In this cynical age, some lies are unremarkable. Take, for instance, Iran’s nuclear program, whose sole purpose is to create weapons of mass destruction.
They don’t actually come out and say that. Tehran’s Islamist regime continues the fiction that their nuclear program is for “peaceful purposes,” so they can generate electricity. With a straight face, journalists repeat the claim at face value.
Yet news reports almost never explain that Iran has more oil and natural gas than it knows what to do with, and burning them is a lot easier, less expensive, and less complicated than building nuclear reactors. Omitting those facts amounts to perpetuating Iran’s lies.
Within the next two years, “the world” will have to either accept Iran’s new dominance over the Mideast, or find some way to neutralize its nuclear capabilities. I put “the world” in quotation marks, because really it will be the United States, Israel, Great Britain and its former colonies, and several of the less enervated European states. The effeminate Germans will not be with us, and neither will the French, who have been the allies of militant Muslims at least since the battle of Lepanto.
We may pray that something will avert this crisis without bloodshed; indeed, it is our duty to pray for that outcome. But in my opinion, there are four possible outcomes:
1. Israel or the United States carries out a massive surprise attack on suspected Iranian nuclear facilities before they are able to assemble a functioning bomb.
2. Iran announces that it has a functioning nuclear warhead. It test-fires a ballistic missile into the Arabian Gulf to demonstrate the delivery range. A coalition of states enacts sanctions and gives Tehran an ultimatim to disarm or face the consequences. The regime, incapable of giving up its mass-murder devices without suffering a mortal blow to its credibility, prefers to fight. The coalition invades, and after a few weeks and possibly hundreds of thousands of dead, prevails.
3. Students, intellectuals, and mid-level clerics carry out a semi-bloodless coup, staging massive demonstrations and daring the secret police and security forces to respond. After firing some perfunctory bursts of machine-gun fire into the crowds, the government agrees to hold elections and carry out liberalizing political reforms.
4. Iran announces that it has a functioning nuclear warhead. It test-fires a ballistic missile into the Arabian Gulf to demonstrate the delivery range. The United Nations passes a weak resolution, representing a compromise between a bitterly divided General Assembly and Security Council, enacting trade sanctions against Iran and any state that assists its nuclear program. Iran makes some conciliatory statements, but makes no move to disarm. Over the years, the sanctions are slowly ignored, and Iran consolidates its newfound position as regional superpower, gradually spreading its Islamist influence into neighboring states.
The first scenario won’t happen even if President Bush is re-elected. Thanks to the hysterical Democratic opposition, political reality militates against a pre-emptive strike against Iran, no matter how much they threaten their neighbors. Scenario #2 is even more fanciful — what country will voluntarily place its soldiers within range of a nuclear bomb? Scenario #3 is plausible, but the list of regimes that have voluntarily given up power without violence is short (including, ironically, the Shah in 1979).
As you might guess by the length, I’d bet on scenario #4. It plays off of human inertia, folly, and wishful thinking; it requires no real action on behalf of U.N. members; and it privileges the sovereignty of a dangerous nation-state over true peace. It has the added bonus of being anti-Semitic, as Iran’s first announced target is Israel.
In a broader sense, I would love to see the Church’s leadership take a strong stand against Iran’s murderous ambitions, but I am not holding my breath. Even though nuclear-armed Islamic fundamentalists are a clear danger to millions of lives, the bishops will not speak out against them in any meaningful way. They do not wish to make things harder for Christians living in Muslim lands, who already live precarious existences. And they, as a group, have an ingrained predilection for dialogue rather than the use of force, which is an admirable and humane trait — and a dangerous temptation.
For we live in an age when violent men with absolutist, non-rational ideas use Western ideas to further their own ends. Things like state sovereignty and nuclear technology are good in themselves, but they can be abused. Yet the central conceit of the United Nations is that all member states are pretty much like Belgium. (Modern liberal Belgium, not the Belgium of the 19th century that ran a quasi-genocidal slave colony in the Congo.) Everything can be decided diplomatically, just like members of a gentleman’s club, as long as we all keep talking and respecting each other’s borders.
The Church, more or less, plays along with this, out of the altruistic belief that an international system can restrain the worst impulses of man. But secular man’s idolatrous belief in state sovereignty allows a Sudan to murder poor Christians and vulnerable black Muslims — because although the whole world knows it, they cower at the thought of stopping these crimes that cry out for vengence, because to violate Sudan’s borders would be an unseemly display of contempt for man-made lines on a map.
Borders have their uses, as do states, and I don’t mean to diminish their importance. But surely borders and states are not absolute? If a state uses its status to develop weapons that have no conceivable defensive purpose, with the intent to eradicate another country, shouldn’t they forfeit their rights as a state? Certainly they should not be allowed to commit genocide?
