Iran vs. A Real Crisis

I've only watched the first couple of episodes, but The War makes vividly clear just how much the United States and England were on the ropes and seriously risked losing the war to both Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany in the first year or so of the war. Quoting from the first episode:

Unlike the professional armies of Germany and Japan, the armed forces that young American men rushed to join after Pearl Harbor had been totally unprepared to wage a world war. In 1940, the U.S. Army had been smaller than that of Rumania: only 174,000 men in uniform, wearing tin hats and leggings issued during World War I, and carrying rifles designed in 1903. The Army still owned tens of thousands of cavalry horses.

From the largest surrender of U.S. forces in history, 78,000 American and Filipino troops to to Imperial Japan in May 1941; from the fall of last American stronghold in the Philippines, Corregidor; from the shocking defeat and slaughter of untested U.S. forces by Rommel's Panzer units in North Africa and the Kasserine Pass; from the desperate battle for the control of Axis Italy; to finally the horrific loss of U.S. and British air force personnel in the skies over Nazi occupied Europe, I don't think anyone in their right mind would have predicted certain victory -- far from it.

At the end of that first year, late 1942, more than 35,000 Americans in uniform had died. From the Pacific, to North Africa, to the skies over Europe -- the world was aflame.

. . . and the worse, far worse, was yet to come. 

Ken Burn's The War puts into stark and badly needed relief the rhetoric again Iran, e.g., Bush's prediction of WWIII. With the U.S. being the world's only real superpower, with the most formidable military machine in the history of the planet, I think too many people have forgotten what a REAL threat looks like: there's nothing going on the world today - not even close - that compares to the threat that the Axis Powers presented to the west in the 1940's. Nothing.

Iran may and probably will get a few nuclear weapons in a few years -- but in no way is that any real direct threat to the U.S.. In fact, according to an article in the June 2001 25th edition of Newsweek, President Bush was stunned when he was told in May of the size of the US nuclear arsenal. Bush was quoted as saying, I had no idea we had so many weapons . . .

9/11 did change allot-- but mostly it changed perceptions, and contrary to those perceptions, the U.S. is in no real imminent peril from Iran or radical Islam:

The progressive left has their crisis and imminent peril: global warming. The neo-conservative right has it's own crisis and imminent peril: a nuclear armed Iran.

To the contrary, these are problems -- slowly developing problems. They are NOT catastrophic crises imminently barring down on us.

If you want to see what a catastrophic crisis imminently barring down on one looks & feels like -- see Ken Burn's The War.

Further reference reading:

• Bush's Iran Argument Lacks Sense, Credibility
• Evidence Suggests Iran Wouldn't Pull Nuclear Trigger

Disclosure about how well I'm trying to manipulate you: the headline of this post ('Iran vs. A Real Crisis') has an Emotional Marketing Value Score of 60% that appeals predominately to your intellectual sphere . . .