Sunday, March 17, 2013

doves

This article, explaining "why Iran may be ready to deal," represents the dovish end of acceptable opinion. Mr. Let's Peace bases the whole piece on the mostly buried premise that Iran has a nuclear program that America has a "right" or "duty" or bootstrapped metaphysical wtf to try to stop. The argument completely falls apart if that's not true. Which it's not, in any sense, considering that:

There is neither evidence that Iran has a military nuclear program nor that it is moving in that direction.
There is neither evidence that Iran has a military nuclear program nor that it is moving in that direction.
There is neither evidence that Iran has a military nuclear program nor that it is moving in that direction.
There is neither evidence that Iran has a military nuclear program nor that it is moving in that direction.
And finally, there is neither evidence that Iran has a military nuclear program nor that it is moving in that direction.

It's tempting to say, "but even if it did, even if it was..." and so on, because the dove argument's flaws run far deeper (I haven't even touched on the real problems) but...the entire article has already been destroyed. And while it's certainly worthwhile to expose those flaws, and I have, elsewhere, this post is a lazy person's guide to debunking Iran war-mongering: whatever they say, just repeat the above until they stop talking.

(Look at me, kicking the ass of the "dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University." I'm sure Johns Hopkins will get a tenured professorship offer in the mail to me pronto when they see this.)

UPDATE:
By the way, I didn't actually read the article unless taking 30 seconds or so to skim the first few paragraphs counts.

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