Quote of the Day: Nukes in Iran

Victor Davis Hanson, writing in NRO today, on why Iran is particularly troubling as a potential nuclear power:

. . . there are a number of rogue regimes that belong in a special category: North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Cuba . . . When such renegade regimes go nuclear they gain the added lunatic edge: "We are either crazy or have nothing to lose or both — but you aren't." In nuclear poker, the appearance of derangement is an apparent advantage.

. . . there are all sorts of scary combinations — petrodollars, nukes, terrorism, and fanaticism. But Iran is a uniquely fivefold danger. It has enough cash to buy influence and exemption; nuclear weapons to threaten civilization; oil reserves to blackmail a petroleum hungry world; terrorists to either find sanctuary under a nuclear umbrella or to be armed with dirty bombs; and it has a leader who wishes either to take his entire country into paradise, or at least back to the eighth century amid the ashes of the Middle East.

Just imagine the present controversy over the cartoons in the context of President Ahmadinejad with his finger on a half-dozen nuclear missiles pointed at Copenhagen.

Hanson, while second to none in his knowledge and wisdom, is sometimes long-winded; today's entry, however, is worth the time.