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RHS 10-11 V.A.W. 2ACMikeHaque Douglas

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2AC2ac Must Read Probability .......................................................................................................... 3Case ........................................................................................................................................... 4

F/W Ext. ........................................................................................................................................................ 4

Prioritize Uniqueness ..................................................................................................................................... 4

Mini-Max ................................................................................................................................................... 5Predictions Fail .............................................................................................................................................. 6

Ridiculous Impacts Bad ............................................................................................................................... 10

Experts Cant Predict ................................................................................................................................... 13

Risk Assessment Bad + Solvency for it ........................................................................................................ 14

A2 Emboldens Terrorists ............................................................................................................................. 16

A2 Moral Obligation ................................................................................................................................... 17

Disads ...................................................................................................................................... 18Heg.............................................................................................................................................................. 18

Iraq Politics- Maliki ..................................................................................................................................... 19

Iran .............................................................................................................................................................. 20

Midterms Link Turns- Plan=Dems Win ....................................................................................................... 23

Politics Link Turn- Plan Popular .................................................................................................................. 24

Spending- Plan Saves Money....................................................................................................................... 25

Spending- Plan Costs Money ....................................................................................................................... 26

Spending- Defecit Reduction ....................................................................................................................... 27

Troop Shift .................................................................................................................................................. 28

Counterplans ............................................................................................................................ 29Conditions- General ..................................................................................................................................... 29

Conditions- Corruption Reform ................................................................................................................... 31Conditions- Iran/Syria ................................................................................................................................. 32

Conditions- Iran ........................................................................................................................................... 33

Consult NATO ............................................................................................................................................ 35

Consult Turkey ............................................................................................................................................ 36

Executive Order ........................................................................................................................................... 37

Partial Withdrawal ....................................................................................................................................... 38

Topicality ................................................................................................................................. 39Aspec .......................................................................................................................................................... 39

Resolved ...................................................................................................................................................... 41

Colon........................................................................................................................................................... 42USFG .......................................................................................................................................................... 43

Substantial ................................................................................................................................................... 44

Reduce ........................................................................................................................................................ 46

A2 Reduce Excludes Eliminate .................................................................................................................... 47

Military Presence ......................................................................................................................................... 48


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A2 Presence = Anything But Troops ............................................................................................................ 50


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2ac Must Read ProbabilityLow probability/high magnitude impacts create self-fulfilling prophecy inevitably leading to war

Sachs 08, Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and special adviser to United Nations Secretary-General BanKi-Moon, Economics for a Crowded Planet, Common Wealth, The Penguin Press, pg. 288, published: 2008

Early in the twentyfirst century we can envision three grave threats to global peace. In all three cases, the

risks of a selffulfilling descent into violence are far greater than the objective threats of war. The first,of course,is the prospect of a spreading conflict in the Middle East, one which could easily engulf the world. After 9/11, the American political leadership

displayed the same kind of selffulfilling paranoia that gripped Germany at the beginning of the last century. Vice President RichardCheney enunciatedthe

One Percent Doctrine, according to which a 1 percent threat against the United States would be regarded as a

certainty rather than a l0wprobability event .Yet in a world in which cooperation can so easily collapse, Vice PresidentCheneys (alleged)

morbid fixation on lowprobability threats was much more likely to lead to selffulfilling conflict than to true

security for the United States. Sure enough, Cheneys fears led to a disastrous and unnecessary war in Iraq, one

which continues into 2008 without surcease and continues to threaten a bonfire of violence engulfing hundreds

of millions more people. Similar worstcase planning seems now to trap U.S. policies vis-a-vis Iran. Rather

than negotiate with Iranian leaders, American leaders focus at every turn on Irans perfidious intentions. This is

viewed by many as toughminded realism. In truth,it can create a selffulfilling path to war.


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CaseF/W Ext.

Prioritize UniquenessPrioritizing Uniqueness as an absolute take out is essential to avoid becoming enslaved to infinite risk

Herbeck 92(Dale Professor of Communication at Boston College, 1992 [Director of the Fulton Debating Society at Boston College, The Useand Abuse of Risk Analysis in Policy Debate, Paper Presented at the 78th Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association (Chicago , IL)

October 29th-November 1st, Available Online via ERIC Number ED354559, p. 10-12]

