Obama Understands lessons of Detente/Engagement
The blogosphere is agog today over recent comments Obama made concerning the threat Iran and other rouge nations pose compared to that of The Soviet Union of the Cold War era. Jennifer Rubin in today’s Commentary wrote:
Was it presidential visits with the Soviet Union that brought down the Berlin Wall? Or was it the 40 year history of bipartisan military deterrence, the willingness of Ronald Reagan to walk away from Reykjavik summit, the resulting bankruptcy of the Soviet Empire, the support of dissidents and freedom fighters in the war against tyranny, and the willingness to identify Communism as a center of evil in the late 20th century?
The problem is that Rubin and others who’ve spent the day castigating Obama miss the Democrat’s point entirely. Obama wasn’t claiming Iran and the other rogues to be non-threats, just not on the same level posed by the Soviets. Can this point even be reasonably argued? During The Cold War tens of thousands of ICBMS targeted US soil, putting us a mere button push and 45 minute burst from annihilation. The threat was not that the enemy might acquire a nuke but that they would unload an entire arsenal of them. Would anyone equate the threat posed by trying to obtain a gun with that of actually using the gun? Of course we are threatened by a foe wanting to obtain nuclear technology, but as Andrew Sullivan pointed out, is that threat any greater than of a Pakistan possessing such technology? We are engaged with Pakistan just as we were with The Soviet Union.  Could any reasonable mind conclude that Iran poses an equal or greater threat to us than both Pakistan and The Soviet Union?
Obama was making the point that if we could engage the Soviets, whose threat was far more formidable, than we certainly can engage the Iranians. It wasn’t just the military buildup under Reagan that brought The Soviet Union down, but the combined effects of the SALT and START Treaties, the termination of Egyptian Israeli hostilities through the Camp David Accords, Detente, AND knowing when to stare the enemy down; it was the carrot AND the stick and knowing when to use which. Obama was merely echoing standard US policy up until 2001, when Bush/Cheney rewrote half a century of US security doctrine.
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