Small, intelligent, dangerous, mobile units
Diplomats and statesmen since the Treaty of Westphalia had grown accustomed to seeing nothing smaller than nation-states. This conceptual blindness prevented foreign ministries, academics or the United Nations — the very name a testament to the limits of its sensibility — from understanding that sub-national units under the banner of a world religion could arise to challenge the established international order. It was simply impossible, and yet it was. In retrospect all the signs were there. Though globalized business, unprecendented mobility, worldwide communications long weakened the prerogative of nations, they were still regarded as supreme.
belmont club
Out in the real world, some distance away from Canadian politics, Iran is going about the business of acquring a nuclear device. Or is it Iran?
A more accurate description would be that there are factions in iran who are in control of elements of the state and are willing to use them to acqire nuclear weapons….for whom? For themselves? Or for assorted terrorists? Or for Iran?
It is very difficult to see a significant difference between the functioning of Iran and the functioning of pre-invasion Afghanistan. Essentially, both nations were rules by religious wackos for who death was a blessed release and the notion of a nation state was subordinate to the idea of a religious community in opposition to the rest of the infidel world.
England went through much the same sort of thing during the Cromwellian Commonwealth. the good news is that that Commonwealth did not have nuclear weapons. Zealotry armed with plutonium is a rather different issue.
At this point the only question is whether or not the West will sit on its hands as the ayatollahs become nuclear capable. Naill Ferguson writes interestingly about the origins of the Great War of 2007 in the Telegraph. What will prevent that war is a continuation of the Bush doctorine of pre-emption. (Tyee readers may want to skip this bit as it may give them the vapors - you too Kevin.)
Mark Steyn, writing in the Telegraph suggests,
Why not tap into their excess energy right now? As the foreign terrorists have demonstrated in Iraq, you don’t need a lot of local support to give the impression (at least to Tariq Ali and John Pilger) of a popular insurgency. Would it not be feasible to turn the tables and upgrade Iran’s somewhat lethargic dissidents into something a little livelier? A Teheran preoccupied by internal suppression will find it harder to pull off its pretensions to regional superpower status.
the telegraph
. This represents the low end. The high end is to take seriously the sheer number of people who are threatened by a nuclear capable Iran and get on with the purely military job of taking out the regime.
The ayatolahs and their pawns are little loved by a growing middle class and a full scale invasion would not be unwelcomed by a significant section of the Iranian population. The question is whether or not the West has the gumption to actually bell this particular cat.
For the moment it does not. Or, to be more accurate, the Europeans cannot imagine war. But war is about the only thing which will stop the Iranian march to nuclear power status. And given that the Iranian leadership has been pretty specific as to where Missile #1 will be aimed, it is certainly time to begin to think seriously about striking preemptively.
Diplomacy is now worse than a joke - it’s an incentive. And if there is to be war I hope that Harper and the CPC have the courage to ensure that Canada is involved on the side of our allies.
Here’s Wretchard’s solution,
So what’s important is speed of action that leads to an internal revolution and regime change to minimize the impact on the poorer countries. We’ll need a multi-pronged effort, rubbling the nuke factories and related infrastructure, freezing international commerce and bank accounts, while maintaining an armed embargo of all large (truck, ship and pipeline) traffic in and out of Iran (that will damage the oligarchy’s pocketbook, power and prestige).
the belmont club
This is entirely doable. And it needs to be done. Nearly immediately. The only thing I would add is that an international force should take and hold the Iranian oil ports. Embargo is one thing, actually holding the taps is another and rather more powerful thing.
Written by jay on January 19th, 2006 with
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