Sean Hannity Nukes Himself

As I feared, Sean Hannity led his show tonight with an hysterical over the top criticism of Obama's recently announced nuclear weapons policy. He also managed to drag the usually more thoughtful Newt Gingrich into the mix, declaring the latest Presidential announcement evidence that Obama is "dangerous." It was as if all they knew about the case was the Drudge headline. Perhaps they suffer from Obama derangement syndrome.

The New York Times has a pretty decent piece on the thinking of the administration in announcing the new policy, and as I suspected yesterday, it is aimed primarily at North Korea and Iran. But the Times thinks the policy may be intended to influence the leadership, I doubt that it will have any effect on them. However, the people of Iran may be a different story. For those inclined to be disenchanted with the regime, the fact that Iran's nuclear program puts them in the cross hairs of a large nuclear arsenal may give extra energy to their opposition. In the long run, only regime change in Iran is going to produce lasting peace in the region. I hold out hope that the people of Iran will eventually topple a regime that is so antithetical to any aspirations of better material conditions.

The one part of the new policy that I disagree with is the decision not to develop any new nuclear weapons. New weapons designed to burrow deep into underground bunkers are needed to disrupt the nuke/chem/bio development capacity of rogue states. A credible threat to be able to shut down their programs is a necessary piece of nuclear deterrence.

Slate does a good job of explaining the issues as well.