Diplomatic Liabilities
Sep 15th, 2006 by Hugh
Charles Krauthammer identifies the high cost of taking on Iran, including this assessment of the diplomatic liabilities:
There will be massive criticism of America from around the world. Much of it is to be discounted. The Muslim street will come out again for a few days, having replenished its supply of flammable American flags most recently exhausted during the cartoon riots. Their governments will express solidarity with a fellow Muslim state, but this will be entirely hypocritical. The Arabs are terrified about the rise of a nuclear Iran and would privately rejoice in its defanging.
The Europeans will be less hypocritical because their visceral anti-Americanism trumps rational calculation. We will have done them an enormous favor by sparing them the threat of Iranian nukes, but they will vilify us nonetheless.
These are the costs. There is no denying them. However, equally undeniable is the cost of doing nothing.
He goes on to spell out the cost of doing nothing, and it’s far worse than watching Old Glory ignite on the streets of the Middle East…
HT: John Lee
