Monday, April 10, 2006

Nuking Iran

Seymour Hersh writes a very long piece in the New Yorker, with quotes saying that President Bush has a "messianic" urge to nuke Iran's bomb-building capability. Hersh's sources say Bush thinks regime change will be the sure-fire result of such a holocaust. Bush is urged to sit down and talk to the Iranians instead. Or try a "charm offensive" aimed at weaning young Iranians from the unpopular Iranian regime.

This may well be an excellent plan. But what happens if the talk and charm lead nowhere? Nobody actually knows how close the Iranians are to active nuclear capability, although everyone agrees they are developing it. Will everyone ever agree that nuking Iran is the only way to stop it from nuking Israel first? It seems most unlikely. And yet it seems equally unlikely that the Iranian regime can be stopped without at least the threat of a nuclear strike.

The New Yorker: Fact

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