Drum & Waldman on the Political Risks of the Iran Deal

Paul Waldman writes about the asymmetric political risks that Democrats and Republicans face over the Iran nuclear deal:

If the agreement proves to be a failure — let’s say that Iran manages to conduct a nuclear weapons program in secret, then announces to the world that they have a nuclear weapon — it will indeed be front-page news, and the Democrats who supported the deal might suffer grave political consequences. So in order to vote yes, they had to look seriously at the deal and its alternatives, and accept some long term political peril.

By contrast, there probably is less long term risk for Republicans in opposing the deal.

...If the deal works as intended, what will be the outcome be? Iran without nuclear weapons, of course, but that is a state of being rather than an event. There will be no blaring headlines saying, “Iran Still Has No Nukes — Dems Proven Right!”...

In a way, it's actually worse than this. Even if Iran doesn't get nukes there will be endless opportunities to raise alarms that it's going to happen any day now. Israeli leaders have been warning that Iran is three months away from a nuclear bomb for over two decades. There will always be new studies, new developments, and new conflicts that provide excuses for hysterical Fox News segments telling us we're all about to die at the hands of the ayatollahs.

...So have no worries. Iran could be nuclear free in 2050 and Bill Kristol's grandkids will still be warning everyone else's grandkids that the ayatollahs are this close to getting a bomb. It's kind of soothing, in a way, like a squeaky door that you'd miss if you ever oiled it.

Kevin Drum on the political risks of the nuclear deal with Iran.

He's right in the short-to-medium term of course, but if the West genuinely does manage to normalise relations with a peaceful non-nuclear Iran (still a very dubious prospect), my guess is that Bill Kristol's progeny will have found a new go-to bogeyman long before 2050, with the Iranian nuclear affair a curious historical footnote.  Here's hoping.

Kevin Drum on the Curious Rarity of Female Libertarians

Jeet Heer investigates a burning question today: why are most libertarians men? He offers several plausible explanations, but I think he misses the real one, perhaps because it's pretty unflattering to libertarians.

So here's the quick answer: Hardcore libertarianism is a fantasy. It's a fantasy where the strongest and most self-reliant folks end up at the top of the heap, and a fair number of men share the fantasy that they are these folks. They believe they've been held back by rules and regulations designed to help the weak, and in a libertarian culture their talents would be obvious and they'd naturally rise to positions of power and influence.

Most of them are wrong, of course. In a truly libertarian culture, nearly all of them would be squashed like ants—mostly by the same people who are squashing them now. But the fantasy lives on regardless.

Few women share this fantasy. I don't know why, and I don't really want to play amateur sociologist and guess.

...

And no reference to Orcs.  I'll add only this.  It's a fantasy which one would expect most sensible adults to eventually outgrow.  Due in part to enabling circumstances of social privilege, some never do.