Zakaria vs N-Pod - what to do about Iran?

Listen as Zakaria eats Podhoretz's lunch.

There is an old cliche' about the neo-cons that it's 'always 1938' - and in the audio you can hear Podhoretz return again and again to the idea that somehow Iran is fascist Germany, and that diplomacy is appeasement.

Zakaria nails him everywhere and on every point.

- Iran has not been an overly bellicose actor in the ME the last 3 years

- Other nations with far less reasonable governments (North Korea) have the bomb and deterrence works on them

- Most importantly, he points out that Podhoretz creates a false choice (between appeasement and bombing) when a third option (deterrence) has worked for every other nuclear power to emerge in the 20th century.

What was most fascinating to me was how Podhoretz openly suggested that Iran because of its religious fanaticism was inherently more dangerous than other regimes.

Zakaria of course, has the answer to this to, pointing to the rhetoric of the Communists under Mao and how similar it is to the inflammatory statements of Ahmadinejad.

I call it a win for Zakaria, but Podhoretz's resorting to Hitler arguments early and often turned it into a total blow-out.