The best (only?) way to stop nuclear proliferation is nuclear
Evelyn Gordon argues that the best and most effective way to stop nuclear proliferation is military. In fact, Syria and Iraq are the only two countries where military action has ever been tried to halt a nuclear program. And so far, both are nuke-free. Moreover, in both cases, military action spared the world a nightmare. The current unrest in Syria would create a real danger of terrorist groups obtaining nuclear materiel had Israel not destroyed Syria’s reactor in 2007. And by bombing Iraq’s reactor in 1981, Israel made it possible for a U.S.-led coalition to go to war to reverse Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait – an invasion that, had it gone unchecked, would have destabilized the entire vital oil-producing Gulf region, but which the world would have had to swallow had Iraq had nukes by then.Someone had better call Barack Obama. And Ron Paul.
By contrast, consider the track record in places where military action wasn’t tried, like Pakistan and North Korea. Both not only have the bomb, but have merrily proliferated ever since to some of the world’s worst regimes. And in Pakistan’s case, there’s the added fear that radical Islamists will someday take over the unstable country, along with its nukes.
In fact, nonmilitary sanctions have never persuaded any country to abandon a nuclear program: The few countries that have scrapped such programs did so not in response to sanctions, but to domestic developments (regime change in South Africa) or to fear of military action (Libya after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003).
So far, the same is proving true in Iran, where years of nonmilitary sanctions have slowed its nuclear development, but have utterly failed to halt it, or to alter its leaders’ determination to pursue it. That confronts America with a stark choice: stick to nonmilitary methods that have never succeeded in the past until Iran becomes the next North Korea, or switch to military methods, which have worked in the past.
For if history is any guide, there is no third option.
Labels: Iranian nuclear threat, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Syrian nuclear program
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:55 PM
1 Comments:
Just read an interesting book... Charlie Wilson's War. Another one like Churchill's River War that we need to read in our book club. I saw the movie Charlie Wilson's War a few years back, but I had never read the book. First of all, I always thought Charlie Wilson was a Texas (R)... did anybody know he was a Dem? His purpose was to energize the Afghan jihad against the Soviets, thinking the Jihadis were way cool. His AA (admin asst) actually converted to Islam in the course of working on the Jihad Project. The results were 1) 9/ll and 2) Pakistan nukes. Representative Wilson (D-TX) was a suicide-level alcoholic. Well, I'm very happy that the commie USSR was stopped from their Afghan slaughter and then collapsed. But the idea that the Dems have been using the point that the Republicans under Reagan were the leaders of the arming of the Afghan and Pakistani Jihad is (yet another) BIG LIE.
Post a Comment
<< Home