So history repeated itself. As in the 1930s, an anti-Semitic demagogue broke his country’s treaty obligations and armed for war. Having first tried appeasement, offering the Iranians economic incentives to desist, the West appealed to international agencies – the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Security Council. Thanks to China’s veto, however, the UN produced nothing but empty resolutions and ineffectual sanctions, like the exclusion of Iran from the 2006 World Cup finals.

Only one man might have stiffened President Bush’s resolve in the crisis: not Tony Blair, he had wrecked his domestic credibility over Iraq and was in any case on the point of retirement – Ariel Sharon. Yet he had been struck down by a stroke as the Iranian crisis came to a head. With Israel leaderless, Ahmadinejad had a free hand.

As in the 1930s, too, the West fell back on wishful thinking. Perhaps, some said, Ahmadinejad was only sabre-rattling because his domestic position was so weak. Perhaps his political rivals in the Iranian clergy were on the point of getting rid of him. In that case, the last thing the West should do was to take a tough line; that would only bolster Ahmadinejad by inflaming Iranian popular feeling. So in Washington and in London people crossed their fingers, hoping for the deus ex machina of a home-grown regime change in Teheran. ~Niall Ferguson, The Daily Telegraph

Hat tip to Michael Brendan Dougherty.

The foregoing drivel is an excerpt from Mr. Ferguson’s imagined future history of a “Great War” breaking out in 2007. The obsession with the interwar period is as silly as it is pointless. Ferguson and neocons who also write in this fashion are like the new Cylons, blathering on about how “all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.” They apparently believe in a Cycle of Time in which the 1930s are constantly repeating themselves (happily without all of the discomfort of global depression), and in each iteration they are the prophetic voices warning us, Cassandra-like, of the umpteenth coming of the Nazis.

What can one say to this? If the desire to attack Iran were not already strong in Washington and London, we could dismiss these sorts of things as the scribblings of an historian who can write surprisingly good history for a man who seems to understand nothing about contingency or the unrepeatability of events. It does show that Ferguson is doing his best to get back into the good graces of neo-imperialists and neocons, whom he probably offended with his frequent assertions that Americans haven’t the chops for empire. Just think on Ferguson’s ravings the next time someone accuses a noninterventionist of being pessimistic–this takes first prize in any pessimism contest!

But might Ferguson have a point somewhere in this nonsense? Might Ahmadinejad (who is, by the way, the best argument against democracy in the Near East that can be made) just be capable of launching a nuclear strike in the event that Iran acquires nuclear weapons? Sure, it’s possible–if you think the entire military apparatus in Iran has a bizarre death wish for their country. It is conceivable that he would pursue a policy of confrontation (in spite of the fact that Iran has no interest in such confrontation and his anti-Israel comments are the expressions of popular Islamic commonplaces as well as a means of shoring up his surprisingly weak position inside Iran by playing the anti-Jewish demagogue–if “some” say things like this, it is because they are probably correct). What is extremely hard to believe is that the Iranian military would acquiesce in what they would have to know would be a completely suicidal policy. Besides, in its entire modern history Iran has never embarked on a war of aggression. It has no need to do so, and the one thing that might provoke such a course would be to hem Iran in and make its government believe that it was about to be attacked. If the missiles do fly, we can credit men like Ferguson for encouraging the policy of confrontation responsible.

In this scenario, if we want to imagine the dreadful possibility of how a world war might be ignited, Israel will be playing the role of Austria insisting on its right to punish a hostile neighbour and America will probably be playing the role of instigator and enabler, seeing Israeli threats as a way to intimidate Iran into pursuing a policy more in line with Washington’s goals. Israel, like Austria, will initiate hostilities with “limited” strikes done in the cause of “self-defense” and will in all likelihood precipitate wars of retaliation against them. As in 1914, the major power that could have pulled its ally back from the brink failed to do so because it was too foolish and arrogant to believe that it would escalate into a general war. Other major powers had acquiesced in the attacks on Yugoslavia and Iraq, so Washington assumed it could have a new conflict without broader involvement. What it did not count on was the unexpected willingness of a Russia or India to intervene on behalf of their trading partner and ally. In the future, the historians will look back and say wistfully, “If only the Americans had minded their own business, if only they had restrained the Israelis…” That, of course, is what Washington should be doing.

What is more likely, and what may be dangerously close to happening, is that any new Israeli government will believe that it has to strike at Iran directly or by proxy (and all the more so if it is perceived as a ‘weaker’ centrist government led by an Olmert), and in the course of the strike not all of Iran’s nuclear facilities are destroyed (perhaps all of them have not even yet been located). Iran will then retaliate directly against Israel and indirectly through the Badr brigades in Iraq against American forces, which will give the jingoes in Washington an excuse to launch a full-scale invasion of Iran. From there things really begin to spiral out of control as Pakistan and India are drawn in on opposing sides (India siding with Iran, prompting a hostile Pakistani response), Pakistan invokes its alliance with China, the Russians feel obliged to support India, and North Korea uses the opportunity to settle scores on the Peninsula. Just like that a stupid policy of pre-emption can spark a war among all of the world’s nuclear powers save Britain and France (and Britain would probably side with the U.S. once the shooting began, while the French prudently watch from the sidelines). All the details of this scenario are unlikely to occur (I think they are markedly more likely than Ferguson’s fantasy of an Iran hell-bent on war), but why in the world should we be risking such terrible consequences to dictate to Iran what it can and cannot develop inside its own borders?

A nuclear Iran, while not exactly a delightful thing to contemplate, is much less frightening to behold than the already-nuclear Pakistan, and yet we happily sell them advanced weapons systems and regard them as a close ally. That may not be wise, but it proves that Washington does not care whether nuclear weapons are in the hands of unreliable and unstable governments–it only cares whether such weapons are in the hands of states that Israel finds threatening. In terms of what is best for American strategic interests, rapprochement with Iran is and has been the only logical course.