I wish I did. Anyway, Goldenberg writes the following on Democracy Arsenal of a Norman Podhoretz – Fareed Zakaria mini-debate on CNN:
In six minutes of News Hour footage you can boil down the entire argument over Iran between the crazies (Podhoretz) and the sane people (Zakaria). Notice especially, Podhoretz’s repeated references to Hitler. The “what would Hitler do” argument, which is often accompanied by the classic “You are worse than Chamberlin argument” is the oldest rhetorical trick in the book. Fortunately, I just don’t think that a country with a GDP the size of Florida’s represents the same threat as the industrial behemoth that was Germany.
Hmmm… Yes, I heard Podhoretz say some of that, but I also heard him questioning the policy of deterrence in the case of Iran by differentiating between Stalinist/Maoist regimes and the Mullahs on religious grounds. The Mullahs have a specific apocalyptic theology, which Goldenberg chooses to ignore. Do the Mullahs believe all this themselves? Khomeini himself most likely did. But now? Goldenberg must be betting they’re just kidding – or just weekend believers. He could be right, for all I know. But he could be wrong too. Then his attack on Podhoretz as “crazy” would seem itself crazy, wouldn’t it?
(The original video is on Goldenberg’s site, though it seems have been redacted.)
The nature of threats changes over time. The argument that Iran cannot be a serious threat because of its modest GDP makes no more sense than an argument that Nazi Germany could not have been a serious threat to Britain because it lacked a surface fleet that was remotely comparable with the Royal Navy.
People think the Iranians Mullahs are but an annoyance now, wait until they put five or ten nuclear warheads on their missiles. Then what? You going to take a chance and bomb? No? So they will be untouchable. Sanctions? Not if they expand by un-conventual means. Dollars to croissants the EU will fold. Arabs will want their bombs if the Persians have’m.
Also, at the end of Hilter’s Germany, there was all sorts of pulling the house down around them thinking in the Nazi higher-ups. They felt the German people and military let them down and didn’t deserve them.
I mostly agree with Podhoretz’s analysis of Iran: if anything, the recent “personnel moves” in Tehran (Jalili becoming the chief nuclear negotiator, for example) indicate that the extreme fringe of what is a millenarian, fascist regime is gaining dominance. I don’t think deterrence will work with this group, for it’s their ideology to create chaos to hasten the return of the Boy in the Well, the Mahdi. Directly threatening regime survival -once they have nukes- would be useless. They want an apocalypse. Negotiations with this regime is nothing more than begging to be played like a violin. Just ask the EU 3.
But, I don’t agree with Norman that all options have been exhausted and that we have to “bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran” (with apologies to the Beach Boys) right now. I agree with Ledeen’s analysis that there is still plenty we can do before they go nuclear. The sanctions against the IRGC are a good start, but we should use even more of our financial muscle to cut them off from world markets. Make it impossible for the mullahs to pay for those new Mercedes. Iran imports, what, 40% of its gasoline? Cut that off and they’ll be moving those centrifuge parts they got from somewhere (*cough*China*cough*) on donkey carts.
The majority of the Iranian people hate the regime. We should be doing much more to work with Iranian dissidents to help throw the regime into an internal crisis. We have plenty of cards left to play — there’s no need to send in the bombers.
Yet.
When Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933, inflation and depression had taken a chunk out of the strength of the German “behemoth”. Six years later, it was too late.
the big chasm in the West is between those who think Iran is “just kidding”, and those who do not.
It’s all about: is this expensive war optional for the US or is it not.
And that depends upon whether you think that S 9/11 was a TV show or a real event.
The argument we always hear is that Iran would never use nuclear weapons against us because we would know they were responsible and would retaliate with overwhelming force.
But if Iran is allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, and they will acquire them unless there is a regime change (and that does not in itself guarantee cessation of a nuclear weapons program) or a military strike, then it’s nukes for everyone.
What rationale would we have to insist Egypt shouldn’t get them? KSA? Syria? And on and on? At what point do terrorists feel they can detonate a nuke in an American city and know we will be unable to determine the source due to the number of possible culprits? Can anyone offer a rational scenario where unchecked proliferation does not lead to the eventual detonation of nuclear weapons in highly populated areas? Does anyone imagine that a fanatical Islamist terrorist organization filled with aspiring martyrs would balk at the chance to nuke NYC or Washington DC, no matter what our response was?
Multiculturalism as practiced by todays liberals demands that if we have nukes then other countries mustn’t be denied if they wish to acquire them.
The left’s view is so distorted by immersion in unrelenting anti-American and anti-Western propaganda that they are unable to distinguish between the danger of American military action to prevent nuclear proliferation, and the infinitely greater danger of unchecked proliferation throughout the ME and Third world.
That’s the grim reality and by now it’s apparent that it is impossible to change these people’s minds, as their emotional commitment to the tenets of leftist ideology is as absolute as any religious fundamentalist’s.
