Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Live by the sword - go ahead
The US seems to have countered Iran's policy of "We're not building any nuclear bombs" with "Oh, we're not going to attack with nuclear bunker-buster bombs". Will the bad cop get results where the good cop of Europe etc. didn't? It is nice to have both cops fully operational for once. This is a real upping of the ante one way or another.
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I can't think of any way forward from where we are now, with the possible exception of arbitration by Insect Men from Zeta Cygni with Godlike powers. My original October 2001 paradigm of a Great Satan/Little Satan steamroller slowly and ineluctably rolling east is looking better and better, but you can't get there from here... Fighting Iran from the platform of an unstable Iraq with Syria at your back sounds like a recipe for disaster.
On a lighter note, did you vote in the Italian elections? And do you think the recount will come down to a handful of Italian expats in Florida? :)
Re: America: The Book
There seem to be two books by Jon Stewart in our library: 'Kierkegaard's Relation to Hegel Reconsidered' and 'Understanding Econometrics'!
I guess they are probably not by the same Jon Stewart, but I should probably get them out just in case...
Re: Iran. You seem to think Iran is not deterrable, or that a threat of invasion is not credible anymore. I think Iran may be deterred by the threat of Nukes against it, and likewise the long term threat of invasion is reasonably credible, once the nuclear brink has been breached.
Re: Italy. Italian politics is both depressing and tedious. I think an Australian got voted for the "non-residents" seat :).
Re: Econometrics sounds reasonably interesting either way.
I think Iran is deterrable and I am not afraid that they will unleash a nuclear war in the Middle East- I just think it now constitutes a more or less immovable impediment to the goal of democratising the Middle East, which is a moderately glummifying thought. I think the actions and words of the Iranian government in terms of making threats to other countries, exporting revolution, etc., have been rather more restrained than those of the Soviet Union in the decades before it got the bomb. And I believe that their nuclear program is primarily for peaceful purposes- petrol from natural gas is likely to be the next big thing, and they have the world's second largest reserves (far and away the world's largest, should the US get isolationist and abandon the Gulf to their machinations)...
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