The American Spectator

Ken (Old Texican)| 2.4.10 @ 7:01PM

Mr. Tabin,

I read and comprehend stuff pretty well. I have served as President of two fortune sized companies, and I got a lot of information...every day.

Your article above is the most incomprehensible stupid circular and ambiguous argument I have ever seen here at Am Spec.
Would you like to tell us one more time who you are dissing?

Dangling logic trees are really stupid, you know?
Please write declarative sentences.
For instance:
Iran whackos with nukes...bad.
Russian thugs with nukes...bad.
Mr. Krauthamer as analyst...good.
Revolution in Iran...ambiguous.
Iran Mullahs...bad.
See how easy it is? heh.

S.L. Toddard| 2.4.10 @ 7:07PM

Where Preble gets it wrong is comparing Iran to the USSR at all, since the USSR was a superpower that posed a real existential threat, whereas Iran is a third world dump with an economy and military one zillionth the size of ours. To imply that a nuclear-armed Iran could influence world affairs and antagonize the United States in the same fashion the USSR did is, obviously, absurd.

Gary| 2.5.10 @ 10:20AM

The difference between the USSR and Iran is that the leaders of the USSR wanted to live after they obtained power. The leaders of Iran have stated that they will willingly die if they can destroy those they hate, i.e., Isreal and the United States of America.

Red Phillips| 2.5.10 @ 1:54PM

"The leaders of Iran have stated that they will willingly die if they can destroy those they hate, i.e., Isreal and the United States of America."

Source please.

Christopher Holland| 2.5.10 @ 4:49PM

Obviously absurd to you, certainly - your thought processes clearly work in ways unknown to modern science. Consider this - during the Cuban crisis the Russians had a very small nuclear arsenal, but they still bought the world to the brink of catastrophe. How come that obviously absurd memory slipped your mind? Once again, you open your mouth when you have no idea what you are talking about. At least you are consistent - your comments are always stupid.

In August 1945 the US only had 2 nuclear bombs - a mere trifle. I guess that makes Hiroshima and Nagasaki obviously absurd to the people who lived there.

Liberal Reader| 2.4.10 @ 7:16PM

Preble's thesis is mighty questionable.

HOWEVER, there is an enormous amount of ignorance about Iran in this country, and the right wing press is particularly ignorant.

Here are some important things to keep in mind:

1. Iran has not attacked another country in over 400 years.

2. Iran was engaged in an awful war with Iraq in which it lost 1 MILLION people. Think about that. ONE MILLION. Consider our loss of three thousand on 9.11 and how traumatizing and painful that was.

3. In 1953 in U.S. and G.B. colluded with elements inside Iran to oust a democratically elected government and install an evil fascist dictator who governed by death squad. Iran remembers this. The U.S. now how soldiers on its eastern and western boarders. The fact that 90% or Iranians -- including those who are agitating for democratic reforms -- want Iran to have a bomb is hardly surprising.

Iran without question fosters and sponsors terrorism and they are a certain threat to our best friend in the region, Israel.

But they are also remarkably pro-western and pro-American. They are, as Sec. Rice said, "natural allies."

They're almost certainly going to get a bomb. There isn't anything we can do about it if they really want one.

Chance are, they'll be rational actors, as the Soviets were. That does not mean they'll do only good in the world, but it also means they'll operate in their own best interests, which means they will not use such a weapon and risk annihilation.

Ret. Marine| 2.5.10 @ 5:48AM

Something about "they'll be rational actors" just sent a chill right down my spine. Rational, get a grip dear man, this regime consist of what is known as the 12th'ers, do you even remoltely know of this ideology? or understand what Khommeni said of this movement? He said they were very dangerous, in fact he outlawed them in the governing structure for a reason. If you did I don't think you'd be left with the understanding that these are rational actors in any sense of the word. Oh, by the way did you catch Mahmoud's UN speach recently, some thing to the effect of "help me hasten the return of the great Mahdi, ring a bell to you? The 12th mahdi is not Jesus Christ himself by the way.

i lovemesome ayatolla| 2.5.10 @ 7:24AM

thanks for the rehash of why you liberals let the ayatollah in and kicked out the shah in 79. you idiots are completely responsible for this 'islamic revolution' and as such you should be on trial in NYC...

