This guy flunked history

President Bush said yesterday he was "absolutely serious" last month when he warned that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to World War III. Citing Iranian leaders' almost ritualistic threats against Israel, he said "If you want to see World War III, you know, a way to do that is to attack Israel with a nuclear weapon."

It would be terrible if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. As readers of this blog know, however, I think it highly unlikely that Iran would, as such an attack would be a death sentence for Iran, and I'm pretty confident that Iran's leaders know that. But even if it happened, it would be a regional war. A devastating, tragic war, to be sure. But World War III? No.

World War I consumed millions of lives in the developed and undeveloped world, disrupted economies worldwide and had other global repercussions, and set the stage for World War II. World War II consumed even more lives, led to desperate fighting in nearly every part of the globe, and drastically reshaped the world order for generations to come. Throughout the Cold War, the world lived in fear that a real World War III would break out, destroying humanity on a global scale, or nearly so.

World War, by definition, involves in the most destructive ways imaginable most of the world, or at least most of the powers within the developed world with complex economies and/or large militaries. An Iranian nuclear attack on Israel -- which isn't even possible now and, according to most informed observers, will not even be potentially possible until years after George W. Bush leaves the White House -- simply would not meet that awful standard.

To raise the specter of World War in this context at this time is fear-mongering at its worst and is of the sort that, alas, we and the entire world have come to expect from this administration, akin to its hysteric cries about Saddam Hussein's mythic weapons of mass destruction. Let us refuse to be suckers for Bush's demagoguery this time, lest we find ourselves in another bloody and needless war.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 9 December 2007