Conventional Wisdom Shifts Toward Belief, We Can Live With a Nuclear Iran

by on May 29, 2008 10
Amitai Etzioni is quoting a Council on Foreign Relations type saying we have to live with a nuclear Iran. He won't say who. For weeks I've meant to record a similar data point: that Fareed Zakaria said as much on Charlie Rose May 1. Charlie: "You believe we almost have to accept the reality that Iran will have nuclear... weapons?"

FZ: "I hope that we can find ways to provide them with very strong disincentives...[But] I think we could live with a world with Iranian nuclear weapons. I would prefer not... we should make them pay a price."

Zakaria goes on to say that Iran should be deprived of WTO membership and the rest, but he says we deterred the Soviet Union and China, we can deter Iran too. No mention of Israeli nukes, that I heard anyway.

I didn't listen to the whole thing. Shalom Freedman, an active commenter on such issues, says Zakaria also said that we should negotiate with Hamas. "He finds elements in them willing for peace with Israel. I think he is wrong about this."

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Beyondoweiss, Israel/Palestine, US Policy in the Middle East

{ 10 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. Joachim Martillo says:
    May 29, 2008 at 5:40 pm

    If we are going to have a rational realist foreign policy, shouldn't we try to reach out to the Iranians as they seem to have tried to reach out to us in Afghanistan and with personal mail to the President.

    The realist Nixon-Kissinger policy dumped the ROC for better relations with the PRC.

    From strictly strategic interests dumping Israel for better relations with Iran and perhaps eventually an alliance makes a lot of sense.

    In fact, geostrategically the USA often worked with the Shah of Iran because of common interests in the Gulf region.

    Those common interests have not changed even if Khamenei is the head of the state.

  2. JJ says:
    May 29, 2008 at 8:48 pm

    Dunkin Donuts Pulls Ad Featuring Rachael Ray In A Scarf That Looks Too Arab

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/28/dunkin-donuts-pulls-ad-fe_n_103859.html

    This kind of pressure isn't the work of the Italian-American community. I for one am tired of it.

  3. samuel burke says:
    May 29, 2008 at 9:04 pm

    can we live with a nuclear Iran?
    i'd say, what the hell! why not?

    we already live with many nuclear powers and as long as the nuclear powersource is used for generating power for constructive purposes, i'd once again say, what the hell! why not?

    now using nuclear power as a means to intimidate really ought to be frowned upon.

    the world needs to look forward and define peace in the present.
    utopias are for dreamers with a control fixation.

  4. sword of gideon says:
    May 29, 2008 at 9:34 pm

    Minor problem with that little scenario. The middle east is about to embark on a nuclear arms race. You have the region with most of the worlds oil reserves on a hair trigger nuclear alert. But wait I forgot, Obama will gather all the leaders around the camp fire and sing kumbaya, and all wil lbe well.

  5. samuel burke says:
    May 29, 2008 at 9:57 pm

    wouldnt it be the worlds sickest joke to get Barack Obama elected president and attack the rest of the middle east under his presidency.

    the wilsonian candidate.
    the sequel to the manchurian candidate.

    these guys seem to do just the opposite of what they promise as a rule not an exception.

  6. samuel burke says:
    May 29, 2008 at 10:02 pm

    as long as you see your brother as your enemy there will be war.

    shalom aleichem.

    some problems are worth solving.

  7. Protest II says:
    May 29, 2008 at 10:28 pm

    We forget that the Russian people hated Stalin.
    There is no doubt that ordinary Iranian hates the fascist Iranian Junta.

    This fact does not bother Phil.
    The Junta was elected fairly in Phil's journalistic view.

    Where are all the human shields to defend the suffering Iranian from the Junta and economical thieves of Tehran?

  8. Sagredo says:
    May 29, 2008 at 10:49 pm

    Etzioni's case would be stronger if he discussed instances of Iranian foreign policy that were "profoundly irrational" in not following Iran's self-interest.

  9. patrick says:
    May 29, 2008 at 11:20 pm

    The nuclear bomb horse has left the barn. When 3rd world countries like India and Pakistan have nukes, then any nation can have nukes.

    People still poop in the streets in India and Pakistan … it's a global economy, gotta take the good with the bad.

  10. Joachim Martillo says:
    May 30, 2008 at 9:01 am

    From Amitai Etzioni:

    "I am one of those who holds that the opposite is true; that many states–Iran, among others–have leaders who are very capable of acting in ways that are profoundly irrational, hence posing a serious threat both to other countries as well as to their own. We now have a new report that says volumes on the limits of rationality of heads of state.

    "George Piro, the FBI agent who interrogated Saddam Hussein over several months, has just revealed what he learned about the Iraqi dictator's mindset leading up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. It turns out that Saddam did not expect that the U.S. would respond to his WMD posturing with a full-scale ground invasion. Saddam "told me" Piro says, that "he initially miscalculated … President Bush's intentions. He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998 … a four-day aerial attack…He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack." This was not merely some minor tactical "misunderstanding" or "miscalculation" on Saddam's part; it turned Iraq into an occupied land, caused hundreds of thousands of casualties, a regime change, and, ultimately, his execution.

    "(One reason Saddam opened up to this rather low-ranking agent was that he believed that the agent was a direct emissary from President Bush. This suggests how gullible even heads of state can be — not exactly what we'd consider rational.)"

    Who are Americans (or in this case a Zionist academic) to call Iranian leaders irrational?

    The USA maintains a racist Jewish state in the ME despite US best interests.

    So what if Saddam opened up to Piro? That was Piro's job. If I interrogated Etzioni for a few months under the same conditions Saddam experienced, Etzioni would be convinced by the later sessions that I was a direct emissary from God.

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