The consequences of this error, are, I think we can all agree–catastrophic. So, if you are the leader of the free world, which error are you willing to live with. The first, high probable error, but you know most everyone will live to see the country pull out of the recession, or the 2nd low probable error, but if you a wrong, millions die, and the country’s future is in serious doubt.
This is likely the argument used in the invasion of Iraq, but of course, no one ever tried to explain it that way. The sharp-edged military leaders probably thought it couldn’t be explained–they may have not even tried to explain it the Bush–Cheaney, yes he could understand, I am not sure about Bush.
