Now we have regional experts telling us who's undeterrable?
Thomas Barnett
OP-ED: "August 22," by Bernard Lewis, Wall Street Journal, 8 August 2006, p. A10.
Front page of WSJ promised analysis of MAD (mutual assured destruction) working in Mideast, so I figured we'd see someone who's an expert address this issue systematically, pointing out how it's worked the world over, including in the Mideast with Israel, for decades.
Instead we get numerology worthy of Louis Farrakhan from Bernard Lewis.
Thus is the pathetic state of the strategic discussion on Iran right now, after Tehran very strategically and very rationally and very cleverly outmaneuvered the Bush administration by launching this proxy war in the West Bank and Lebanon, very artfully deterring any serious possibility of any significant military option by the U.S. through the rest of the Bush second term.
The logic is awfully strained: Ahmadinejad promises a response on the latest U.S. nuke proposal by 8/22. August 22 equals the 27th day of the month of Rajab in the year 1427. On this night, many Muslims mark the night flight of Muhammad on a winged horse, which he flies to the Jerusalem and then to heaven and back.
Got it?
Here's the clinching analysis:
This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind.
Now there's some useful speculation that's merely a cover to declare Iranian leaders irrational on the basis of religious imagery instead of the historical record since 1979 (quick, spot the suicidal strikes by Iran!).
Then Lewis trots out an old blustery quote from Khomeimi promising "annihilation" of the "world devourers."
That's it. Lewis offers an ass-covering, quasi-prediction of a world-ending strike by Iran on 22 August. I guess the whole thing might seem implausible because Iran has no nuclear-armed missiles, but why bother noting that when you're spinning Jack Van Impe-style tales from Iran's Shiite version of the Book of Revelation?
Bernard Lewis as Nostradamus of the Middle East. This is what the neocons have devolved into?
Lewis claims the mindset of Iran's leaders means that "MAD is not a constraint, it is an inducement."
Wow! Nice leap of assertion there.
So MAD is now all of a sudden madness, so sayeth Lewis.
Wasn't madness for genocidal Stalin or "we will bury you" Khrushchev. Wasn't maddness for the greatest mass murderer of all time, Mr. "you're nukes are just a paper tiger" Mao Zedong. Hasn't been for "irrational" foes Pakistan and India. Or theocratic "never again" Israel. We easily deterred Gotterdammerung-promising Saddam (twice) on that score.
But those are just historical facts.
But Iran? Surely it breaks down here, and all you need to prove that is Muhammad's night flight to Buraq.
Let's stick to reality, not rhetoric on Iran.
Bush is an evangelical. Do we interpret everything he does by the Book of Revelation?
Worked for Jimmy Carter, our first born-again prez, did it not?
Ah, Iran had its revolution on his watch? Coincidence?
I am stunned the WSJ would publish and promote just a goofy op-ed.
Lewis goes to the back of the classroom for this, complete with dunce hat.
Regional experts are very dangerous and very biased sources of strategic analysis. They simply know too much, being such vertical drill-down artists, that left to their own devices they will pepper us with crappy pseudo-analysis like this.
72 "virgins," or is it 72 "raisins"? Gotta get these apocalyptic translations right before we launch any tubes, okay?
Bush and Co. thought they were slowly but surely setting up Iran for some end-of-term miltary strike. Iran's leaders weren't stupid enough to sit still for that, so they pre-empted in a very calculated, safe and effectively deterring manner.
Trying to mask all that strategic failure with gobbleygook like this is just plain sad.
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