Third, we must not allow ourselves to become enslaved to large impacts. The fact that the impact is grave, does not,

in and of itself, mean that there is any probability associated with the outcome. Consider, for example, a

disadvantage which posited that the plan would increase the risk of species extinction. While it is true that

species extinction would have serious consequences, this fact should not force us to mindlessly reject any policy

that might cause species extinction. Further, we should take care in assessing evidence purporting to prove that a prudent policy maker should reject

any action that risks the impact. In other words, evidence claiming that species extinction is the ultimate of all evils is not

sufficient to prove that the affirmative case should be summarily rejected. Finally, we must rehabilitate the

importance of uniqueness arguments in debate. When arguing the position is not unique, an advocate is arguing

that the disadvantage should already have occurred or will inevitably occur in the status quo. For example,when arguing uniqueness against a budget disadvantage, an affirmative would argue that the President and/or

Congress have routinely increased spending. Therefore, such spending should cause the disadvantage. The

problem in debate today is that judges consistently assign some level of risk to disadvantages even when the

affirmative presents uniqueness arguments which have a greater link to the disadvantage than the affirmative

plan. Consider the following example. Suppose an affirmative team advocated a plan which provided for increased

military training of Bangladesh's army under the International Military Education and Training Program (IMET). Against this

plan, suppose the negative advocated a disadvantage claiming that increased U.S. influence in Bangladesh

would cause a loss of Indian influence in Bangladesh, causing them to lash-out as a way of reclaiming their

influence in South Asia. Given the fact that the United States has given Bangladesh over 3 billion dollars over

the past 20 years,19 and given the fact that U.S. influence in South Asia is vastly increasing due to the virtual collapse of Soviet influence in the region ,20 it

would be ludicrous to assume that there is any unique risk of India fearing a minimal expansion of the IMET

program to Bangladesh. In this example, where the uniqueness arguments prove a greater increase in U.S.

influence than will ever occur under the affirmative plan, a judge should conclude that there is zero risk to

adopting the affirmative plan. Unfortunately, many judges in this situation would irrationally assign some

minimal risks to the disadvantage. They would reason that there is always some risk,albeit small, to adopting the affirmative

plan. Yet, such reasoning makes a mockery of the concept of uniqueness arguments. If a uniqueness argument

proves that the status quo actions will be larger than the affirmative's link to the disadvantage, then it has

sufficiently demonstrated that there is no unique risk to adopting the affirmative plan. Under these

circumstances, the judge should assign zero risk to the disadvantage.


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Predictions FailPredictions failthey are self-serving

Tetlock, Prof of political science @ UC Berkeley,05(Philip E, Expert Political Judgment, Princeton University Press,http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7959.pdf, BC)It is a curious thing. Almost all of us think we possess it in healthy measure. Many of us think we are so blessed that we have an obligation to share it. But even the

savvy professionals recruited from academia, government, and think tanks to participate in the studies collected here have a struggle defining it. When pressed for a

precise answer, a disconcerting number fell back on Potter Stewarts famous definition of pornography: I know it when I see it. And, of those participants who

ventured beyond the transparently tautological, a goodly number offered definitions that were in deep, even irreconcilable, conflict. However we set up thespectrum of opinionliberals versus conservatives, realists versus idealists, doomsters versus boomsterswefound little agreement on either who had itor what itwas. The elusive itis good political judgment. And some reviewerwarned that, of all the domains I could have chosenmany, like medicine or finance, endowed with incontrovertible criteria for assessing accuracyI showed suspect scientific judgment in

choosing good political judgment. In their view, I could scarcely have chosen a topic more hopelessly subjective and less suitable for scientific analysis. Future professional gatekeepers should

do a better job stopping scientific interlopers , such as the author, from wasting everyones timeperhaps by posting the admonitory sign that medieval mapmakers used to stop explorers from

sailing off the earth: hic sunt dragones. This relativist challenge strikes at the conceptual heart of this project. For, if the challenge in its strongest form is right , all that follows is for naught

Strong relativism stipulates an obligation to judge each worldview within the framework of its own assumptions about the worldan obligation that theorists ground in arguments that stress

the inappropriateness of imposing one groups standards of rationality on other groups.4

Regardless of precise rationale, this doctrine imposes a blanket ban on all efforts to hold advocates o

different worldviews accountable to common norms for judging judgment. We are barred from even the most obvious observations: from pointing out that forecasters are better advised to use

econometric models than astrological charts or from noting the paucity of evidence for Herr Hitlers theory of Aryan supremacy or Comrade Kim Il Sungs juche theory of economi

development. Exasperation is an understandable response to extreme relativism. Indeed, it was exasperation that, two and a half centuries ago, drove Samuel Johnson to dismiss themetaphysical doctrines of Bishop Berkeley by kicking a stone and declaring, I refute him thus. In this spirit, we might crankily ask what makes political judgment so special. Why should

political observers be insulated from the standards of accuracy and rigor that we demand of professionals in other lines of work? But we err if we shut out more nuanced forms of relativism

