In reality, there is no way that the world can stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons...not in the long run. And that shouldn't matter.
It isn't like we haven't been here before. Remember something called the Soviet Union? There was no way we could prevent them from getting nuclear weapons. We didn't even have the possibility of U.N. sanctions, and the United States had zero economic or political power over the U.S.S.R.
No one could stop the U.S.S.R. from getting nuclear weapons. But we could stop them from using those weapons. In fact, we did stop them. Mutually Assured Destruction was not the best plan...it was at best a "muddle through" strategy...but it worked.
Sure, there were those who argued (as they do about Iran today) that the Soviets were irrational, ideology-driven madmen who would not hesitate to destroy the world if it meant defeating the United States. That Khrushchev/Brezhnev/Androvpov/Chernenko was an insanely evil leader who wanted the destruction of America and all it stood for. That the Soviet people believed in Communism with near-religious zeal and could not be reasoned with.
I tell you three times: The people who made these claims were wrong. As it turned out, all we had to do was keep the Soviet Union from using their nuclear weapons long enough, and their totalitarian state fell apart.
Similarly, it's almost certain that the people who make the same claims about Iran/Ahmadinejad are wrong. And we are letting them stampede us into exactly the same mistakes that they encouraged us to make during the Cold War.
-M
The Ivory Madonna's story is told in Dance for the Ivory Madonna by Don Sakers.
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