Comments on: The Left’s Pathological Fear of Reality

By: Interested

Interested — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:44:33 +0000

The USSR was defensive first, only an idiot would claim otherwise.

All those cursed idiotic history lessons.

Eastern Europe was occupied because, um, they did not particularly want to fight another war that would cost them 20 million people while its "allies" watch on until its safe and then make a glory run in its waining days, like in WWII. It’s called stability,

Wait wait - History rewritten - of course, the Soviets were just doing all they could to survive. Now if they continued and took over the entire world - that would prevent countless possible future wars!

No, you’re right, the whole crisis had nothing to do with Russia wanting the US to remove the missiles from turkey. When the US puts its nukes near Russia’s borders

suggest you spend oh - 5 minutes in examining the leaps the US had in terms of Submarine & Airborn methods of delivering Nukes in comparison with the Soviet’s capabilities (and when) and then realize why they felt Cuba was necessary - and that is just one of the reasons. Turkey was an excuse - however plausable of one.

By: Kevin H

Kevin H — Tue, 20 May 2008 22:04:51 +0000

Obviously, the safest of all world is for them to not want to make nuclear weapons, and be incapable of doing it even if they wanted. I’d say our current attitude is certainly better than doing nothing, but far from the best course of action.

While there are some very indirect lines of communication open between the US and Iran (and possibly less indirect ones the public isn’t fully aware of), I can’t see how more direct lines of communication are likely to hurt, especially not more likely to hurt than the attitude of "we’ll ignore them when they don’t have nuclear weapons, but if they get nukes we’ll be forced to talk to them". I don’t even really buy the argument that talking to Iran ‘legitimizes’ the regiem, but even so I’d rather a ‘legitimate’ Iran that doesn’t feel a need for nukes than an ‘illegitimate’ Iran that is seeking international stature through nuclear proliferation.

By: kennedy curse

kennedy curse — Tue, 20 May 2008 20:02:43 +0000

[...] says things like this: ??the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons, and Iran doesn??t …http://poligazette.com/2008/05/20/the-lefts-pathological-fear-of-reality/Orwell??s Nose If you??re going to be a good, well-informed citizen ?? they say our democracy [...]

By: C Stanley

C Stanley — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:23:59 +0000

So, if they get nuclear weapons we’ll talk to them, but otherwise put them out in the cold? That seems like a pretty strong encouragement to get nukes! I think you’re proving the far left’s point for them: that our current stance encourages rather than discourages nuclear proliferation in Iran.

You partly rebutted this yourself, Kevin, in the paragraph that followed that one. As you mentioned, there are other ways to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons so that even if they are ‘encouraged’ by our unwillingness to negotiate on the point of whether or not we’ll accept their attainment of a nuclear arsenal, it doesn’t matter. So the question is, do they want to attain nuclear weapons so that we will talk to them, or do they want them for other reasons? Are we to believe that this is the whole crux of it, that if Ahmenidajad can’t have tea at the White House than they’re going to be hell bent on creating a nuke so that we’ll be forced to invite him?

You just need to keep some lines of communication open so that you have a hope of influencing the other sides actions.

Which is exactly what we’re doing now!

And speaking of the Kennedy example, it occurred to me that (if I’m not mistaken) the Vienna summit was largely considered a failure on Kennedy’s part because he didn’t have any leverage to negotiate on the Berlin question. He ended up having to answer Kruschev’s ultimatum with the response that we would go to war if we had to. So, the exit question is- is this the kind of diplomacy that Obama admires and wants to duplicate, or is it the kind that Kennedy learned after he had a bit of experience? If Obama were to go to Tehran and if he were told that Iran intended to continue its nuclear program, continue to advocate for the destruction of Israel, and continue to support Hezbollah, and the US would have to go to war if it doesn’t accept those things, then how would Obama respond?

