The report on Iran that the International Atomic Energy Agency released this week had been awaited with bated breath, with much pre-spinning of the substance. But the breath was at least as much baited as bated. Despite references in the surge of report commentary about new evidence on this or that aspect of the subject, the report told us nothing of importance to policy on Iran that was not already well known. The voluminous commentary has consisted chiefly of people saying what they had intended to say on the topic all along, with the report being just the latest peg on which to hang such talk.
This week's surge in comments about the Iranian program is another step in a long-running process that seems destined to push U.S. policy toward a disastrous conclusion. It is a process of talking up Iran and specifically the nuclear program as if there were no greater danger to Western civilization as we know it. When this theme is voiced often enough, loudly enough, by enough people, it becomes a received wisdom that is accepted automatically with no effort to determine whether it is true. That in turn leads to the notion, also widely and automatically accepted, that an Iranian nuclear weapon must be prevented at all costs, with no effort to add up the costs. Commentary such as that heard this week entrenches the further theme that Iran is on an inexorable march toward building a nuclear weapon, with no consideration to all the influences, many of which are in the control of the United States, that will help to determine whether or not Tehran ever takes that step. As the discourse about the Iranian nuclear program moves through still more chapters, with the IAEA report being the occasion for the latest chapter, the very length of the discourse fosters the impression that all manner of means have been tried to deal with the perceived problem that the program represents. The impression lingers even though there are wide diplomatic avenues that have never been explored. So we get patently false remarks such as one from Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy that “no one can reasonably argue that countries threatened by Iran have not tried all peaceful alternatives.”
This whole process treats a policy question such as “what should be the U.S. posture toward Iran?” as if it is to be equated with an empirical question such as “is Iran working to make a nuclear weapon?” This is not the first time this mistake has been made. In the selling of the Iraq War, the Bush administration hammered so relentlessly into the public consciousness the theme of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that many people never stopped to notice that a presumed Iraqi unconventional weapons program, even if entirely real, simply did not equate with a case to launch an offensive war.
American politics, especially amid a presidential-election campaign, exacerbate these unfortunate tendencies. We see it most obviously in Republican presidential candidates falling over each other in an effort to declare their love for Israel and their toughness on Iran.
The latest round in the national discourse about Iran contains several gaping holes, the biggest of which is any serious and careful consideration of what danger an Iranian nuclear weapon actually would pose. The closest things to a serious effort to posit such a danger ultimately come up short. The direction the discourse has taken has meant that any questioning of this supposedly grave danger is already outside the mainstream. But being in the mainstream does not make something valid.
Comments
Well said Mr. Pillar!
Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation For The Defense Of Democracies wrote (which quote was then further propagated by Jennifer Rubin of the Wash. Post):
An easily demonstrable, categorical misstatement. What about a Nuke-Free ME Accord? Easily corrected by Dubowitz however by just amending his existing statement to say "not tried all peaceful alternatives not vetoed by Israel."
"The latest round in the national discourse about Iran contains several gaping holes, the biggest of which is any serious and careful consideration of what danger an Iranian nuclear weapon actually would pose."I would argue that the ether has been filled with discussions of the dangers of Iran's possession of a nuclear weapon, not the least of which is the implicit threat by Iran to eliminate the state of Israel. I am not so sanguine as to believe this is mere hyperbole on the part of the Iranian leadership.
Paul this was a fantastic article - sadly the American public is so overtly jingoistic and supporting all military action is the utmost in patriotism we can be sure there will be some Sarajevo or false flag event that will catapult us into war with Iran. 4-5 years later the American public will again come to realize that our leaders lied to us or greatly exagerated any threats which led us into yet another illegal war of aggression. I only have one teeny tiny nit to pick with your article as it makes a sweeping statement about the GOP candidates which isn't exactly correct: "We see it most obviously in Republican presidential candidates falling over each other in an effort to declare their love for Israel and their toughness on Iran."Both Ron Paul and Gary Johnson do not support the GOP status quo foreign policy of interventionism and preemptive war. Neither support Foreign Aid to any country (including all Arab nations and Israel for that matter). Again I hope more Americans begin to read, think critically and try to understand the POV of another sovereign nation - especially those nations our leaders refer to as the Axis of Evil.
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