[Update at the end}
Psychoanalysis, a science of the mind, and Neuroscience, the science of the brain, share a common failing: neither has a reasonable and coherent theory of action. In other words, we can often (partially) retrospectively explain why a person did what he did, but we do not have a decent theory that is able to accurately predict specific actions. This becomes a major problem when the action we are trying to predict includes violence.
There are really only two ways that we know that have any predictive value of future violence. A history of past violence suggests the risk of future violence is higher than in a person with no such history and verbal threats of violence also indicate an increased risk of violence. Beyond those two factors, there is no way to predict future violence, and even when those risk factors are taken into account, there is no way to quantify the risk of violence.
Yesterday, news broke that makes this determination of critical importance:
TEHRAN, April 11 — Iran announced Tuesday that its nuclear engineers had advanced to a new phase in the enrichment of uranium, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a series of the country's ruling clerics declared that the nation would now speed ahead, in defiance of a United Nations Security Council warning, to produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a speech that was broadcast live from the city of Mashad, said Iran is determined to develop production on an industrial scale.
"Iran has joined the nuclear countries of the world," Mr. Ahmadinejad said during a large, carefully staged and nationally televised celebration in Mashhad, which included video presentations of each step of the nuclear process that he declared Iran had mastered. "The nuclear fuel cycle at the laboratory level has been completed, and uranium with the desired enrichment for nuclear power plants was achieved."
This is not a surprise, and the distance between what Iran has just achieved and the ability to build their own bomb is significant, however it is one more large step toward the abyss.
Iran has repeatedly used violence to achieve what they consider their national and religious goals, which includes the destruction of Israel and the subjugation of all to Islam. They have made open threats that they will use nuclear weapons to destroy Israel and as part of an attempt to usher in the Apocalypse. Thus they have the history of violence and the verbal threats of violence which remain the only predictors of future violence. In general, it is always wise to take people at their word when they threaten violence.
The courts have agreed.
The US Supreme Court has held, in the Tarasoff decision that when a Mental Health professional becomes aware of specific threats to the life of a third party, they have a duty to warn the intended victim and the police so that the victim can be protected.
Hugh Hewitt points out that we have seen this kind of defiance before by a homicidal, anti-Semitic, dictator; that time the world did nothing and the resultant suffering was exponentially increased.
This morning I heard a talking head on NPR suggest that cooler heads on both sides need to sit down together and talk this out. Captain Ed points out that this folly has already been tried; Ahmadinejad has been reading from Hitler's playbook in more than one area.
For those who would counter that the United States also has a history of violence (as does every extant state) and has made threats (though not as direct as Iran), I would suggest to you that this only confirms the point.
If Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons (from North Korea, or AQ Khan's nuclear emporium, or the Ukraine as suggested by Caroline Glick) then it is still two years away from being able to make its own nuclear weapon (and maybe much further away since they may not be able to surmount the technical problems in scaling up their enrichment program.) The problem is that there is so much uncertainty in the situation. Roger Simon underlines the difficulty:
What would a "diplomatic solution" to the Iranian nuclear question actually look like? Just give me a few concrete sentences... Not easy, is it? Not for anything tangible anyway. Even if we got the Iranians to sign something, what would it mean? Hardly any countries acknowledge their nuclear weapons programs while engaged in initiating them. The US didn't in 1944. The Soviets didn't. The UK and the French didn't. The Israelis didn't. The Pakistanis and the Indians didn't. What they said they were doing and what they were doing were rarely the same thing. And we expect the Iranian Mullahs, of all people, to behave differently? You'd have to throw in the Golden Gate with the Verrazano Narrows and the Brooklyn Bridge, if you wanted to sell me that one. Who knows what the Iranians are really doing?
Iran is hardly likely to fully open up their country for inspection, they have operational ties to terrorist groups around the globe, and they have insisted they have the will to murder millions once they have the capability. Iran presents itself as undeterrable and asks that we submit to their cramped and evil vision of Islam.
In essence, we have a psychotic murderer on the block who has killed before. He is importing large quantities of bomb making equipment and he won't let us look in his basement. At the same time he screams threats at the neighbors every other day. Yet he insists that the bomb components are meant for Fourth of July fireworks and we should trust him on it. This is not a comforting picture.
At some point in the next year or two, action will be taken; there is no choice when facing an existential threat. Iran's Islam is an existential threat to Israel and the Untied States and the United States and Israel are an existential threat to the Islam of Iran. Something has to give.
Update: For those who do not appreciate why tolerating an Iranian bomb is a disaster for the entire Middle East and why Isreal will never tolerate it, take a look at Charlie Munn's post at the Officers' Club.
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