By: Kevin H

Kevin H — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:00:18 +0000

CS,
"The USSR was a superpower which HAD nuclear arms, and we had to deal with them on those terms and find leverage and methods of mutual assurance. Central to our current policy is the concept that we must prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons; the threat that that would pose to our ally Israel and to the stability of the region"

Note, I don’t necessarily agree with that, I think the sanctions are pretty effective at curtailing Iran’s economy, which has a direct impact on the size of any nuclear program they can afford. However because of their vast oil reserves, this strategy can only go so far, and there seems to be two longer term plans. The first, hold back their economy long enough for the oil reserves to run out and hope they can’t get nukes in that time frame. Or second, negotiate and hope to change the desire to get nukes, or increase the safeguards placed on nuclear material. Like the USSR (probably even more so) there is zero incentive for Iran to actually make a direct nuclear strike, the fear of a Nuclear Iran is really just a fear of rouge fissile material.

To all: I think the Kennedy example is a very good one. It doesn’t have to be open diplomacy, and there can be secret aspects of any negotiations. You just need to keep some lines of communication open so that you have a hope of influencing the other sides actions. And, contrary to Marc’s assertions, we CAN reason with non-western regimens on our terms.

We have lots of small carrots to give to Iran that fall well short of the ridiculous hyperbole of abandoning the region/Israel. If we can get something substantial for something small, then I’m all for it, and I can’t see why anyone wouldn’t be.

By: C Stanley

C Stanley — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:36:57 +0000

BTW, I think one of the important lessons of the Cold War came from examination of USSR archives- which showed that internally, while it’s true that the USSR was often acting out of fear, there’s absolutely no evidence that we could have done anything differently to have caused them to react differently either.

That’s something that flies in the face of the logic that some on the left use today. Those that think that our enemies would behave less aggressively if we would project less power, have no evidence that that’s the case (and as I just pointed out, there’s evidence to the contrary.)

By: C Stanley

C Stanley — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:33:49 +0000

Alex, you are right to criticize the simplistic notion that the USSR had ONLY offensive, imperialistic goals in mind to guide it’s maneuvers. I can see why my earlier statement about the Cuban missile crisis came across that way, but I assure you I’m not that simple minded and the implication is only due to the constraints of writing a short blog comment. But what I’m trying to point out is the fallacies on both sides of that spectrum of thinking- USSR wasn’t ONLY maneuvering for expansionist goals, but it wasn’t ONLY reacting to perceived US imperialism either.
And forgive me for my American exceptionalism, but yeah, it is a net preference of mine for a nation that holds the ideals that America does to have more power than one that espouses Marxism. Obviously both the US and the USSR were mainly guided by self preservation and by the need to control adequate resources for their own prosperity- but I have no problem in saying that I support the preservation of the American nation over the USSR if the two were not to be able to peacefully coexist.

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:06:02 +0000

No, you’re right, the whole crisis had nothing to do with Russia wanting the US to remove the missiles from turkey. When the US puts its nukes near Russia’s borders, that’s wishing for a better world, when Russia does the same, later, as a counterbalance, it’s imperialistic expansion. Forgive me for forgetting that obvious unbiased fact.

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:57:50 +0000

You mean the Soviet Union’s response to the US placing missiles in Turkey 90 miles from Moscow?

Suggest you invest in a map.

By: C Stanley

C Stanley — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:51:18 +0000

Alex- you demonstrate the liberal fallacies so nicely, thanks.
Yes, Kruschev, being just a misunderstood Communist with a changed heart (having abandoned all of that expansionism stuff, of course) was just willing to negotiate. It had nothing to do, of course, with the fact that Kennedy DID stare him down first.
And like Obama says, Kennedy engaged in open diplomacy with Kruschev, right, and there was no problem of propaganda victory for the USSR? Oh, wait- I almost forgot, part of the deal they reached was that the removal of the US missiles in Turkey was to be done in secret, and the deal would have been moot if USSR had publicly announced it (oops, so it wasn’t actually open diplomacy then, was it?)