Its Iran. And both of them are righter than the rest of the GOP:
Fifty years ago, [China] was the Iran of its day, a rising regional power that was radical, ideological, boldly antagonistic. It fought the U.S. in Korea, attacked India and Taiwan, supported violent insurgencies and more. Its leader, Mao Zedong, mused that killing half of mankind might be a price worth paying to make the world socialist. Understandably alarmed, some of President Eisenhower’s advisers urged a pre-emptive nuclear attack. (Ike wisely forbore.) President Kennedy said a nuclear China would dominate Southeast Asia and “so upset the world political scene” as to be “intolerable.”
Notice the classic Kennedy recklessness in foreign policy (he was George W Bush avant la lettre), and the characteristic Eisenhower sanity. Now look at the history. Since China’s adoption of nuclear status, it has actually behaved more responsibly abroad, not less. Jon makes a very persuasive case that nuclear weapons really don’t give countries much of an edge, and, if anything, tend to calm them down, especially if they are in a region where they have foes who do have such weapons.
