By Stephen M. Walt
Foreign Policy
"Political leaders often draw negative inferences from an adversary's conduct, without realizing that their own behavior is not really that different. In particular, an opponent's past actions is frequently invoked to demonstrate how aggressive/dangerous/hostile/unstable they are, but when one's own country (or a close ally) acts in the very same way, we are quick to find ways to rationalize or justify it and we would never conclude that we might be equally aggressive or irrational.
Case in point: in an interview with Charlie Rose on Sept. 7, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair came close to endorsing the use of force against Iran, on the grounds that it would be too dangerous if Iran were some day to acquire a nuclear weapons capability....."
Foreign Policy
"Political leaders often draw negative inferences from an adversary's conduct, without realizing that their own behavior is not really that different. In particular, an opponent's past actions is frequently invoked to demonstrate how aggressive/dangerous/hostile/unstable they are, but when one's own country (or a close ally) acts in the very same way, we are quick to find ways to rationalize or justify it and we would never conclude that we might be equally aggressive or irrational.
Case in point: in an interview with Charlie Rose on Sept. 7, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair came close to endorsing the use of force against Iran, on the grounds that it would be too dangerous if Iran were some day to acquire a nuclear weapons capability....."
No comments:
Post a Comment