Iran and the Cuban Missile Crisis - Kevin Drum Misinterprets/Rewrites History

Understanding leading indicators is a skill possessed by those whose actions can nromally be described as discerning. In the proceeding example, Kevin Drum quotes Andrew Sullivan as an authority. While I won't make any attempt whatsoever to argue for any regular discernment on my part, I will however note that I immediately knew that something stinky and treacherous would be the result.

Kevin insinuates and builds a strawman argument when he decries that right-wingers are nefariously building momentum towards war against Iran. He believes negotiations are a legitimate form of deterrance, and he uses the Cuban Missle Crisis as an example:

For conservatives, liberals, and everyone in between, Iran is really the crucial touchstone. It's one thing to say, in retrospect, that the Iraq war was wrong, and then to suggest that you've learned your lesson and now believe that there are more effective ways of fighting jihadism than bluster and invasion. But the rubber hits the road when you get down to cases. If you've learned your lesson, then why not apply those lessons to Iran?

It's a funny thing. Conservatives have a peculiar habit these days of viewing the Cold War through nostalgically rose-tinted glasses. At least life was simple back then. We had one enemy, and as bad as they were, they had interests. We could talk to them.

But this is just flatly wrong. When Krushchev banged his shoe at the UN and promised to bury us, we thought he meant every word of it. And plenty of people were convinced that it was useless to negotiate with such a regime. At the time, a lot of people viewed Krushchev and the Soviets exactly the way the neocons view Ahmadinejad and the Iranians today.

But guess what? JFK proved them wrong. We now know that he didn't stare down the lunatic Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He negotiated a deal with them, and it worked. Likewise, in Vietnam, anti-communist paranoia blinded us to the essentially nationalist nature of the war we were fighting there. Today we know that negotiations and support for fair elections probably could have worked.

Here is what actually happened in the Cuban Missle Crisis.

During the 1960 election, in which Kennedy was running against Nixon, one of the main issues was the "missle gap" between the United States and the Soviet Union. Although this missile gap was largely imaginary, Kennedy built his Cold War strategy around making sure that the United States increased its lead over the Soviets in the number of intercontinental missiles that could be ready to strike the Soviet Union in the event of war. This missile gap was very public and it was something the the Unites States was tipping the scales on.

The Soviets were definitely listening. According to them, the United States had some 300 intercontinental missiles that could strike the Soviet Union at any time, compared to about four or five intercontinetal missiles and 30 medium range missiles that they had (the Soviet Union would have to heavily rely on bombers to strike the U.S. mainland in the event of war--even then they were woefully short of the amount the U.S. had). Then they discovered that the United States had delivered medium range missles to Turkey that could strike Moscow in ten minutes. This revealed the dreaded "first strike" that would leave the Soviet Union in rubble before they could retaliate, and Nikita Khrushchev was under major pressure to do something.

The Soviets were reeling against the years of war and purging from Joseph Stalin and all the resources the Soviets could muster at that time were going towards domestic programs. Khrushchev realized that a missle race with the Unites States would drive his country into the ground economically, so he needed to find another way.

Fidel Castro had survived the bungled attempt by the United States to support a revolution to overthrow him. Ever concerned by another attempt of the United States to try again, he reached out to his Soviet parent for help in defending Cuba from a U.S. invasion. For Khrushchev he could neutralize the first-strike capability of the United States, while also providing a nuclear umbrella for an ally under threat.

Unfortunately for Khrushchev, the United States snapped a couple of photographs of the missile sites from a U2 that had been constructed by the Soviets. Although the United States could not definitively prove the existence of nuclear missiles, Kennedy knew their purpose and confronted the Soviets publically. He "quarantined" Cuba (diplospeak at the time for a blockade), and stated that any nuclear attack that orginated from Cuba would be considered a strike from the Soviet Union. Tensions were rising to a boil and the United States implicitly threatened to invade Cuba.

This is the nuclear gambit that Kennedy played. In the event of a full-on invasion, the US would have face 40,000 Cubans and close to 250,000 Soviet troops. Although they didn't know the total size of the force at the time, the U.S. knew that it would be a difficult task. Secondly, and most importantly, it was assumed that the Soviet commander would be authorized to launch tactical nuclear weapons in the event of invasion. If so, a full nuclear exchange would have occurred.

Khrushchev never intended a first strike, but only to close the current U.S. advantage. Kennedy appeared willing to go to war over it, and although Kennedy was absolutely certain of the consequences of such actions, Khrushchev called an end to the madness by offering to pull the missiles out of the Cuba in exchange for the promise by the United States not to invade Cuba. Additionally, they asked the U.S. to pull the missiles out of Turkey.

Kennedy agreed to both points and war was averted. However, the last demand, where he demanded that missiles threatening Moscow from Turkey were to be pulled out, was a brilliant move by Kennedy. The United States were soon to deploy ICBMs by submarine, and thus no longer needed forward bases in Turkey to deliver them. Kennedy gave Khrushchev a false bargaining chip without actually reducing U.S. capabilities.

Drum and many on the Left argue today that there is the magical realm of "diplomacy" that can be enacted in a vaccum where geopolitical players sit down and rationally hammer out win-win situations between each other. Kevin says that the right-wing continues to view every event through 1938 as a de-facto solution to going to war everytime someone pisses us off, and that it has been proven wrong through his false understanding of what actually happen during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

That is yet another strawman argument. Kennedy negotiated with the Soviets from a position of strength. The Soviets knew that a nuclear exchange at the time would have completely destroyed them, and whether or not they believed that Kennedy would actually invade Cuba (thus setting off WWIII), they couldn't take the chance because they would have lost. Kevin is absolutely wrong when he insunuates that Kennedy negotiated without any intention of going to war. Whether Kennedy would have done so or not doesn't matter (and is something that we can never know), the point is Khrushchev knew he was serious enough to realize the effort wasn't worth it, and that is what matters.

The Lesson of Munich is not a de-facto argument for war. It is an argument that says that some actors will not be deterred from agression without a real threat or an actual act of war. Kennedy acted within this principle during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and forunately, Khrushchev blinked.

In the situation of Iran, the objectives are much different. We are trying to make sure the Iran does not become a nuclear power in the region. A nuclear armed Iran allows them to entrench their position in the Middle East, and the world, to the point where any attempt to overthrow their government through any means can be met with a nuclear deterrant. Under the nuclear umbrella, Iran can continue their proxy wars in Lebannon, Iraq, and possibly even South America.

A point I would like Kevin and the Left is to agree upon is that, bottom-line, Iran mustn't be allowed to acheive nuclear capability. If there is agreement upon that, how do we go about it ensuring it? Unlike Kennedy's position with the Soviets, the United States does not have the superior geo-political or domestic backing to demand a cessation. Iran knows that the only way they can be stopped, is through force. They are determined to become nuclear capable because the benefits ensure the survival of their regime. They believe that the United States and their European allies do not have the political will to invade (while conversely, Khrushchev wasn't so sure). Regardless of all of Iran's bluster, they know that a full invasion by the United States would be catestrophic for them, but they are heavily betting that we won't do it.

So, from this position, how do we get Iran to effectively end their pursuit of "the bomb?"

The clock is ticking.

Posted by 10 fingers 6 strings at September 8, 2006 09:07 AM | TrackBack