MAD: Can It Work On Nations Run By Mad Men?
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD, worked during the Cold War confrontation. While the Soviet Union was ideologically opposed to the United States and Western Europe, the Politburo dictators were not crazy. Soviet Russia developed satellite states across Eastern Europe and maintained them by force. They aided communist movements from Latin America across Africa, the Middle East, and throughout Asia. They had a vast arsenal of nuclear weapons, but they never used one. The United States and the Soviet Union understood that if either unleashed a first strike the other would retaliate in a massive response that assured mutual destruction of both civilizations; there would be no winner– only losers. With time, several western nations acquired nuclear weapons; then India and Pakistan joined the elite club. Israel most likely has them.
Pat Buchanan wrote last week, “Other countries that rely on nuclear power, Japan and South Korea, surely have the capability to produce an explosive device. They have preferred life without nuclear weapons. Will Iran also be content with this, knowing that if it explodes a device, the Saudis, Egyptians and Turks will follow, that Israel would put a hair trigger on its nuclear arsenal, that the United States would retaliate massively against Iran if any nuclear weapon were detonated by Islamic terrorists on American soil?”
Buchanan continues, “The sanctions road appears headed for dead end, or war. As one steps back and looks at a decade of U.S. intervention and war in the Middle East, what has it all availed us?” Economic sanctions have not seemed to faze Iran; and the West should remember the educated middle class of the ayatollah-dominated nation. They have not gotten over the tainted elections earlier this year that kept Ahmadinejad in office. There is nothing like war to unite a country.
While American forces have overthrown Saddam Hussein, “the Shia who now run the country are moving away from us, and closer to Iran”, as we look to draw down our forces there. Will Iraq remain quasi-democratic and pro-West? Afghanistan, after eight years, remains untamed and fraught with danger. The Karzai government controls little more than the Kabul area. Tribal leaders reign in the mountinous country. The Taliban remain a force to be reckoned with. If NATO pulls out and allows the Taliban to regain power, it will create a vacuum Al-Quaida will be glad to fill.
Sanctions escalation risks taking the US toward yet another war in the Middle East. Do we have to play this game again? Would another MAD policy work with Iran? Can the mullahs understand blunt language? Support Iranian pro-reformists and announce a policy of Assured Destruction if the mullahs use nuclear weapons against the West or Israel. Do not trust the UN to get anything done; but, continue to pressure NATO states to deal with the nukes program. Allow Israel the opportunity to defend itself without issuing a blank check on a pre-emptive strike. The US cannot forsake its traditional relationship with Israel. Can MAD work with a group of fundamentalist Islamic zealots who believe in an end-time prophetic battle with the infidel West? No choice is easy.