“Fortunately, I just don’t think that a country with a GDP the size of Florida’s represents the same threat as the industrial behemoth that was Germany.”
Wasn’t it Al Capone who said that “you can get more with a small GDP and a nuclear weapon than with just a small GDP alone?”
I watched their interchange the other day. They represent two different views on the problem. Surely this is a difficult problem because both sides have intellectually defensible positions. Zakaria came off better than I had seen him in a while. He was not downplaying Iran’s dangers but was suggesting, in essence, that we outlived Mao and Stalin, i.e., we won, they lost and the world didn’t “go nuclear.” His position was managing the situation and staying with the devil we know.
Podhoretz was saying that the mullahs aren’t Mao and that he was not comparing Iran to Hitler and Germany of the 1940s but more like the 1920s.
They never addressed the other issue clearly enough or at all. Namely that Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon more immediately threatens Israel and that threat is qualitatively and quantitatively different than the threats of Mao and Stalin because we live in a world where we actually can do something about such things. The USSR went into Hungary, and we did nothing then. We drew the line elsewhere. What lines do we draw in the sand? The Hitler analogy is all the more apt because of who Iran threatens, and Iran threatens Israel unaplogetically. There is never really a “what I meant to say was….” that comes from the mullahs. They mean what they say. Zakaria thinks they don’t really mean it but say it to get something else.
On a nonverbal level, Zakaria has a much better TV persona in a soundbite segment than Podhoretz. He comes across as more “likable” or with a higher “Q-factor” in those kinds of compressed, speak your complex intellectual point in 30 seconds situations. Podhoretz needs the time and space to allow his position and beliefs to unfold because they are quite nuanced. Yet in a soundbite segment, such as that, his TV persona comes across as impatient, rigid, irritable and in a hey this guy will get us all killed kind of way. Please understand that I do not at all think that’s the Podhoretz position, but he did not come across well on TV IMHO as he does in his writing.
Anthony, we have already excluded Iran from the international banking system. Thanks to the fact that US banks are critical players in same, given the choice between doing business with Iran and doing business with the US, every bank in the world chooses the US.
The Iranian regime is designed to suppress the Iranian people, to keep itself in power. The Iranian people don’t even have the ability to organize an opposition, let alone an insurgency. If we want the Iranian bomb stopped, we are going to have to do it ourselves. And we can’t stop at half measures, we will have to go after the regime itself.
Yes, Iran doesn’t have enough refining capacity for its own needs, but blockading gasoline deliveries is an act of war, you know. Be prepared to go the distance, if you want that done. But an invasion isn’t necessary, at least not in the beginning of our war on the mullahs, we have better options than that.
“the big chasm in the West is between those who think Iran is “just kidding”, and those who do not.”
This should be a major campaign issue in 2008. Which candidates believe that Iran is “just kidding”? Are these the type of individuals you want to see elected?
Absolute bare minimum Podhoretz deserves to be listened to, in full.
As to Podhoretz’s concerns with “religious fanaticism” (the Mullahs’, Ahmadinejad’s) representing a stark contrast with the motives of Soviet imperial design, Norman Podhoretz is not some simple minded, knee-jerk commentator who throws out ready-made labels for purposes of forwarding facile and tendentious arguments. It’s (“religious fanaticism”) essentially a label used for the sake of brevity during a curtailed on-air exchange, but Poshoretz is speaking from a depth and breadth of knowledge, not indulging in simplistic conceptions and tendentious arguments.
Andre Glucksman offers a more in-depth and supple appreciation of the factors Podhoretz is likely considering.
As to dismissing Podhoretz’s analysis of Iran as “crazy,” as is done at the “democracy arsenal” site, that airy dismissiveness is what is crazy. (Another crazy idea is the Israel/Arab refugee (Pali) position coming out of Hillary’s campaign, wherein more posturing, peace process, equivocating language, etc. is being advanced as a “solution.” Worse than crazy, such notions of endlessly repeating what has already been mindlessly attempted, time and again, is akin to a type of willful insanity. Yet Hillary’s conception of the “peace process” is somehow more attractive than Podhoretz’s assessment of Iran? But on what grounds? On grounds of deluded and wishful thinking – and little else.)
Zakaria may, perhaps, be right, and Podhoretz wrong. But that assessment is by no means apparent, is by no means obvious, such that mere dismissiveness need be asserted. Podhoretz – and Glucksman – deserve a full scale listen and appreciation and if he’s eventually to be rejected it needs to be on the basis of a cogent and supple argument, not a rank and facile dismissiveness.
“The argument we always hear is that Iran would never use nuclear weapons against us because we would know they were responsible and would retaliate with overwhelming force.”
The problem is, that those who you wish to deter must believe that you will actually retailiate, that you are serious. My fear is that the Unites States’ actions since (perhaps before) the 1979 taking of our embassy in Iran, and our apparent disunity about Iraq may lead countries like Iran to conclude that we would not retaliate with overwhelming force.