For, in key respects, political judgment is especially problematic. The root of the problem is not just the variety ofviewpoints. It is the difficulty that advocates have pinning each other down in debate. When partisans disagreeover free trade or arms control or foreign aid, the disagreements hinge on more than easily ascertained claimsabout trade deficits or missile counts or leaky transfer buckets. The disputes also hinge on hard-torefutecounterfactual claims about what would have happened if we had taken different policy paths and onimpossible-to-refute moral claims about the types of people we should aspire to beall claims that partisanscan use to fortify their positions against falsification. Without retreating into full-blown relativism, we need torecognize that political belief systems are at continual risk of evolving into self-perpetuating worldviews , withtheir own self-serving criteria for judging judgment and keeping score, their own stocks of favorite historica

analogies, and their own pantheons of heroes and villains.


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Political predictions failtheyre rarely accurate

Tetlock,Prof of political science @ UC Berkeley, 05(Philip E, Expert Political Judgment, Princeton University Press, http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7959.pdf, BC)

These value-laden counterfactual and decision-process judgment calls create opportunities for subjectivity

to seep into historical assessments of even exhaustively scrutinized cases. Consider four examples of the potential for partisan

mischief: How confident can we now besixty years later and after all records have been declassifiedthat

Harry Truman was right to drop atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945? This question still polarizes observers,

in part, because their answers hinge on guesses about how quickly Japan would have surrendered if its officials

had been invited to witness a demonstration blast; in part, because their answers hinge on valuesthe moral weight weplace on American versus Japanese lives and on whether we deem death by nuclear incineration or radiation to be worse than death by other means; and , in part,

because their answers hinge on murky process judgments whether Truman shrewdly surmised that he had passed the point of

diminishing returns for further deliberation or whether he acted impulsively and should have heard out more points of view.6How confident can we now

beforty years laterthat the Kennedy administration handled the Cuban missile crisis with consummate skill,

striking the perfect blend of firmness to force the withdrawal of Soviet missiles and of reassurance to forestall escalation into war? Our answers hinge not

only on our risk tolerance but also on our hunches about whether Kennedy was just lucky to have avoided

dramatic escalation (critics on the left argue that he played a perilous game of brinkmanship) or about whether Kennedy bollixed an opportunity to eliminatethe Castro regime and destabilize the Soviet empire (critics on the right argue that he gave up more than he should have).7 Where then does this leave us? Up to a

disconcertingly difficult to identify point, the relativists are right:judgments of political judgment can never be rendered politically

uncontroversial. Many decades of case study experience should by now have drummed in the lesson that one observers simpleton will often

be anothers man of principle; one observers groupthink, anothers well-run meeting. My participants knew my measureshowever quantitative the veneer were fallible. They did not need my permission to argue that the flaws lay in my procedures, not in their answers. We confronted more and more judgment

calls on how far to go in accommodating these protests. And we explored more and more adjustments to procedures for scoring the accuracy of experts forecasts, including value adjustments

that responded to forecasters protests that their mistakes were the right mistakes given the costs of erring in the other direction; controversy adjustments that responded to forecasters

protests that they were really right and our reality checks wrong; difficulty adjustments that responded to protests that some forecasters had been dealt tougher tasks than others; and evenfuzzy-

set adjustments that gave forecasters partial credit whenever they claimed that things that did not happen either almost happened or might yet happen. We could view these scoring adjustments

as the revenge of the relativists. The list certainly stretches our tolerance for uncertainty: it requires conceding that the line between rationality and rationalization will oftenbe blurry. But,

again, we should not concede too much. Failing to learn everything is not tantamount to learning nothing. It is far more reasonable to view the list as an object les son in how science works: tell

us your concerns and we will translate them into scoring procedures and estimate how sensitive our conclusions about good judgment are to various adjustments. Indeed, these sensitivity

analyses will reveal the composite statistical portraits of good judgment to be robust across an impressive range of scoring adjustments, with the conditional likelihood of such patterns

emerging by chance well under five in one hundred (likelihood conditional on null hypothesis being true). No number of statistical tests will, however, compel principled relativists to change

