Springer on Iran

I was listening to Jerry Springer (on the radio) this morning. While I like him a lot (he is surprisingly moderate) he sometimes starts paddling fast in the wrong direction when he gets asked about things he hasn't thought through yet.

This morning, for instance, he got a call from somebody who pointed out that Iran might make nukes and deliver them in a suicide-bomber's backpack instead of using missiles. Jerry responded by claiming that even though a nuke smuggled in a backpack went off we would know "for sure" that it was Iran that was behind it. The caller then referred to "plausible deniability" and said we would have no way of proving that Iran was behind the attack. Jerry stuck to his guns and then he switched topics. He had no real comeback, so he just dismissed the caller's legitimate argument by saying "oh we'll know it's Iran".

It seems to me the better response would have been to point out that there's very little stopping a suicide-bomber from acquiring a post-Soviet nuke and bringing it into the country today. So nuking Iran to dust would not eliminate this threat.

Also, Jerry could have pointed out that even though we might not know for sure that Iran was behind it if a nuke went off in New York, an Iranian government would have to factor in a risk of their planning being exposed. So if the bombing attempt was somehow thwarted, Iran would face the very real possibility of a US retaliation, which would presumably serve as a cold-war style deterrent.

Bottom line: Liberals should not respond on auto-pilot to these types of arguments, even if we instinctively despise the simplicity of the "nuke-em-all" diehards. Iran is a real issue that has to be dealt with one way or another. Simply calling for "peace and love" is not going to cut it, and the sooner Dems/liberals start to really think about these things the better off we'll all be.