Sunday, January 15, 2006

A Preemptive Strike on Iran's Nukes

Another provocative piece on today's Telegraph is Harvard (!) Professor Niall Ferguson's bit of prognostication on one possible course that the future may take in the Middle East. In the mode of Sir John Hackett's influential The Third World War, August 1985, Ferguson notes the similarities between, on the one hand, the anti-semitic regime in Tehran rearming and the attendant difficulties that the Western democracies have in responding, and events of about 70 years ago.

He suggests that if war does break out, we will all have wished we had pre-empted Iran's nuclear program. The alternatives are far bleaker.

Will measures short of preemption be effective in protecting the world from the Iranian bomb? Does effective preemption lie within the military ability of the United States or one of its allies? Does it lie within anyone's political ability?

Will such questions get the attention they deserve? On this last point, we are confident of the answer. A prize goes to the first person who guesses.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

No, they won't. So where's my prize?

Guy named Courtney said...

The strike will not come from us, we're stretched too thin. Our allies won't jump into a middle east war without us. And finally the answer. The strike will not come from us, or one of our allies from Europe, and certainly not Russia, so who does that leave? Perhaps the same Jewish nation that fired a strike against an Iraqi nuclear plant back in 1980 perhaps.

Jon A. Alfred E. Michael J. Wile E. SWNID said...

Dudes, wrong question. The question is whether the possibility of preemption will get any attention.

Guy named Courtney said...

Oh, well then no, the MSM wouldn't give any thought to that. Though I did see that the West Wing would like us to take action in Sudan to stop the fighting there...but we should still be in Iraq too and everywhere else. And if that happened I would have to go and my wife would be very very upset, so don't tip anyone off please!

Anonymous said...

This dude understood the question and answered No. So, again, where's my prize?

Guy named Courtney said...

I would just like to say:
Told you so!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060122/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_nuclear