JP| 2.5.10 @ 7:48AM

SL,
You obviously haven't considered the geopolitics. Iran's Revolutionary Guards were responsible for the 1996 Khobar Towers bombings, hundreds of atttacks in Iraq from 2003-present, as well as arming and training Hezbollah.

Iran controls the Straits of Hormuz, of which 60% of the world oil flows through. The day that the CIA confirms in public that Iran has nuclear tipped missles, watch the price of oil triple. Nuclear weapons make Iran a defacto "world leader". Add in thier mullah's visceral hatred of Isreal, and you have the makings of a huge huge problem.

Currently both the CHICOMS and the Russians are providing the Iranians with surface-surface missles capable of sinking any US Carrier in the Gulf. Within 5 years Iran will have missle technology that give it the capability to hit even US targets. It currently can target cities in Southern Europe. The CHICOMS have built underground command centers for the Iranians that can survive our bunker busting JADAMs; all of thier nuclear processing facilities are underground and hardened; all of thier communications are secured via underground fiber optic cables.

The Iranian's eschatology is far different than Marxism. They are not calculating in the same way that a Gromyko, Molotov, or Brehznev was. The idea of MADD has never occured to them. They will use thier nuclear weapons if they see an oppurtunity. You obviously are confusing the Iranian people with the Iranian Mullahs. Yes, the Iranian people, over-all are very secular (even more so than the Iraqis) -at least by Islamic standards. But, the West continues to ignore them. First Bush and now Obama have made it plain that they will not use thier resources to bring down the revolutionary government from within. President Bush, at least for a few months in 2001, alluded to this. But then he "grew up" and allowed the professionals to take over. Since 2005, the US has outsourced the Iranin nuclear weapons problem the UN. President Obama has shown no inclination to change course.

S.L. Toddard| 2.5.10 @ 8:37AM

"Within 5 years Iran will have missle technology that give it the capability to hit even US targets."

Just shy of 20 years ago, in Jan 1992, the U.S. Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the House Republican Research Committee claimed there was a "98 percent certainty that Iran already had all (or virtually all) of the components required for two to three operational nuclear weapons.” Weeks later, Netanyahu told the Knesset: "Within three to five years, we can assume that Iran will become autonomous in its ability to develop and produce a nuclear bomb… (The nuclear threat) must be uprooted by an international front headed by the U.S.” That same year – 18 years ago – the Director of the CIA Robert Gates asked "Is [Iran’s nuclear program] a problem today? Probably not. But three, four, five years from now it could be a serious problem." 3 years later an Israeli official asserted that "If Iran is not interrupted in this program by some foreign power, it will have the device in more or less five years."

How long, I wonder, will that trick work?

Red Phillips| 2.5.10 @ 2:07PM

"They will use their nuclear weapons if they see an opportunity."

JP, there is no way you can know that. You have to base your threat assessment on actual intelligence. Not fear mongered worst case scenarios conjured up by some neocon keyboard warrior. Find me some credible intelligence without an agenda that will back up that statement.

To attack a country because they might get nukes which they then might use is preventative war and doesn’t come anywhere close to meeting Christian Just War standards.

davod| 2.5.10 @ 11:03AM

"1. Iran has not attacked another country in over 400 years. "

Please cut out the BS. Iran has conducted irregular warfare against the USA and other countries since 1979. That the US has allowed this to continue unchecked is an indictment against both major political parties.

John - TMF| 2.4.10 @ 11:29PM

Lemme see:

Ken... I think, I could be wrong but John Tabin seems to be making the point that the Isolationist Utopian Wing of the Libertarian algomeration is now pompostulating that if we just leave the mad mullahs to their self-abuse that everything will be happy and lovely. Of course then that particular branch of political thought wouold advocate that we all go smoke good cannabis from the grand bong in the sky. Everything will be just a mellow old time... (not saying Mr. Tabin is saying that... that's my little take on a good number of the Libertarians floating around the Cato think tank.)

