Saturday Responses 4-21-06
Rudy Rummel
"What Do Americans Think Of The Democratic Peace?"
See the 21 comments on this cross-post to Dean's World
RJR—Some answers: No, I do not favor war to spread democracy.
I see Iran as a direct threat to the U.S. by virtue of its being the homeland of terrorism and its development of nukes. You can be sure that if it gets nukes, so will terrorists.
Given the spread of democracy among 121 countries, virtually all regions, all cultures, all religions, all races, and all ethnic groups have, or have had, at least one democracy representing them. The cultural argument against democracy, which was used against democratizing Japan after World War II, is no longer tenable.
It is a dangerous risk in the nuclear age not to accept a wide-consensus among the intelligence services of the democracies that a tyrant, who supports terrorism and has invaded his neighbors, has WMD, and is close to developing nukes. It is imperative in such a case to strike first and not wait for the mushroom cloud resulting from terrorists setting off a suitcase nuke in New York. Note the words "suitcase nuke." It is a potentially awful mistake to think only of nuclear tipped missiles.
(Continued here)
