The end of non-proliferation?

TIME today reported that Iran is very close to completing a massive uranium enrichment plant near Natanz:

The new discoveries could destabilize a region already dangerously on edge in anticipation of war in Iraq. Israel — which destroyed an Iraqi nuclear plant in Osirak in a 1981 raid — is deeply alarmed by the developments. “It’s a huge concern,” says one Israeli official. “Iran is a regime that denies Israel’s right to exist in any borders and is a principal sponsor of Hezbollah. If that regime were able to achieve a nuclear potential it would be extremely dangerous.” Israel will not take the “Osirak option” off the table, the official says, but “would prefer that this issue be solved in other ways.”

Iraq. North Korea. India. Pakistan. Israel. Now Iran. All of these nations have pursued a nuclear weapons program and have either succeeded or are in the process of obtaining the material necessary to succeed.

Now there is an argument that circles the peacemongering crowd that these nations have a right to obtain WMD, if only for their own security. A great example of this is the difference between our foreign policy towards Iraq – whom we are about to crush – and North Korea, whom we are ready to appease. What is the difference?

Its not because we were in Iraq first, nor is it because of energy reserves, money, elections, oil, powerlust, etc. The difference is the nuclear card. When Saddam threatens to burn the soil under the feet of the aggresors, the American public. But when Kim Jong-Il threatens to nuke New York City or Los Angeles, Americans get uneasy.

It’s not a lack of courage that does this. On the macro level, the malcontents of the world seem to have this illusion that if you punch the United States in the mouth hard enough, we’ll back off. Osama cited this concerning our unwillingness to accept casualties, by using smart bombs, by withdrawing from Somolia in 1993, and today by using Afghan nationals as the main force in standing in our hunt for al-Qaeda operatives in Tora Bora.

American resolve isn’t what is being played against. Rather, what is being tested is our willigness to receive the minor casualties – the tragedies that one would see on CNN with husbands, wives, sons, and daughters rather than the statistical carnage of a nuclear bomb.

This having been said, the being a member of the nuclear club has its privileges. It allows you to inflict the tragedies without accumulating them into a statistic. North Korea is playing a dangerous game of inflicting American diplomacy the death of a thousand small tragedies. In the post 9/11 world, every threat is taken seriously, and sabrerattling from Pyongyang is no different.

Imagine then what a nuclear Saddam would be able to inflict upon the American psyche. Kill a few thousand Kurds? Tough luck. Invade Kuwait? What are we going to do about it. Place an iron boot on the throat of Israel? Turnabout is fair play.

In short, American are obsessed about the dramatic tragedies that our press capitalizes on. Weapons of mass destruction in the wrong hands allows are enemies to undermine every policy action we take. Rather than dealing with tyrants as they should be, our generation – the first American generation never to have fought a war – must appease dictators and tyrants alike as equals, for God forbid that American lives ever be lost in a theater or war.

When the bombs start falling in Iraq, be very certain that there will be American casualties. The American press will blaze headlines about the families whose loved ones will be lost. American resolve to handle the small causalties will be tested. But no where will there be a mention of the statistical nightmare prevented – only every attempt for the shortsighted and the cynical to capitalize on others suffering, the new American economy of Oprahfication.

Perhaps this is the biggest complaint I have about the anti-war movement concerning WMD. If we are not willing to accept the minor casualties to prevent the larger ones, is nuclear proliferation – and the politics of nuclear blackmail that we are experiencing in North Korea – the future of the world? Will our children live in a world where rouge nations blackmail others into compliance? Rather than the divide between the rich and poor, will we endlessly debate about the divide between the nuclear and the pacifist?

War is the last option of politics. But as Von Clausewitz so carefully observed, “(t)he war of a community—of whole nations and particularly of civilised nations—always starts from a political condition, and is called forth by a political motive. It is therefore a political act.” The political condition today is one arrived at by Saddam alone – not by the UN, nor by the United States and the United Kingdom.

For twelve long years, Saddam had the capacity to disarm, and has obstinately refused though deception, deceit, and misleading evidence. The world of nuclear blackmail that we are tasting in North Korea must not duplicate itself in Iraq. If Saddam Hussein insists on pursing a course of war, if he is willing to place the Iraqi people in harms way to pursue those aims, then we as Americans must be willing to endure the small tragedies of war in order to prevent the statistical carnage of nuclear holocaust.

The argument is no more simply put than that.