their minds about the propriety of holding advocates of clashing worldviews accountable to common standardsa point we drive home in the stock-taking closing chapter. But, in the end,most readers will not be philosophersand fewer still relativists. This book addresses a host of more pragmatic audiences who have learned to live with the messy imperfections of social

science (and be grateful when the epistemological glass is one-third full rather than annoyed about its being two-thirds empty). Our findings will speak to

psychologists who wonder how well laboratory findings on cognitive styles, biases, and correctives travel in the

real world, decision theorists who care about the criteria we use for judging judgment, political scientists who

wonder who has what it takes to bridge the gap between academic abstractions and the real world, and

journalists, risk consultants, and intelligence analysts who make their livings thinking in real time and might

be curious who can beat the dart-throwing chimp.


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Science is manipulated for political purposes their impacts are just fear mongering and arent based on truedataGeorgia 95 research analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute[Paul, "When science yields to subversion," 11-22, The Washington Times, Lexis]However, those who promote federally funded science as a solution to regulatory incompetence have a misplaced faith in However, those who promote federally funded

science as a solution to regulatory incompetence have a misplaced faith in bureaucrats. Science is descriptive: it cannot give policy-makers

clear cut answers to complex policy problems that involve value-based decisions. Politically manipulated

science can,however, produce unsound policies. It could be argued that policy decisions are made through the

democratic process and that science enables public officials to meet those demands. But this ignores the fact

that public officials frequently use "junk science" and fearmongering to justify greater federal intervention.

When bad science arouses the public's fears, public officials stand ready to rescue us from the phony threat.

The global warming scare fits this pattern perfectly. Computer generated climate models have failed to predict

the temperature effects of increased atmospheric CO2, yet they are the basis of proposed policies. Moreover, the

empirical evidence casts strong doubts about the apocalyptic global warming hypothesis. As Arizona State University

climatologist Robert Balling has explained, "Too often policy-makers appear to neglect the enormous evidence that argues

against the greenhouse disaster and freely accept and promote the scientific evidence in favor of the crisis."Nowthe government is spending research money to develop climate change mitigation strategies to plan against the questionable greenhouse threat. Federally funded

scientific studies that contradict environmental dogma are often ignored or maligned by political interests. For example, in 1987 the National Academy of Sciences

(NAS) studied the government's methods for setting tolerance levels for food additives. The NAS concluded that the Delaney Clause , which sets a zero tolerance level

for carcinogens in processed food, is unrealistic and should be changed to a "negligible risk" standard, allowing regulatory agencies to monitor serious risks rather than

wasting resources pursuing tiny or nonexistent threats. Years later, Delaney has still not been changed. Recent attempts to modify the law have met with fierce

opposition from environmental groups who falsely predict future cancer epidemics if the standard is changed. A more outrageous case of politicized

science run amok is the acid rain program. During the 1970s ,it was widely believed that acid rain was the cause

of dying forests,the acidification of the Adirondack lakes and other environmental problems in the Northeastern United States. Congress

commissioned a 10-year, $570 million study of the problem. The National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program

(NAPAP) concluded that "there is no evidence of widespread forest damage from current ambient levels ofacid rain in

the United States." It also concluded that acid rain does not contribute significantly to the acidity of lakes and

streams. In fact, the Adirondack lakes are no more acidic than they were before the Industrial Revolution. The study was widely hailed by the

scientific community. Scientists at the 1988 International Conference on Acid Precipitation accepted NAPAP's findings wholeheartedly. Yet, such

scientific endorsement mattered little. The EPA and environmental groups relentlessly attacked the report and

shamelessly impugned the good reputations of the project's scientists. Congress simply ignored the report even

though it had mandated that it guide priorities for the Clean Air Act. Sound science rarely influences political

decisions. In the world of policy-making, science is a servant to political interests, and when it doesn't serve

those interests it is easily cast aside. In the case of the acid rain program, political interests were willing to undermine good science to advance their

agenda, an act that will needlessly cost taxpayers billions of dollars. The result of using science as a policy weapon will be the

destruction of scientific credibility, not better regulation. In the long run, science will suffer because of federal

involvement. An NIE like all other government agencies would grow to enormous size , spend billions of pork-laden tax dollars, create endless controversy andprovide few if any benefits to the American people. More science funding is not the answer to America's environmental policy problems.billions of pork-laden tax

dollars, create endless controversy and provide few if any benefits to the American people. More science funding is not the answer to America's environmental policy

problems.


