Intentionally or not, Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds seems to have written one of those posts that has everyone buzzing. Responding to reports that Iran is providing weapons used to attack Americans in Iraq, Reynolds argued:
This has been obvious for a long time anyway, and I don’t understand why the Bush Administration has been so slow to respond. Nor do I think that high-profile diplomacy, or an invasion, is an appropriate response.
We should be responding quietly, killing radical mullahs and iranian atomic scientists, supporting the simmering insurgencies within Iran, putting the mullahs’ expat business interests out of business, etc. Basically, stepping on the Iranians’ toes hard enough to make them reconsider their not-so-covert war against us in Iraq. And we should have been doing this since the summer 2003. But as far as I can tell, we’ve done nothing along these lines….
[T]o be clear, I think it’s perfectly fine to kill people who are working on atomic bombs for countries — like Iran — that have already said that they want to use those bombs against America and its allies, and I think that those who feel otherwise are idiots, and in absolutely no position to strike moral poses. We may wind up doing so via airstrikes, but it would be better to do it in a more selective manner.
I’m loath to put words on his page, but Reynolds apparently believes American assassins should infiltrate Iran to kill unnamed Iranian religious leaders and civilian scientists. I’ll assume Reynolds would prefer to wait for some kind of evidence to point to actual wrongdoing before we start sending hit men into Tehran, but it’s a little unclear.
What’s more, Reynolds’ position has been widely embraced by several other high-profile conservative bloggers. John Hawkins, for example, is convinced that Iran “is a threat to the United States” because it is “targeting our soldiers in Iraq,” which makes critics of Reynolds idea “silly.” Hawkins explained, “Certainly our prohibition on assassinations isn’t going to stop any of our enemies from trying to assassinate Americans if they can get away with it. Only the fear of getting caught and of our retaliation will do that.”
So much for the moral high-ground.
From where I sit, there are two ways of looking at this.
First, as Glenn Greenwald noted, is the legal perspective.
Consistent with American tradition, international treaties, with virtual unanimity, deplore extra-judicial assassinations as the tools of savages and barbarians.
And what is most striking is that these anti-assassination prohibitions apply (a) to wartime and (b) even to foreign leaders of nations who are at war. But here, Reynolds is actually advocating that we murder scientists and religious figures who are “radical,” whatever that might happen to mean in the unchecked mind of George Bush.
If we are to be a country that now sends death squads into nations with whom we are not at war to slaughter civilians — scientists and religious figures — what don’t we do?
Second, and just as importantly, Kevin Drum explains perfectly what Reynolds is, in practice, advocating.
I imagine a lot of people agree with Glenn, but his recommendation really demonstrates the moral knot caused by George Bush’s insistence that we’re fighting a “war on terror.” After all, killing civilian scientists and civilian leaders, even if you do it quietly, is unquestionably terrorism. That’s certainly what we’d consider it if Hezbollah fighters tried to kill cabinet undersecretaries and planted bombs at the homes of Los Alamos engineers. What’s more, if we took this tack against Iran, we’d be doing it for the same reason that terrorists target us: because it’s a more effective, more winnable tactic than conventional war.
If you think Iran is a mortal enemy that needs to be dealt with via military force, you can certainly make that case. But if you’re going to claim that terrorism is a barbaric tactic that has to be stamped out, you can hardly endorse its use by the United States just because it’s convenient in this particular case.
Case closed.