When the Last Resort is the First Resort

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

[TheRealFish]

On not talking to Ahmadinejad or any other bad actor on the world stage because it empowers them, enables them, hurts America's image or stature or... whatever:

"We will bury you!"
-USSR Premiere Nikita Krushchev, November, 1956, at a speech in Poland and talking about the United States. The USSR that had thousands of nukes pointing in our direction.

Vice President Nixon's "Kitchen Debate"? Anyone?

Cuban Missile Crisis and the Red Phone?

And what about that Red Phone, anyway? This guy, whom we deemed the worst guy leading the worst country in the world and we had a frakking dedicated phone line between the White House and the Kremlin that, as far as I know, would only pass calls between those two points.

No wonder neocons are all about defunding public schooling (of which I'm a product). It's not "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," it's "pay no attention to that history book on the shelf."

And, for some god's sake, pay no attention to common sense.

[dratster]

After Khrushchev speech in 1956 the Soviets invaded Hungrary which also quelled the prodemocracy movement in Poland. 10 years after that the Soviets were actively killing Americans in Vietnam, so much so that even today there are vietnamese jokes about Soviet sounding names...

Yet we negotiated with the Soviets and as Obama noted, Iran does NOT even begin to equate to the threat that the Soviet Union was.

However, with all of our lofty ideals we still do business with China that regularly and brutally denies Human Rights, invaded the county of Tibet and has threatened to take back Taiwan by force.

As an lifelong Republican, let me be one to say that we do NOT need another 4 years of Republican failed policies.

[PioneerKing]

McCain's comments are the blatherings of an addlepated politician, who's more intolerant and obdurate than Bush.

McCain's 28 years in Washington have not produced an erudite politician of sound judgement capable of change. Instead it's apparent the MSM's portrayal of McCain as a "straight talking maverick," strong on national security and foreign policy is a myth of catastrophic proportions.

In his major national security speech, McCain said he wants "INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR STORAGE. "
...It's possible Russia might build a storage facility for countries in East Asia, but McCain's suggesting some other country's going to accept our stock of spent fuel and this would avoid opening the spent fuel repository in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Who does McCain think is going to take our nuclear waste? Even if taken off our hands, the stuff contains 100,000+ weapons worth of plutonium. McCain wants to export that to a country poor enough to want into the nuclear waste storage business.

THIS THE DUMBEST THING ANY AMERICAN POLITICIAN HAS UTTERED ABOUT NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE. TALK ABOUT NAIVETY AND POOR JUDGEMENT!

One wonders how McCain would safely ship nuclear material to these countries in light of the failure of Bush/Cheney/McCain and the republicans to secure our foreign controlled ports and shipping companies, increasing levels of sea piracy and the inability of poor countries to guarantee long term security of these materials?

EVERYTIME McCAIN MAKES A MAJOR SPEECH IT'S MINDLESS BLATHER.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-wolfsthal/mccains-nonproliferation_b_103708.html

[jsarets]

War is an incredibly effective way of marketing supply-side deficit stimulus to taxpayers. We use the war supplementals to keep our GDP growth in the black. If we weren't funding the war, we'd have been in recession for quite some time as per the official definition. As our domestic demand sputters and fails under the weight of skyrocketing commodity prices, we will need ever more war to prevent recession.

That's why we have to expand the scope of the global war on terror to Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and beyond. If we ever stop fighting these wars, our economy will collapse, so they really aren't wars of choice. We have to keep fighting until we control enough of the world's oil reserves that we can blackmail our creditors into forgiving our debt. Otherwise the continued financial solvency of our nation is highly dubious.

Furthermore, it's imperative that we don't take even 4 years off in our quest to bully the world into letting us borrow as much money as we want without consequence. Any oil-exporting nation that acquires nuclear deterrent capability is one less nation that we can plunder. We're in a race to lay claim to their oil reserves before they join The Club, but the Democrats, as usual, can't understand that our way of life depends on terrorizing and looting the rest of the world.

(note: I do not endorse these views, I'm simply describing the world through the eyes of an elite neocon)

[MenopausalMick]

Not only is it about the money, it's about the oil. Read today's Alternet posting:

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/86515/

I believe one of the major reasons we invaded Iraq was that Saddam moved Iraqi oil from its traditional currency of dollars into Euros.

The world had a dollar standard for all oil purchases prior to Saddam's currency change. It forced major foreign investment in the dollar.

Further, according to the Alternate article, Saddam offered to open new oil fields to exploration prior to our invasion. Since our invasion, not only have the new fields not been opened, Iraqi oil production has fallen off considerably.

So, thanks to our current administration for helping to boost the cost at the pump! Great Job Georgie.

McCain has no intention of abandoning those untapped oilfields in Iraq, not with Peak Oil finally making itself globally heard.

Read up on all this: google peak oil, dollar hegemony, oil and the value of the dollar...that sort of thing

Menopausal Mick

[hopeless277]

Oh, come on!! Grow up!! Republicans, all Republicans, are the first to start a fight and the last to participate in that fight. It's not about ideology, or safety, or national pride, or Iraqi pride, or anything else. IT'S ABOUT THE MONEY. War = Profit. Endless War = Endless Profit. In case you haven't been paying attention, the USA has undergone the largest shift in wealth in the history of this country. Billions and billions have been directed to the wealthy through capital gains and tax cuts. It's an endless cycle of Republicans giving taxpayer money to the wealthy and the wealthy giving the money back to Republicans to get elected so that MORE money can be given to the wealthy. That is really all it is about. Creating a ruling over-class. Too bad Democrats are doing it too.

[jhamm1]

In essence, McCain and Bush, embody obsolescent armchair warriors in search of a purpose. They long for the days of Stalin, Tojo, and HItler, whereby one could always derive a sense of purpose in pitting themselves in an absolute struggle of good against evil. NOw they attempt to delude themselves and every impresisonable idiot in the United States that the socalled Axis of Evil harbor the militarisitic ambitions and miltiary capacity of the totaltitarian dictators of yesteryear.

[rnb]

To the man who only has a hammer, all problems appear to be nails.