So I think that he is on the side of the angels here... I think... um.. ok. And please note that sometimes the good Doctor Krauthammer is a tad wrong... sometimes... Guns... gays in the military... etc.

Next.

2. One uranium gun bomb with shielding and maybe a few decoys here and there will weigh in at
roughly 2,000 pounds. A Fat Man type implosion device about the same though the Little Boy device would fit better in a shipping container.

While everyone is looking to see a nuke loaded on a missile.. not enough people are going to remember that a magician fools lots of people by getting them to look where he wants them to, at the right time.

To Slaughtered and LibRed:

Weren't you two skulking around signing Kellogg-Briand Pacts and Washington Treaties? Nah those Germans... economy in ruins... forbidden to build an army... held in check by the mighty League of Nations.... They'll never be a threat. They can be ignored. Just like those Japanese types... little island, no resources... barely out of the feudal age... they aren't worth the trouble of paying attention to.

Funny how supposedly innocuous "inferior" nations have risen to bite us "right in the But-tocks. And that's all I have to say about that."

Well Ken, no more troll feeding for the evening for me. I shall leave old Slaughtered (funny how that is a word that pertains to how you harvest cattle for dinner.) and Liberal Reader (never mind) to your tender mercies.

Peace, Love, and Bobby Sherman,

The Mighty Fahvaag

Liberal Reader| 2.5.10 @ 12:14AM

Amazingly, almost admirably evasive response. But the substance isn't all that interesting.

Oh .. and just a tip:

Leave historical analogies alone for a while. Even people who know history really well usually only manage clumsy ones. Best to just try to talk simple and plain and make your point as succinctly as you can and explain your reasoning.

S.L. Toddard| 2.5.10 @ 7:20AM

What are you talking about, LR. Didn't you know that every year is 1938, every tin-pot third world backwater is Nazi Germany, and every American who does not support every Big Government scheme overseas is a Neville Chamberlain?

I've asked this before, but it bears repeating: Is there any group of people anywhere on earth more chicken-hearted than the Fox News Right? Such cowardly cry babies, hiding under their beds from ACORN (!), shivering in terror, forking over their liberties to a Daddy State to tuck them in at night and Keep Them Safe from The Terrorists, demanding Big Government be given more and more power and more and more wealth and more and more weapons because the mean old world makes them scaredy-scared, shrieking hysterically - on cue - every time Big Government trots out the next designated boogeyman.

With a citizenry like that, don't we *deserve* the government we have?

Pathetic.

Red Phillips| 2.5.10 @ 2:32PM

Sorry Toddard. I didn't see this before I wrote my comment below. Your first paragraph and my comment basically say the same thing.

What I find amusing is how often the chest beating interventionists invoke masculine references to fighting. Interventionists are real men standing up to bullies. Non-interventionist are girlie men. One even had a habit of describing Obama's foreign policy as "vaginal." Blah blah blah. But it is the interventionists who are really the ones driven by fear. "Oh my! The big bad Iranians are out to get me. What will we ever do?" So I ask you, who is really the girlie man in this scenario?

Red Phillips| 2.5.10 @ 2:18PM

It never takes long for the interventionists to play the WWII card. You see, when we cite Washington's Farewell Address we are always told that it is year 20xx and Washington's archaic notions no longer apply. But yet it is always 1939 with some new Hitler waiting to emerge if we drop our guard in the slightest. So which is it? The year 20xx and not those archaic times when Washington spoke, or always 1939?

John - TMF| 2.5.10 @ 8:57AM

Oh dear. I made a point of history to a pair of stuck intellects. I normally cease the slopping of the hogs after a well placed shot, but this begs a tad of actual real history.

LR- I am so sorry to have challenged your brain. It is difficult to think of the implications of your demanded pacifist isolationism. I was offering some very accurate analagous points of historical reference. I thought it more intellectually stimulating that calling names.

