Back behind my high
school one day, we all assembled to watch a fist fight. To my
immense pleasure, a bully was being bested by his victim. Then
the bully's friend stepped in and ended matters with a swift kick
to the other guy's midsection. It was an unfair ending to what
was supposed to be a fair fight, but it taught me a valuable lesson:
You treat your friends differently than you do your enemies.
This elemental principle
of life, love and other matters seems utterly lost on so many
critics of George Bush's agreement to provide India with civilian
nuclear technology. In doing so, we are told, he has done something
truly awful -- established a double standard. Well, duh -- yes.
India is our friend and Iran, just to pick an example, is not.
The cry of ``double
standard'' is a bit silly. It asks us not to recognize certain
realities -- the difference between friends and enemies, for instance,
or good or bad democracies, to give another example. In the case
of the nuclear agreement, we are somehow supposed to believe that
by favoring India, Bush has made it much harder to put pressure
on Iran to abandon its apparent weapons program and become a ``good
guy'' nation. This overlooks the fact that Iran is governed by
a zealot who has pledged to eradicate Israel and who firmly believes
in the inherent evil of the United States of America. As Bush
once said about himself, the Iranians do not do nuance.
Reality imposes its
own rules -- and they have nothing to do with double standards.
North Korea probably already has a nuclear weapon. Iran is going
that way, and it is going to happen no matter what the U.S. and
its allies do. For Iran, going nuclear has been a national goal
ever since the shah headed the government. Now, this is even more
the case, especially since the U.S., which lumped Iran along with
Iraq into the ``axis of evil," invaded Iraq. It would hardly
be the height of paranoia for Iran to think it is next.
The invocation of
the term ``double standard'' is often applied where Israel is
concerned. Israel is presumed to have a nuclear arsenal. Why should
the U.S. look the other way at Israel's bomb and go nuts over
Iran's effort to get one? The answer ought to be clear: Because
Israel has not threatened to blow Iran off the map, because it
is vastly outnumbered in a tough, belligerent neighborhood and
because it is a lone democracy in a region run mostly by thugs.
If these distinctions don't make a difference then I have a bridge
I'd like to sell you.
The same accusation
of a double standard applies to the effort to discriminate between
election outcomes. We are supposed to treat the victory of Hamas
in Palestine as we would that of the Labor Party in Britain. But
the outcome of one democratic election is not threatening and
the other is, and we ought to be able to say so -- and do something
about it. If, for instance, we are supposed to continue aiding
a Palestinian government that has now fallen into the hands of
religious fanatics and virulent anti-Semites, then we have lost
our minds. It will not matter to some poor Israeli that the terrorist
who kills him represented a democratically elected government.
This is hardly an advance.
The ``double standard''
accusation has a schoolyard quality to it. Why a boycott of Cuba
and not of China? Because you can with one and not with the other.
Why attack Saddam Hussein and not all the other vile dictators?
Because you do what you can. Why not ask why you leave your estate
to your kids and not strangers? Because your kids are your kids.
It is the ultimate double standard.
It is true, of course,
that Bush has upended 30 years of American nuclear policy -- and
there will be consequences. Maybe, as some of the critics say,
he has made it easier for India to increase its nuclear arsenal.
But India will make all the weapons it feels it needs -- no matter
what the U.S. will or will not do. America is a superpower, but
not even a superpower is all powerful.
The Israeli bomb
threatens nobody. An Iranian bomb does. India has transferred
its nuclear technology to no one. Pakistan has. No one worries
about India or Israel making the technology available to terrorists.
Everyone worries about Iran doing that. These are distinctions
with great differences. They are, as critics charge, double standards,
but to apply a single standard to both friend and enemy may be
fair -- but it is singularly stupid.
©
2006, Washington Post Writers Group
