Iran is not Germany

There he goes again. Comparing apples (Iran 2006) to oranges (Germany 1933). Tony Blankley just doesn’t get it (Washington Times, Mental Path to Appeasement 6-14-06). This is a Post-9-11 and a post World War II world.

Iran is not anything like Germany. It has invaded no one and has no plans for world domination. Iran is caught between Iraq and a very hard place (US, Israel, Pakistan, India and China nuclear arsenals.) What’s an oil rich nation to do in a world where military power speaks louder than diplomacy or international law?

And, it's not just nuclear bombs we need to worry about. Advances in biotechnology enable even grad level biologists to make designer weapons capable of killing more people than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Botulism, the most deadly substance known to man (three times more lethal than VX gas) is hard not to make. Ask anyone who makes homemade canned peaches.

Osama showed us that even the most powerful military in the world can’t stop attacks against its most valued targets. Well informed citizens can (See Flight 93). Better intelligence might stop most attacks but in an era where any individual can have superpower capability…disarming a nation just isn’t what it used to be. Especially, when attempting so by force will only enrage and inspire millions of super capable individuals to hate America even more.

We can’t win the war on terrorism. But we can only lose it. We lose more of it every time we try ending terrorism through war. In this era collateral damage doesn't deter our enemy... it enrages them and creates more of them.
Blankley should take a closer look at his history books. World War I led to WW II. WW II led to the cold war. The cold war led to the war on terrorism. War evolves. If we don’t, extinct will be our future. Or, at very best, very harsh lives where freedom from government intrusion will be history. But this time the intrusive government will be American and not German or Soviet.

My father and hundreds of thousands more fought WWII to free us from the scourge of war. They saw international law as a possible alternative to war. Unfortunately, their generation was unable to build an international institution capable of replacing war with law. If we don’t do this, war will replace us.