2. Slaughtered: If you actually had a fact fall on your head and wiggle you couldn't find it.

The Washington Naval Treaty was signed in February 1922, and was the first comprehensive Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty in the Western world. It limited the ratio of capital ship numbers and tonnage (battleships and cruisers) of the major powers of the time. AND in case you didn't get the message the President of the time was a REPUBLICAN... (some lessons are learned harder than others.)

The Kellogg-Briand Pact which declared eternal peace through the forswearing of war was signed in August of 1928. It, too was a REPUBLICAN isolationist progressive fantasy.

Just so the history challenged can understand the context of the analogy, and the silliness of your non-rebuttal, Hitler was just a gang leader ranting about oppression and injustice who had been convicted of leading the infamous Beer Hall Putsch scheme in 1923. Germany was still a crippled post WWI Republic at the time.

Benito Mussolini's Black Shirt thugs marched on Rome in October 1922, and it took years for him to consolidate power in that disorganized fractious mess. His little "Third Way" gimmick - better known as Fascism - plagues us to this day in the form of the Democrat Party which adopted it as an unnamed base political and economic philosophy in the Wilson presidency, and was re-instituted with relish with the election of FDR.

So... history lesson over.

Conclusion. You both are sleeping through growing threats that you WILL not see because it is inconvenient. Your world view is completely centered around your navels, and that, in a world where mid 20th century technology is deadly. Threatening us is well within the reach of the Mad Mullahs and other murderous thugs of the world.

We paid for our isolationism once (The invasion of Manchuria by Japan in 1931 leading up to December 7, 1941), and our ignorance of the danger again (repeated attacks through the 1990's culminating in September 11, 2001) .

The next large attack, well, it is unlikely to be limited to the number of innocent souls who perished on 9/11. Your attitude will seal our fate.

Foolish people.

- The Mighty Fahvaag

S.L. Toddard| 2.5.10 @ 9:44AM

Perhaps if you repeat your shabby analogy enough it will become legitimate. And boy that Kellogg-Briand Pact really had dire consequences. Good thing we withdrew from it.

Oh wait we didn't - it's still binding law to this day.

Thanks for the "history lesson". Haha.

Red Phillips| 2.5.10 @ 2:45PM

"We paid for our isolationism once (The invasion of Manchuria by Japan in 1931 leading up to December 7, 1941)"

So John, are you suggesting that America in 1931, without the benefit of a crystal ball, should have gone to war against Japan for the sake of China?

Interesting.

As for your hind sight history, the cause of WWII was WWI. Had the US not intervened in WWI and tipped the balance, the war would have likely ended in a stalemate and a more just peace. No Treaty of Versailles. No WWII. So had we minded our own business in WWI, as we should have, there would have been no WWII, no rise of Hitler, no Holocaust, no Cold War, etc.

Marko| 2.5.10 @ 10:48AM

Russia (and perhaps China) is attacking the West by proxy through Iran.

J.P. @ 7:48 had a great response. When Iran decides to close the Hormuz Straits, that, or some other "escalating event" will involve us in another war that will spread us so thin that the clenched fist of Communism (which still is clenched, btw), will make ready to come down hard on the West.

Who do you think gave all these terrorists and "3rd world dumps" their weapons and training for the past 40 years or more? That's right - the Soviet Union / KGB. And they continue to do so even today, although under different names and through different channels. (Although, I question "different channels", because when the Soviet Union "collapsed", some of the same channels of arms sales and drugs trafficking and other nefarious dealings remained in place. We just chose to ignore what was going on because the Soviets/Russians were "good guys" now.)

It really IS too bad that we never had the opportunity (or availed ourselves of it, if it existed), of crushing the Soviet Union and the worldwide socialist revolution way back in the good old days, because if we had, the problems we in the West face now would not be so grave.

