Iran - The historical context

I just checked out a link I had and got to this post where I made a comment on. The comment section is pretty good, since the opponents actually have a clue what is going on historically.

A shrinkwrapped post on Iran

The below is my comment considering the times.

So, for example, the lesson of the Munich Crisis of 1938 isn't that the Allies should have gone to war then (it is worth noting that there is no particular reason to think that they would have done any better then than they did in 1940), it's that they should have taken the right steps many years earlier.

The modern Iranian situation works the same way. We in the West are paying the price for decades of short-sighted actions that only encouraged long term strife. In this the Iraq invasion is only the latest -- if one of the most glaring -- example of how we've blundered into potential disaster. After 9/11 the US had the political capital and goodwill to help stabilize the region, but instead we squandered it in a heavy-handed way that alienated our allies while antagonizing potential enemies. Power is always more impressive when not used. Our struggles in Iraq have only served to demonstrate American WEAKNESS.

Allan has a point. It is about taking the right steps ahead of time, so that you end up with a mate and a win. However, Allan's perspective dictates that to him, his right step is trying to form connections that are useless in today's world. How he derived all this from the more or less correct historical facts he laid out, is an interesting phenomenon.

For example, after Allan said that Germany could have avoided war by avoiding the naval arms race with Britain before 1914, Allan was correct. And he should have learned from that little tid bit, the lesson that the US should have ignored France and the Un instead of havng an arms race for votes in the UN. The UN precipitated the war with Iraq the moment the US allowed the methodology (inspectors) to partake of the shine of US prestige and approval.

As for Munich, it's either way. Neville believed he shouldn't go to war right now, right then, because he believed he had a chance at peace. Much as Allan here believes he can have peace by using this non-existent post 9/11 mysticism in the world. There's always more than 2 options here. Allan can see things in hindsight, their causes, but he interprets it and learns from it incorrectly. This produces some curious end conclusions concerning the current war.

Now that a genuine threat has emerged -- a nuclear armed Iran -- we lack the political support and perhaps resources to deal with it in a unilateral way.

That's not true. Every resource that is required to deal with Iran, Bush already has. What is stopping him is lack of will, and people like Allan here I believe, misinterpret lack of will to be lack of resources.

If we go in without proper international support and/or provocation on the part of Iran it will end up a political disaster.

Even while talking about being unilateral, they still think and believe in proper international support. There is no proper international support because the international community is on the side that pays them and the side that can and will destroy them. Demonstrate power and they'll flock to you. Demonstrate weakness, and they will be on you as vultures.

After 9/11 the US had the political capital and goodwill to help stabilize the region, but instead we squandered it in a heavy-handed way that alienated our allies while antagonizing potential enemies.

If a person really believes that, then he believes people can be convinced not to blow themselves up through pep rallies and "salesmen". That person believes as Neville Chamberlain did, that peace was possible because he was very good at making a "deal". This isn't about deals, this is about power, who has it, and who is willing to use what they have.