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We cant predict too far into the futureyou shouldnt make decisions based off of long timeframe

Ng 91(Yew-Kwang, PhD from University of Sydney, Department of Economics @ Monash University, fellow of the Academy of Social SciencesShould we be very cautious or extremely cautious on measures that may involve our destruction? Social Choice and Welfare, p.7988.)GZ

Can our per capita welfare increase at a rate faster than the rate of uncertainty discount? Ignoring transformation of our own selves through

high technology (including advanced forms of genetic engineering), it can be convincingly argued that per capita welfare cannot

be increased without limit. Due to biological limitations, the most blissful level of welfare our brain

can enjoy is finite. No matter how much and how good objective factors are provided, our subjective appreciation has an upper limit. Thus , unless our subjectiveself can also be transformed, our per capita welfare must be limited. Hence, our expected welfare must be finite , ignoring the possibility of subjective transformation to the

consideration of which we now turn. Despite the truly spectacular advances in genetic engineering, it is far too early

to speak of the transformation of our own selves in operational terms. In fact, if we attempt to do that

in the near future, it would probably be disastrous. However, since we are dealing with an issue concerning our welfare in the far future ,we cannot ignore the possibility of self-transformation through genetic engineering or perhaps some other means we cannot imagine now , though this can only be discussed in

very speculative terms. Allowing for the possibility of our self-transformation in the future, it cannot be ruled out that our capacity for

happiness may be tremendously increased. Pe rhaps our welfare (per person) could be increased a hundred, a million or even a t rillion times.

However, such an increase can hardly be infinite. Matter has to be organized in sufficiently complex form of a brain before i t can be capableof consciousness. [I understand that this touches on the tricky mind-matter problem called the world knot over which philosophers have pondered over thousands of years without a

definite conclusion; but see Ng (1990) for a discussion.] Consciousness is a necessary but probably not a sufficient condition for

the perception of welfare and diswelfare. It is not accidental that the brain of homo sapiens is bigger than other species. In fact, natural selection shouldensure that unnecessary size will not survive the process of competition. Thus we need a minimum size to achieve a given level of brain functioning. Perhaps the efficiency here

could be further improved somewhat, but not indefinitely. It might also be possible to increase our capacity for happiness with the given brain size by shifting our brain functions

towards the perception of well-being. But the scope for doing thi s is also limited. Eventually, the ceiling will be hit t hat increasing the capacity for happiness necessitates a

bigger brain. Then our argument above on the physical limitation of the increase in our population size can be used on the limitation on our transformed brain size and hence on

our future level of welfare. That our total welfare even in the far future cannot be infinite seems an inevitable

conclusion.


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Ridiculous Impacts BadThe fantasy of extinction has warped humanitys understanding of existential risks as one judged by its

descriptions and not necessary evaluation of the possibility event itself. Subjectivity inevitably colors their

interpretation of the so-called inevitable future.

Yudkowsky 6 (Eliezer; Research Fellow at the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence Cognitive biases potentially affecting judgment

of global risks Forthcoming in Global Catastrophic Risks, eds. Nick Bostrom and Milan Cirkovic 8/31/06) MGIn addition to standard biases, I have personally observed what look like harmful modes of thinking specific to existential risks. The Spanish flu of 1918 killed 25-50

million people. World War II killed 60 million people. 107 is the order of the largest catastrophes in humanity's written history. Substantially

larger numbers, such as 500 million deaths, and especially qualitatively different scenarios such as the

extinction of the entire human species, seem to trigger a different mode of thinking - enter into a "separate magisterium". People who

would never dream of hurting a child hear of an existential risk, and say, "Well, maybe the human species doesn't reall y deserve to survive."There is a saying in heuristics and biases that

people do not evaluate events, but descriptionsof events - what is called non-extensional reasoning. The extension of humanity's extinction includes thedeath of yourself, of your friends, of your family, of your loved ones, of your city, of your country, of your political fellows. Ye t people who would take great offense at a proposal to wipe the

country of Britain from the map, to kill every member of the Democratic Party in the U.S., to turn the city of Paris to glass - who would feel still greater horror on hearing the doctor say that

their child had cancer - these people will discuss the extinction of humanity with perfect calm. "Extinction of humanity", as words on paper, appears in fictional

novels, or is discussed in philosophy books - it belongs to a different context than the Spanish flu. We evaluate descriptions of

events, not extensions of events. The clich phrase end of the world invokes the magisterium of myth anddream, of prophecy and apocalypse, of novels and movies. The challenge of existential risks to rationality is

that, the catastrophes being so huge, people snap into a different mode of thinking. Human deaths are

suddenly no longer bad, and detailed predictions suddenly no longer require any expertise, and whether

the story is told with a happy ending or a sad ending is a matter of personal taste in stories.