Questions like these must be confronted in the very near future. That’s what frustrates me about the low level of our national debates. The Michael Moore Democrats want to convince you that if we can just dump Bushitler, all these problems will go away, because the rest of the world hates the president so much.
But no matter what happens in November, Iran will get nukes, al Qaeda will keep plotting the mass murder of innocents, Islamists will continue preaching their message of hatred and resentment. Europeans will continue their death-march toward demographic oblivion, thanks to their socialist regimes.
The Church hierarchy ought to speak out on these topics, not in a prescriptive way (that is not their competence), but in a way that illuminates these new threats in the light of the Gospel. What are the obligations of states toward the citizens of other states, particularly when they are in mortal danger from their own governments? Does a state have an obligation to remove weapons of mass destruction from a hostile state?
If an individual state does not have the right to interfere with genocide, or to deter international mass murder on an epic scale, what about states operating collectively? Is the United Nations the only conceivable entity that can decide such questions? Should the United Nations be reformed to better safeguard peace and justice in the world?
These are all things that we need to consider, as Christians and as Americans (yes, in that order). I know, it’s more fun to think about Iraq and what Senator Kerry did a third of a century ago in southeast Asia. But these questions won’t wait — Iran will go nuclear in the blink of an eye, and Sudan is sponsoring genocide at this very moment. Immediate action is necessary, but we also need to think of a long-term way of ordering our world, since the Second Coming isn’t upon us yet, at least as I write this.
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I’d put my money on #4 as well. Although I agree that Iran intends peaceful purposes for its nuclear program as much as Clinton did not have sex with that woman, an abundance of oil does not itself prove they are lying. Oil is Iran’s main (and practically only) export and an important strategic resource for them – its the only hard curency they have (face it, no one would give a **** about the mid-east if not for their oil reserves). The more they can use for export/bargaining chip, the better position they are in. Thus, it would make sense to develop alternative energy sources for use at home in order to conserve oil resource for trade abroad.
I too think #4 is the likeliest option. Because of that, the best we can probably hope for is what c matt just said–that Iran’s financial dependence upon oil exports will motivate them not to use any nuclear weapons they develop. Also, with oil approaching $50 per barrel, any disruption in shipments from any substantial oil producer could be catastrophic to the world economy.
Which leads to exactly what c matt suggests: we desperately need to develop alternative energy sources. For starters, in the meantime, American voters need to start tuning out the environmental extremists, and allow our companies to start oil drilling in Alaska and off our shorelines. We need to be as oil-independent as possible until we can get more alternative sources on-line.
Buying fewer SUV’s wouldn’t hurt, either.
America could develop “alternative energy sources” and it wouldn’t matter much. The rest of the world will keep using oil (particularly China and India, as they develop). It will be a highly valuable natural resource for another century or two.
We can’t wall ourselves off from the rest of the world. What happens to the world affects us, and vice versa. Isolationism isn’t an option.
You know what will discourage oil use? High oil prices. Nothing else will do it.
Tuning out the environmental extremists is always step 1 in having a sane energy policy. I’ve always found it mind-boggling that the environmentalists scream bloody murder over any hint of expanding nuclear power at the same time they are telling us that the world will end in 50 years if we don’t embrace Kyoto. The only way we could possibly meet those requirements (and the way France, one of the only western countries to do so) is widespread use of nuclear energy. Yet the enviros either would prefer armageddon in 50 years to having to deal with nuclear waste in a more permanent fashion 10,000 years down the road, or else really don’t believe what they say they believe about global warming.
The environmentalist position amounts to a dramatic decline in energy consumption, which basically means reducing the size of the economy. But they’ll never let the public know about that — and neither will the news media.
The environmentalist position amounts to a dramatic decline in energy consumption, which basically means reducing the size of the economy.
Exactly right; the most frustrating part of it is that the kind of reduction in energy usage and the economy they want (or rather the largest fraction of that they’ll ever get) would kill off most technological innovation and keep us using dirtier sources of energy.
It’s not clear to me how developing alternative energy sources and North American oil reserves constitutes ‘isolationism.’ It’s certainly not “walling ourselves off from the world,” since the market for oil, and thus the pricing structure, is worldwide. It’s simply sound energy policy. I’m not an expert on nuclear power, for instance, but have heard no persuasive arguments why we shouldn’t use lots more of it. We have suitably remote places to store the waste.
Imagine, for instance, if we got far less dependent on the Middle East for oil–and then there was a disruption in that region’s shipments. We’d get to see the spectacle of France and Germany demanding that the United States go to war to protect *their* oil supply.
Granted, the price would go up here too, because there’s a world market. And we’d probably do it, since our economies are so interconnected. But seeing the Europeans admit that protecting their economies, and ultimately their freedom, requires military might, would be, well an instructive sight.
