Those MAD Iranians

Bernard Lewis, the kind, grandfatherly face of Orientalism, weighs in with a particularly reality-free WSJ op-ed. What you need to know about it: Lewis sez that when Iran gets the bomb (if they don't have it already), it won't be like Mutually Assured Destruction with the Soviets, because Iranians are CRAZY~! enough to nuke themselves and everyone else into oblivian because they have what is apparently a nationwide "martyrdom complex" in which they think Allah will sort out the pious from the infidel. Also, Aug. 22 might just be THE DATE because it corresponds to some important Muslim holiday or another. The underlying theme is ALMOST CERTAINLY that we should bomb Iran (what else can Lewis mean when he says "some immediate precautions are obviously possible and necessary"?)

Let's think about this view for a minute. There are some obvious logical problems. First, Iran is on its way to developing nuclear energy, true, but most experts say they could not feasibly have a bomb for another ten years. So, in order for them to have a nuclear device ready by the 22nd, they'd have to have bought it somewhere else. IF they were going to do this (if they did it, even), why the hell would they have gone through all the trouble of unsealing their uranium, IAEA inspections, diplomatic bullshit, etc? Are we supposed to believe that they wasted all that time and effort just to set up an elaborate ruse? That they risked their own destruction before their diabolical scheme could be completed? (This calls to mind the recent argument that Iran is fighting a "proxy war" in Lebanon in order to "distract world attention from their nuclear program." Again, why the hell would they do such a thing, or have that motive in mind, when it's the first fucking thing everyone says about the situation? Some distraction. In fact, someone will probably end up striking them because of this supposed proxy war itself.)

Next, we come to the very bizarre argument that AN ENTIRE STATE--its president, its elite leadership, its business class--is willing to destroy itself for the goal of eradicating Israel. Not even remotely the United States, just Israel, and every Palestinian inside it. Is there any sort of historical precedent to suggest that a flourishing, oil-rich, growing military power would literally commit suicide? Not that a small military group would, or some religious Heaven's Gate cult, or an individual terrorist, but a whole nation-state would wish itself out of existence. Doesn't this view conflict greatly with the opinions of the esteemed Efraim Karsh, whose book Islamic Imperialism, as we have seen, says that jihadic rhetoric has historically been the ideological front for a very material pursuit of self-interest? Would the real Orientalist please...okay, I'll retire that cliche. But in all seriousness now, does anyone here really think that a regime would will its own demise? Don't just say "anything's possible"--let's talk probabilities here.

I'm actually all for abandoning the strategy of realpolitik when dealing with small, extremist militant groups. Yet for traditional foreign policy between nations, it's (regrettably) our best and only option. For more on alternatives to realpolitik with respect to terrorist groups, I recommend very strongly this Policy Review piece by "Professor of Security Strategies" Michael J. Mazarr. You might find his notion of "psychopolitik" a bit paternalizing, but I'll be damned if it isn't the smartest, most realistic approach to the war on terror I've read in a long time--by a conservative, mind you! Normally I'd be shitting all over this kind of thing if it were on National Review or something. And I imagine National Review would shit all over Mazarr, because he doesn't advocate bombing anyone and he refuses to tan himself with the glorious rays emanating from George Bush's holy asshole. No, Lewis is much more their type: factless, precedentless, utterly ahistorical, completely reductionistic of Arab culture (all Arabs secretly harbor the germ of wanting to blow themselves up), possibly falling prey to his own paranoid delusional propaganda while eagerly searching for someone in our immediate horizon we can drop the Big One on. Oh, look, NRO is on the scene already!