Connor| 2.5.10 @ 12:10PM

Hey Tabin, your logic is completely off centered. Being able to launch a rocket into space is COMPLETELY relevant to launching missles at other countries. if they can reach america, we've got a problem. the US continuously underestimates its opponents, and we pay for it. the anti-missle system we have is nothing of what we make it to be. it may be able to take out a few of them, but if a multitude of them were shot, one of them would probably hit the mainland. Also, one of the bigger fears and possibilities, although it would be some time, Iran being able to launch rockets into space may as well lead to another rocket containing an EMP (electromagnetic pulse bomb), which cant be shot down unless it is expected. the EMP would short-circuit all electronic devices, cars would stop working, planes and helicopters would fall from the sky, and it would cause extreme chaos and untold amounts of death and destruction. also, as previously mentioned by some people in the comments, The leaders of iran are 12ths, and that pretty much pushes the level to code red.

Hashalom| 2.5.10 @ 12:17PM

The US Administration, in concentrating their efforts on fighting the indoctrinated intimidated subversives, is ignoring
the Despot's Agenda of combating Democracy by financing both the Islamic Supremacy studies in the Madras and the arming of International Terrorism.
The Despots' agenda is to ensure the perpetuation of their own regimes by combating encroaching Democracy, in the Middle East.
Iran has as its objective to provide the compelling Atomic Power to assure the ascendancy of Sharia throughout the world.
If the Democratic forces don't get around to giving the Saudis/Iranians/Syrians an offer they can't refuse - Democracy should prepare for the ensuing Dark Ages.

Red Phillips| 2.5.10 @ 3:37PM

"to assure the ascendancy of Sharia throughout the world"

The world? The whole world? Please work that out for me. Explain to me the scenario whereby a nuclear Iran spreads Sharia throughout the entire world? Does this include the US? Japan? China? Russia? Wow. You must not give the citizens of those countries much credit if you think they are going to let little Iran do that. Do you think that well armed red-blooded American Bob in South Alabama or wherever is just going to sit idly by as a bunch of foreigners impose Sharia law on him and his family? You must really have a low regard for your fellow (I assume) Americans if you believe that.

But of course, it is us non-interventionists who are the fearful girlie men.

ACynic| 2.5.10 @ 1:45PM

The major difference betwixt the former USSR and the Iranian leadership is that the latter are suicidal religious maniacs. They will not blink if, by launching , say, on Israel, they in turn will be incinerated.
To the Iranian leadership, this will give them a first class, one way ticket to the 1000 virgins in heaven.
We have seen this movie before.
Witness the Kamikazee (sp?) of WWII, who had no qualms dying for the emporer. It was only the absolutely devasting and massive destruction of TWO !!!! (not one, but TWO) atomic bombs that forced Japan to surrender.

Iran has clearly stated, repeatedly, they will take out Israel. Not only is Israel taking their threats seriously, so are the Arabs - who fear the Iranians as much as the Israelis.

So what that Iran has not attacked anyone in a million years. Today' s leadership has stated, explicitly they will exterminate Israel.
They will.

Red Phillips| 2.5.10 @ 2:55PM

"the latter are suicidal religious maniacs. They will not blink if, by launching, say, on Israel, they in turn will be incinerated.
To the Iranian leadership, this will give them a first class, one way ticket to the 1000 virgins in heaven."

Please cite me some credible intel sources without an agenda who believe this. Thanks.

"Iran has clearly stated, repeatedly, they will take out Israel.

So what that Iran has not attacked anyone in a million years. Today's leadership has stated, explicitly they will exterminate Israel.
They will. "

Oh really? Repeatedly? Source please. Thanks.

"they will exterminate Israel"

And this is an American military issue as opposed to an Israeli military issue because...?

Chicken Little Interventionist| 2.5.10 @ 3:24PM

Toddard and Red are just a couple of pacifist, liberal wusses. They obviously haven't been reading all the neocon fear mongering sources or they would know better. Don't they realize that every Iranian is a crazed suicidal lunatic hell bent on the destruction of Israel and the United States (in that order) unless we preventatively bomb them. Unless we act now Jerusalem, NYC, and DC will be under mushroom clouds, and we will all be speaking Farsi and our wives wearing burqas. Why can’t they see this? It is all so clear.