When debaters reach far enough into literature any policy can lead to catastrophe. Absent criteria for evaluating

events, we can only be left in a state of political paralyses.

Hansson 5 (Sven Ove; Professor- Department of Philosophy and the History of Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm,Sweden; The Epistemology of Technological Risk Techn: Research in Philosophy and Technology, Volume 9, Winter 2005)http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v9n2/hansson.html MG

However, it would not be feasible to take such possibilities into account in all decisions that we make. In a sense, any decision may have catastrophic unforeseen consequences. If far-

reaching indirect effects are taken into account, then given the unpredictable nature of actual causation

almost any decision may lead to a disaster. In order to be able to decide and act, we therefore have to disregard

many of the more remote possibilities. Cases can also easily be found in which it was an advantage that far-fetched dangers were not taken seriously. One case in

point is the false alarm on so-called polywater, an alleged polymeric form of water. In 1969,the prestigious scientific journal Nature printed a letter

that warned against producing polywater. The substance might "grow at the expense of normal water under any

conditions found in the environment," thus replacing all natural water on earth and destroying all life on this

planet. (Donahoe 1969 ) Soon afterwards, it was shown that polywater is a non-existent entity. If the warning had been

heeded, then no attempts would had been made to replicate the polywater experiments, and we might still not have known that polywater does not exist. In cases like this,

appeals to the possibility of unknown dangers may stop investigations and thus prevent scientific andtechnological progress.


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Disregard the story telling nature of their impact claims. The manipulating rhetoric ensures contaminated

decision making.

Yudkowsky 6 (Eliezer; Research Fellow at the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence Cognitive biases potentially affecting judgmentof global risks Forthcoming in Global Catastrophic Risks, eds. Nick Bostrom and Milan Cirkovic 8/31/06) MG

To sum up: Information that is visibly irrelevant still anchors judgments and contaminates guesses. When people

start from information known to be irrelevant and adjust until they reach a plausible-sounding answer, theyunder-adjust. People under-adjust more severely in cognitively busy situations and other manipulations that

make the problem harder. People deny they are anchored or contaminated, even when experiment shows they are. These effects are not diminished or only slightly diminished

by financial incentives, explicit instruction to avoid contamination, and real-world situations.Now consider how many media stories on Artificial

Intelligence cite the Terminator movies as if they were documentaries, and how many media stories on brain-

computer interfaces mention Star Trek's Borg. If briefly presenting an anchor has a substantial effect on

subjects' judgments, how much greater an effect should we expect from reading an entire book, or watching a live-actiontelevision show? In the ancestral environment, there were no moving pictures; whatever you saw with your own eyes was t rue. People do seem to realize, so far as conscious thoughts are

concerned, that fiction is fiction. Media reports that mention Terminator do not usually treat Cameron's screenplay as a

prophecy or a fixed truth. Instead the reporter seems to regard Cameron's vision as something that, having

happened before, might well happen again - the movie is recalled (is available) as if it were an illustrative historical case. I call this mix ofanchoring and availability the logical fallacy of generalization from fictional evidence. (A related concept is the good-story bias hypothesized in Bostrom (2001). Fictional

evidence usually consists of 'good stories' in Bostrom's sense. Note that not all good stories are presented as fiction.) Storytellers obey

strict rules of narrative unrelated to reality. Dramatic logic is not logic. Aspiring writers are warned that truth is

no excuse: you may not justify an unbelievable event in your fiction by citing an instance of real life. A good story is

painted with bright details , illuminated by glowing metaphors; a storyteller must be concrete, as hard and precise as stone. But in

forecasting, every added detail is an extra burden! Truth is hard work, and not the kind of hard work done by storytellers. We should avoid,

not only being duped by fiction - failing to expend the mental effort necessary to 'unbelieve' it - but also

being contaminated by fiction, letting it anchor our judgments. And we should be aware that we are not

always aware of this contamination. Not uncommonly in a discussion of existential risk, the categories, choices,

consequences, and strategies derive from movies, books and television shows. There are subtler defeats, but thisis outright surrender.


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Playing the game of argumentation does not exempt us from evaluating the claims we make in a debate round.

Our framework offers the only precedent for true assessment of statements.

