Ted Koppel Puts Mafia in Foreign Policy
In another stark reminder about who should and should not be making foreign policy decisions, newscaster Ted Koppel suggests that it's okay for Iran to have nuclear weapons:

The likelihood that more restrictive sanctions will either make it through the United Nations or dissuade Iran from darting down the path toward nuclear technology is about as dim as that of a popular uprising among the people under 30 who make up 70 percent of Iran's population.

Many of Iran's young adults - especially the well- educated, English-speaking ones who cross the path of a visiting American journalist - are frustrated by the puritanical nature of Islamic law.

They dismiss their president and ours as deserving each other, denounce the corruption of the mullahs and speak with surprising openness about confiscated satellite dishes, blocked Internet sites, the closing of newspapers and the jailing and mistreatment of dissidents. But the young malcontents appear nowhere close to staging a revolution.

Perhaps that may change after sanctions are imposed and the US more actively funds resistance groups instead of the absurd strategy of direct engagement--but I digress. Here's Koppel's solution:

What, then, can the United States do to prevent Iran from developing nuclear technology? Little or nothing. Washington should instead bow to the inevitable.

"You insist on having nuclear weapons," we should say. "Go ahead. It's a terrible idea, but we can't stop you. We would, however, like your leaders to view the enclosed DVD of 'The Godfather.' Please pay particular attention to the scene in which Don Corleone makes grudging peace with a man - the head of a rival crime family - who ordered the killing of his oldest son."

In that scene, Don Corleone says, "I forgo my vengeance for my dead son, for the common good. But I have selfish reasons." The welfare of his youngest son, Michael, is on his mind.

"I am a superstitious man," he continues. "And so if some unlucky accident should befall my youngest son, if some police officer should accidentally shoot him, or if he should hang himself in his cell, or if my son is struck by a bolt of lightening, then I will blame some of the people here. That I could never forgive."

If Iran is bound and determined to have nuclear weapons, let it.

The elimination of American opposition on this issue would open the way to genuine normalization between our two nations. It might even convince the Iranians that their country can flourish without nuclear weapons.

But this should also be made clear to Tehran: If a dirty bomb explodes in Milwaukee, or some other nuclear device detonates in Baltimore or Wichita, if Israel or Egypt or Saudi Arabia should fall victim to a nuclear "accident," Iran should understand that the U.S. government will not search around for the perpetrator. The return address will be predetermined, and it will be somewhere in Iran.

Mr. Koppel, are you suggesting that if a nuclear weapon (dirty or not) were detonated inside the United States, we should indiscriminately kill a large portion of the civilian population of Iran--even if they were not the responsible party? If that's your policy recommendation, stick with reading the news off of your teleprompter and leave the foreign policy making to more intelligent people.
- posted by Base10 @ 2:46 PM