The Terrible Logic of Nukes

摘要

The growing debate on invading Iraq hinges on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Opponents of invasion discount the existing threat by arguing that A) he is not crazy enough to use them against us, and B) if he doesn't use them, what threat are they? The response to A is we do not know that Saddam is sane enough never to use them against us, and it is not a proposition that we should wish to test by giving him yet more time to acquire them. Saddam has acted with supreme irrationality in the past, from launching a catastrophic war against Iran in 1980 to forfeiting half a dozen opportunities offered to him in 1990 to extricate himself with advantage from Kuwait. In the annals of tyranny and on the scale of capricious savagery, he ranks somewhere between Caligula and Mao. There's not much percentage in counting on the rationality of such gentlemen.