OLeary 97 (Stephen D; Associate Professor at Annenberg School for Communication; Apocalyptic Argument and the Anticipation ofCatastrophe: The Prediction of Risk and the Risks of Prediction. ARGUMENTATION Vol. 11: 293-313 1997) MG

Whatever ones present assessment of the logic and reasoning that supports the claims of impending ecological

and social catastrophe, more work needs to be done in order to make the case for the relevance of the religiousmodel of apocalypse to secular catastrophes more conclusive, and to determine the uses and applications of these preliminary findings.

Awareness ofthe characteristic patterns and functional aspects ofthese arguments does not exempt us

from the obligation to evaluate specific predictions on their technical merits, nor should it be used to dismiss all potential threats.

My argument is merely that those who work in policy argument and futuristic planning need to recognize the forces at work

in public evaluation of these discourses, whether they possess scientific merit or are completely spurious. Based on

both my earlier book (1994) and the present case study, I propose that arguments that predict catastrophe, and the responses to such

arguments, are shaped by permutations of the following significant factors and variables: 1) the sources of the arguers authority, whether rational,

traditional, or charismatic in the Weberian sense; 2) the degree to which audiences are prone to shift between modes of legitimation

by ascribing prophetic authority based on personal character or expertise in technical fields unrelated to the

prediction; 3) the saliency of the predictions for a specific audience, considered as a function of the timespan of the predicted course of events in relation to the lifespan , attentions, and

preoccupations of a given group; 4) the degree of anomic risk assumed by both arguers and audiences, considered in terms of

both the magnitude of predicted consequences,and of willingness to admit errors in prediction or to accept

the consequences of errors in judging the truth or falsehood of prediction; 5) the degrees of modality or conditionality admitted orattended to by the predictor and the audience. Ce rtainly, this rough model will require more development through extensive case studies; however, I hope that this essay has sufficiently

demonstrated the utility of this line of research. I believe that when these studies are completed argumentation scholars will be

closer to a theoretical understanding of prediction as a unique argument form, and in particular of the internal

logic and the social dynamics of disaster prediction. The comparison of modern pseudo-scientific predictions of seismological disaster with religious

arguments that predict global catastrophe and redemption for the converted has revealed that predictive models of the future may accomplish a variety of ends. For scientists,

predictions function as tests of theory and hence are subject to more rigorous standards of proof. For those

whose interest are served by actions taken as a consequence of the predictions, they may serve as means toextrinsic ends such as prestige and resource allocation. For the general public, predications may simultaneously increase anxieties and make them moremanageable by providing a convenient symbolic focus. Catastrophic predictions in public argument have the potential to build a group identity through a shared temporal conception, and hence

may withstand repeated disconfirmation. Predictions of the future are never offered in a vacuum; they influence action in the

present by offering both positive and negative scenarios as consequences of choices made by the audience. As

the cases examined here illustrate, the normative function of catastrophic predications appear to be as

significant as their accuracy. Thus, it may be beside the point to point out the recurrent fallacies that characterize this form of argument. As J. T. Fraser notes, The

history of man can certainly boast of fateful utterances about individual and communal destinies which do not

seem to have been derived by logico-deductive reasoning. . . . It is precisely these prophetic capacities, together

with knowledge of the inevitable, which inform all levels of human civilization with a tragic sense of freedom

and fate (Fraser 1990: 269270).


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Experts Cant PredictExperts bad they arent any better at predictions than chanceRoberts 4 fellow with the Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard, assistant professor of International Affairs at Virginia Tech, PhD ingovernment from the University of Virginia and has been a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford[Patrick, "Catastrophe: Risk and Response," Homeland Security Affairs, http://www.hsaj.org/?fullarticle=4.1.5] MC

Recent work in behavioral economics shows thatpeople have trouble calculating risks. They often wildly over- or under-estimate

numbers, but rarely provide a large enough margin of error. 2 When social scientists bother to check the predictionsof experts, of when and where international political events such as revolutions and wars are to take place,the experts fare little better than chance. 3

Most historically important events are impossible to predict with confidence.

Experts overstate the probability and overlook variations

Taleb 7Scholar, Essayist, Public Intellectual, Statistician, Risk Engineer and Trader[Nassim, "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable," 4-22, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/books/chapters/0422-1st-tale.html]MCThis combination of low predictability and large impact makes the Black Swan a great puzzle; but that is not yet the core concern of this book. Add to this phenomenon the fact that we tend to

act as if it does not exist! I don't mean just you, your cousin Joey, and me, but almost all "social scientists" who, for over a century, have operated under

the false belief that their tools could measure uncertainty. Forthe applications of the sciences of uncertainty to

real-world problems has had ridiculous effects; I have been privileged to see it in finance and economics. Go ask your portfolio manager

for his definition of "risk," and odds are that he will supply you with a measure that excludes the possibility of

the Black Swan-hence one that has no better predictive value for assessing the total risks than astrology (we will see

how they dress up the intellectual fraud with mathematics). This problem is endemic in social matters.

