The Greatest Danger

The repeated question, ‘Is Iraq or North Korea the greater danger?’ is misleading. The clear implication of those who ask the question is that if North Korea represents a greater threat to America right now, we should drop everything and take care of the North Korea problem. Oddly enough, these people were quick to cry out that we should not deal with Iraq before we mopped up Afghanistan. Since they now say, after the fact of course, that Afghanistan was a cakewalk and no real military challenge, they must have thought Iraq a stronger threat. Yet they did not advocate Baghdad First. Was it a mistake to take on the Taliban first? Was it an error to commit forces to the Philippines where they helped rip up some minor Taliban wannabees?

Anyway, what of the argument? First of all, this assumes we can take care of the greater problem. And since many who sing this tune oppose war with Iraq, will they really support a far more difficult, bloody, and dangerous war simply because North Korea has nukes now? Good Lord, the number of North and South Korean civilians who would die in a North Korea First strategy would dwarf the deaths of innocents in the Gulf! And if they don’t support war after North Korea says, no thank you, we’ll just keep our nukes, will they then say ‘Ok, we looked at it and it is too tough, we can go back to dealing with Iraq?’ (And hope Saddam didn’t use the months or years it takes the NK Firsters to recant in order to develop lots of nasty weapons to lob at us?)

And if we turn our attention to North Korea, what happens if the Chinese decide to lob some missiles at Taiwan and take a crack at invasion or, oh say, ram one of our unarmed reconnaissance planes over international waters? Do we then drop North Korea and turn to face the greater threat?

Or maybe we should be focused on making sure Pakistan is a nice stable, suburban democracy lest Islamists fling some A-bombs at us or their Indian neighbors? Or, what if Saddam explodes a nuclear device in his western desert while we focus on North Korea? Do we then get to consider Saddam the greater threat? Do we count the nukes and daily switch around who is number one and who is two?

Clearly—or at least it should be clear—we cannot scamper about the planet reacting to every threat, dropping a lesser one to focus on the new greater threat. Greater danger is not static or easily compartmentalized. Will the threat as a whole be diminished or increased by dealing with Iraq, Iran, or North Korea first? Clearly, if we take down one nuclear state while letting another go nuclear in that time frame, it is inferior to taking out the nuclear aspirant first and then turning to the existing nuclear state. We go from dealing with two nuclear-armed thugs to ‘only’ one. Indeed, if we are lucky, taking down nuclear aspirant Iraq will inspire a revolution in Iran, thus taking out another nuclear aspirant. Facing the last—nuclear-armed—member of the Axis of Evil will be far easier then. By whittling down the number of threats by taking out the relatively easiest first, we reduce the chance that we will be distracted or stymied in dealing with the next threat. Fewer psychos around with or without nukes is better.

Indeed, if we discovered that Bahrain had a nuke and Shia fanatics take over, it might be wise to drop Rangers and the Marines on that island ASAP, delaying a strike on Iraq for a couple weeks, in order to quickly reduce the population of mad mullahs with nukes.

Another problem with going after the strongest threat of the moment is that the price we pay to defeat that threat could exhaust us and prevent us from taking on other threats. If we invade North Korea, assuming we overcome all the obstacles to actually carrying one out, will we contemplate our 10,000 dead and say, ‘Ok boys, on to Iraq now! I’m just getting my second wind!’ Heck no, we’ll be grateful to have won at all and will lick our wounds and ponder how we got into that mess. I guarantee the NK Firsters won’t proclaim the wisdom of their strategy and demand action on the second-tier threat immediately—even if Iraq doesn’t get nukes in the meantime. It is a very real possibility that lesser threats will grow too strong while we go after the strongest.

No, the greatest threat is failing to take out who we can when the price is cheapest. Time is not on our side, and if we delay too much, we will simply have the choice of which nuclear armed despot we wish to confront first. Or we’ll learn to live in a hideous world where a nuclear-armed thug can do what he wishes short of nuking an American city, knowing that we are helpless to stop him at a price we are willing to pay.

On to Baghdad.