Israel wants to put the US military in action:
The United States and its allies must act to stop Iran’s nuclear programs — by force if necessary — because conventional diplomacy will not work, three senior Israeli lawmakers from across the political spectrum warned yesterday. As a last resort, they said, Israel itself would act unilaterally to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear arms.
Here’s the question. If a nuclear Iran is a serious and direct threat to Israel – and I’m not arguing that it isn’t – why is it the United States’ responsibility to deal with it? Israel clearly has the ability to deal with the threat, as its lawmakers readily admit, so why should the responsibility devolve upon Americans?
Blessing Israel, as Christians are called to do, does not involve blind obedience to Israeli lawmakers anymore than giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s requires paying taxes one does not owe.
The reality is that nuclear technology is very close to being beyond the control of the nation-state. While this is somewhat frightening, as chaotic periods of historical transition are usually quite unpleasant, the truth is that it is actually likely to increase individual freedom in the long term. As Carroll Quigly points out in his insightful Tragedy And Hope, the cheap and ready availability of military-level weapons technology to the masses has always had the tendency to decrease the ability of central governments to use force to oppress their people.
The problem lies in the governments’ inevitable attempts to retain the upper hand, which can often be quite violent. I do not think it is an accident that it should be at this time of a teetering status quo that the leaders of Australia, the UK and the USA should be publicly making noises about using their militaries to suppress civil liberties in their countries.
It seems we live in interesting times, unfortunately.