Remembering the Holocaust this week, a prominent New York Rabbi described Iran as an existential threat to Israel and the Jewish people. (Never to be outdone in the overstatement game, our own Senator Charles Schumer declared there to be no difference between Hamas and Nazi Germany… Hamas now being the most powerful military/industrial power in the world, hell-bent on territorial expansion.) It does astonishingly poor service to the memory of the millions killed by Hitler and his crew to use them as part of an effort to whip up war fever. Iran is years away from producing nuclear weapons, if they ever shall, and such a capability would only be useful to them as a deterrent. Ahmadenijad may obligingly employ 
Paleolithic anti-Israeli rhetoric, but I doubt he and the ruling elite of Persia will be ready to commit national suicide any time soon… for that is what the offensive use of nuclear weapons would mean for them, and they know it. The only nations that pose an existential threat to other nations are the major nuclear powers, including Israel (possessed of 200-300 undeclared nuclear weapons ) and, of course, the U.S. with its overwhelming arsenal of potential global destruction.
So long as there is the threat of attack from hostile foreign powers, Iran will seek a nuclear deterrent. This is a general principle in international relations — one boldly underscored by the Bush administration’s open policy of unprovoked war. Our military forces are on both sides of them, and we have a history of interference in their internal affairs, from World War II through the CIA-sponsored 1953 coup and straight up the present day. Think they’re paranoid? Wouldn’t you be? Hard question for most Americans to answer. We don’t have a history of domination by foreign powers, nor any experience dealing with nations more powerful than we are. What’s more, we seem to have a national incapacity to put ourselves in other people’s shoes — that’s far too “gay” for us. That’s why we treat weighty topics like war with such casualness — we can sit through most of our wars like it’s pay-per view television. Our politicians reflect that distant attitude, advocating the hard line and a very early resort to violence. (See Hillary Clinton.)
With so many willing executioners among us, it doesn’t take much to get us embroiled in some overseas fiasco. Just apply the fear factor. We’re already running down the now familiar checklist with respect to Iran. Nuclear ambitions (or the hysterical accusation thereof)? Check. Semi-unshaven and very ethnic-looking leader whose name may be preceded in print by modifiers like “hard-line” and “extremist”? Check. Inspirational and or material support for groups we identify as terrorist — like the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah — as opposed to practitioners of state terror allied to Uncle Sam? Check. Enough natural resources, such as oil, gas, gold, and other riches, to make Pat Robertson want to invest and Cheney want to rethink his “other priorities”? Double check. Iran gets special bonus points for saying nasty things about Israel and for being provocatively and unrelentingly adjacent to not one but two countries we’ve wanted to invade and many others who live on top of our oil.
Damning evidence indeed. As our Solomon-like president famously said in the run-up to his Iraq triumph, what else do we need to know?