I don’t know what I think of your post, but I do know that I don’t like to think that the outcome of the world is as horrific as you present it. On the other hand, Iran is a serious threat, and perhaps we would be capable of confronting it if we hadn’t involved ourselves in a war with a nation that posed no serious danger to us. As it stands, we could not confront Iran if we wanted to, not even with a draft — and another act of aggression in a third Muslim country could cause world war with the Muslims, which would ultimately result in the United States being conquered. Too many Muslims here and abroad.
I’m more interested by your suggestion that the Church needs to speak on this. I agree with you. But what will you do if they say something you don’t like? Will you respond by saying how wrong they are, as you and many other Catholics did when the Church spoke on Iraq? Perhaps the Church sees no need to speak when she knows that no one is listening, and everyone proved they weren’t listening when she spoke on Iraq, and we American Catholics responded, with our government, “Well, too bad, we’re going to do it anyway.”
Iraq posed a serious threat to world peace. If it didn’t, then why did the U.N. impose sanctions against it for 12 years?
If we wanted to defeat Iran militarily *without* occupying it, we could do so quite easily, and without a draft or anything like that. Destroying their nuclear infrastructure would be even easier (assuming we can find it, which is an open question.)
Muslims don’t have the capacity to “wage world war” and they have shown no inclination to do so. Your assertion that they could “conquer” the United States (how would they cross the ocean without the U.S. Navy noticing?) is more than a little bizzare; and since there are only about 2 million Muslims in the U.S., I don’t see how they would overpower the other 270 million of us.
I would like to see the Church leadership address these challenges to world peace because I want their moral guidance. It’s true that many American Catholics did not agree with what the bishops had to say about the Iraq war — which did not amount to forthright opposition, but rather a cautious judgment that in their opinion, war against the Baathists did not meet just war criteria, but that it was up to competent public authorities to make that decision. This was not a question of faith and morals, and the laity may disagree with that prudential judgment.
As for myself personally, I explained in my post that the bishops are misguided if they think that “international institutions” can be an ultimate safeguard against threats to world peace. They can help, but the most aggressive regimes — whether they attack their own people or other countries — can only be deterred or destroyed through the judicious use of force.
I think it’s good to remember that …
1. It wasn’t just the US bishops, but also the pope.
2. Yes, there is a prudential element to a decision about war, but a prudential judgment must be made within the right principled boundaries, and sometimes the Church can teach that public authorities, by their own words, aren’t acting within those boundaries.
3. Even when it comes to the prudential element of a decision, the Church is something more than just another voice, no more important than any other figure’s or institution’s. The CDF says in the Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of a Theologian that the Magisterium is guided by the Holy Spirit even in such judgments, and that it’d be a mistake to think it can “habitually” be mistaken in them. Furthermore, the CCC doesn’t exactly say that political authorities have the right to make the decision, but rather, those concerned with the common good. That’s a somewhat broader category (even though it obviously refers especially to political authorities).
(And by the way, I say this as someone who now thinks the Iraq war might have been objectively moral, albeit not for the reasons the administration has emphasized.)
Oh, one other point.
Some of the US bishops may think that institutions like the UN mean war is simply no longer ever necessary. I’m pretty sure they don’t all think so, though, nor that the pope does. (Remember, there wasn’t much if any protest from them about the war in Afghanistan.) I think the point is that the UN or something like it needs to have a role in decisions about the use of force – not that it’s simply a replacement for them.
Kevin, as you know, the Church can only teach definitively what Christ and the Apostles taught. If Jesus taught that the United States, which would be founded 1,700 years after his death, should never invade Iraq, a country formed 1,900 years after his death, then that would be a teaching. Anything else falls short of magisterial authority.
The bishops are not to be treated as one voice among many, to be sure, which is why I was hoping they might say some useful things about our present situation. Clearly, they think the U.N., or something like it, “needs to have a role in decisions about the use of force.” My question is: what role? A preliminary role? A guiding role? Does it have the final authority — which would be a total abrogation of all national sovereignty? Should it conduct wars under the U.N. flag, as it has several times in the last half-century?
How should decisions be made? Should Iceland’s few dozen citizens be equivalent to one billion Indians? If it’s proportional, then why should millions of poor Bangladeshis get to decide what rich, tiny Norway gets to do?
I don’t raise the questions in order to dismiss them. They aren’t minor questions, however, and if we’re going to tackle them it would be good to get some clarification on the principles involved.
Eric,
But the Church can teach non-definitively, including especially on matters of principle (e.g., concerning what principles should circumscribe prudential judgments about war) – and even on matters of prudence. Put differently, “Magisterial authority” isn’t limited to definitive teachings. In fact, plenty of Church teachings about faith and morals are non-definitive teachings of the ordinary Magisterium, and indeed, those among them that concern matters of principle require our assent (whereas the prudential ones don’t – though they do require special respect and consideration, since, as Ratzinger says, they’re still guided by the HS, even if not in the same way that other Church teachings are guided).
Yes, I agree that still further clarification of the principles – e.g., concerning the role of entities like the UN – is needed.