A response to Cenk Uygur: How ‘bout we don’t use any weapon against Iran?

Joshua Holland
December 21, 2006

Cenk's a good guy, so when I say that I must respectfully disagree with his post from yesterday, I mean it.

Cenk makes the point that we don't need to bomb Iran, and suggests we learn from past experience that the spread of capitalism is our best "weapon" for getting recalcitrant countries to see things our way.

I find five problems with his argument. It assumes that we need a weapon of some sort to use against Iran; it rests heavily on the oft-cited but problematic "democratic peace theory"; it misrepresents that theory and conflates democracy with capitalism; it draws a faulty historical analogue between Iran and Vietnam and it assumes that "our" model of capitalism has proven its capacity to bring about stability.

One at a time…

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