What Would You Do?

At Outside the Beltway, a cogent comment on how dictators will respond to our attack on Libya:

Indeed, there was hope by the Bush administration and amongst its allies eight-ish years ago that the US actions in Afghanistan and Iraq would prove to be a deterrent to states who might be contemplating such actions.

As history shows, it had the directly opposite effect on Iran, as it did not go without notice that Iraq was invaded to prevent a nuclear program ... and that the only member state of the “Axis of Evil” that no one seemed interested in invading was the one with nukes (i.e., North Korea). As such, the rational choice to procure a nuke PDQ was made.

Libya didn't get nukes; now they're vulnerable to attack. That will be the take home message among strong men the world over.

In today's continuation of the World's Longest Book Review at slactivist, Fred Clark maintains that the authors can't even make a compelling disaster story out of Armageddon because they're incapable of asking, What if that was me? Ironically, our politicians are perfectly capable of creating a disaster story our of our foreign policy because they, too, are incapable of asking, What if that was me? How would I respond to make myself secure?

Empathy. It's not just for the wishy washy can't-we-all-just-get-along types. If you want to be a successful hard-headed realist, you need to cultivate it, also.


[Update: North Korea says the same]