Mark Steyn:

Isn’t it truer to say that in this instance the wolf has been leaping about repeatedly calling, "Hey, villagers, here I am!" and threatening to wipe the sheep pasture off the face of the map? And the little shepherd boy Bush, far from crying "Wolf! Wolf!" hysterically, behaved very calmly and referred the matter to the European Union Wildlife Management Committee to chew over for three or four years. They’ve now concluded that, in the course of their consultations with the wolf, he somehow managed to build a lamb-kebabing factory on the edge of the sheep field. But it’s no danger because he’s probably vegetarian. And anyway the real threat to stability is the obdurate kosher butcher down the road.

The Iran question sets a deeply disturbing precedent, even if the threat of genocide is just a rhetorical flourish. For it sets a new bar in international discourse, in which heads of government will be able to threaten genocide against neighboring states, and will expect to be extended the same benefit of the doubt as Ahmadinejad. In other words, it’s the wolves who get to go around crying "Wolf!", and the onus is on us to prove on which particular occasion they happen to mean it.

Steyn's analogy of the wolf and kebab factory is so dead on it's not funny. Literally there is nothing funny about rabid America haters with nukes.

I've had people tell me that the U.S.S.R. hated America and they had nukes. But the Russians didn't have a jihadi's death wish attitude about our counter strike possibility.

Well, to be realistic, actually carrying out genocide like most crimes of state is illegal only if you get deposed from power and caught. And Ahmadinejad's words, as far as I can tell, do have other interpretations (even if no one really believes that is what he means).

Eg, the "wiped off" remark with respect to Israel. If that had been brought to some sort of international court, there'd still be arguing over what he meant. Ie, there are peaceful ways to end a state (eg, have the citizens dissolve it) and there are bloody ways to do so (eg, with a number of nuclear weapons or by force of conventional arms). Be sufficiently vague and there's always an out legally.

Even if you required said leader to apologize and retract statements, you can (and probably will) end up with a situation like with Hitler where they make contradictory statements (eg, aggressive statements on Friday that play to the home team followed by a placatory "this is what we really meant" for the foreign audience on Monday).

As I see it, it's international diplomacy as it's always been practiced. The wolves cry "wolf!" And there really isn't much you can do about it until they act out those threats.

OTOH, there were soviets who thought you could win a nuclear war with the US. As I understand it, the USSR decided back in 1968 (the spark is claimed to be when France left NATO in 1966 and perhaps the development of capable soviet ICBMs) that winning a nuclear war was feasible and started to structure their convention and nuclear forces accordingly. This lead to a period of about ten years when US intelligence consistently underreported USSR nuclear forces.

It seems to me that the USSR analogy holds pretty well with Iran. All you need is an optimist in power who thinks they can give better than they receive (including the "death wish") in a nuclear war.

This is not to belittle the long term threat of Iran or other future nuclear-armed countries, but to point out that we have experienced a similar situation before, and there are effective and relatively bloodless ways to deal with it.

Karl,
some of the powerful people that were part of Soviet rule did think they could win. We had studies that said we could win too.

But the Soviets never took the attitude that dying under an American nuke was a way to get to heaven, and 72 virgins. They were willing to sit in a bunker, let 20 or 30 million other people die, but not themselves. The ruling class of Iranians believe it's worth their own deaths to kill us.

"The ruling class of Iranians believe it's worth their own deaths to kill us."

Perhaps, but I would not be willing to bet a plug nickle on that. I suspect that when push comes to shove they to will be bunker types...and with a fatwa proclaiming why it's important that they be there and that's what allah really wants.

Michael, That's why most homicide bombers are some idealistic relatively young schlub who got his bombing orders from a dried up prune of an imam who is great at motivating people to go kill themselves but has all kinds of reasons to give you why he should stay alive. We chase down the secondary infection (terrorist cells) and let the primary one(west hating imams) fester.

Steve, from what I see, the Iranians don't either. And my point is that it really doesn't matter if you think you're going to win due to blind optimism or because Allah is on your side. The nukes work the same either way.

Karl,
I agree with that. But it seems to me that their religious fanaticism makes them more dangerous. The Soviet Union wanted to rule us, and own the world. But they wanted to be there for it. We never had Communist homicide bombers.

The Islamic leadership in Iran seems to me to have some of that. But they also espouse a belief in dying for Allah as the be all and end all.

Bill Maron:

Too true. Too much concentration on the footsoldiers and not enough on the commanders. Or put it your way, it's better.

How do you get rid of the primary infection? Cautery works quite well...

well count on simberg to urge a war that
no member of his family will fight in.

Simberg wants us to fight to the last american.