When the last resort, is the first resort Posted by Max Bergmann

One thing becomes clear in John McCain's speech - if he becomes President war with another country will be inevitable.

McCain made clear today that the United States will not talk to Iran or North Korea. Instead, he will pursue the Bush administration's policy line toward Iran, which has shunned diplomacy and, as the Washington Post explains, he will "return to Bush's original demand of a complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament of North Korea's nuclear programs."

So John McCain has made clear that he will continue Bush's policy approach. But John McCain does seem to differ with Bush. He seems much more willing to use force.

McCain insists that:

"While the use of force may be necessary, it can only be as a last resort not a first step."

But what is the first step? Since McCain is not willing to negotiate with Iran or North Korea - what non-military strategies does McCain have to ensure that North Korea and Iran end their nuclear programs? The fact is he has no non-military strategy. His sole approach is to say to them: we demand you to stop doing what you are doing or else we will attack you and destroy you.

But does John McCain really think that saying this will lead to Iran and North Korea magically giving up their nuclear programs? Almost no one else does. And the fact is that such a confrontational and disengaged approach will essentially trap the U.S. into going to war - because when Iran or North Korea or insert country of your choosing, fails to comply with our demands, the only response left - ie the last resort - is military action.

The fact is that negotiations haven't tried and failed in the case of Iraq as McCain bizarrely alleged, they simply haven't been tried. And this is what is particularly scary about McCain's policy approach toward Iran and North Korea - he is willing to go to war again without negotiating with them. So When McCain says that the military option is the last resort. In fact, for McCain, it's the only resort.

Comments

[Zathras]

This site is rapidly developing a "too many cooks" situation.

The proprietors of most single-author blogs realized long ago that putting up a large number of lengthy posts in a short period of time is counterproductive, even if the posts do not address the same subject. Many fewer readers are willing to wade through four or five such posts than will read one or two. Blogs with multiple authors have the additional problem of avoiding repetition, especially when their authors think similarly on the issues they write about.

There are different ways to handle this. One is simply to reduce the number of posters. Another is to limit the number of posts each contributor can put up each week. A format change, like the ones the TPM site adopted during the course of its expansion over the last several years, is another possibility; each contributor could have his own section, linked from the main page. I'd suggest picking one of these, because right now DA is starting to leave commentary behind in favor of clamor, and rather vulgar clamor at that.

[BiBiJon]

For a reality check on who McCain won't talk to, check out

http://www.bibijon.org/iranimage/