Experts arent any more knowledgeable than the public they just spin the data

Taleb 7Scholar, Essayist, Public Intellectual, Statistician, Risk Engineer and Trader[Nassim, "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable," 4-22, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/books/chapters/0422-1st-tale.html]MC

Our inability to predict in environments subjected to the Black Swan, coupled with a general lack of the

awareness of this state of affairs, means that certain professionals, while believing they are experts, are in fact not based on their

empirical record, they do not know more about their subject matter than the general population, but they are

much better at narrating-or, worse, at smoking you with complicated mathematical models. They are also more likely to wear a tie.

Risk analysiss problems are being masked and overvalues arguments

Herbeck and Katsulas 92 (The Use and Abuse of Risk Analysis in Policy Debate; Dale Herbeck Professor and Chair Department ofCommunication John Katsulas is the director of Fulton Debate Society; 1992-10-00) TD

The best check on the preposterous claims o f crisis rhetoric is an appreciation of t he nature of risk analysis and how it functions in argumentation. The use of risk analysis is

common in policy debate. While the stock issues paradigm focused the debate exclusively on the affirmative case, the advent of policy systems analysis has transformed

debate into an evaluation of competing policy systems. Unfortunately,the illusion of objectivity masks several serious problems with risk

analysis as it is presently used in academic debate. Risk analysis artificially assigns probability to arguments

and overvalues arguments with large impacts. Four suggestions can dramatically improve the use of risk

analysis in policy debate: (1) some risks are so trivial that they are not meaningful; (2) the increment of riskmust be considered; (3) debaters must not become enslaved to large impacts; and (4) debaters must rehabilitate

the importance of uniqueness arguments in debate.


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Risk Assessment Bad + Solvency for itRisk analysis over exaggerates impacts, with an increase of exposure the risk has significantly less weight than

the case produced.

Herbeck and Katsulas 92 (The Use and Abuse of Risk Analysis in Policy Debate; Dale Herbeck Professor and Chair Department of Communication John Katsulas is thedirector of Fulton Debate Society; 1992-10-00) TD

At first glance, it might appear that the introduction of risk analysis into academic debate would improve the quality of

decisions rendered. After all, risk analysis provides a seemingly objective way of comparing the impact of com peting policy options. Further, risk analysis would seem to devalue the subjectivity inherent in the

communication of information. Unfortunately, we believe that the illusion of objectivity masks several serious problems with risk analysis as it

is presently utilized in academic debate. While a number of problems might be identified, in this paper we argue first that

risk analysis artificially assigns probability to arguments and second, that risk analysis overvalues arguments with large

impacts. The "Tyranny of Illusory Precision."8 At the ou tset,it should be noted that it is extremely difficult to assess probability . In an article on risk which

appeared in Psychology Today, Dr. J. Frank Yates observed that "the average person has problems identifying potential risks and deciding how likely

they are to occur."9 In addition, Yates suggests that most of us overestimate the value of our own judgment in matters of common

knowledge.10It might of course, be argued that debate judges trained in the use of risk analysis are better able to assess risks. This ,

however, is frequently not the case. In one of the few articles on risk analysis in the forensic literature, Vincent Follert offered this example drawn from the final round of the 1978 National

Debate Tournament: After exposure to the same information, each judged reached what appeared to be substantially different

estimates of the probability that the plan would prompt government cuts in the biomedical research budget: "Biomedical

research would probably be cut as a result of the plan," "the affirmative goes a long way towards eliminating the risks . . .

of cuts," "I am left with a substantial risk," and "the risk of cuts seems less significant than the case."11


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The only way to overcome risk assessment is to acknowledge and logically evaluate the original probability

Herbeck and Katsulas 92(The Use and Abuse of Risk Analysis in Policy Debate; Dale Herbeck Professor and Chair Department ofCommunication John Katsulas is the director of Fulton Debate Society; 1992-10-00) TD

First, and foremost, we need to realize that some risks are so trivial that they are simply not meaningful. This is

not to argue that all low probability/high impact arguments should be ignored, but rather to suggest that there is

a point beneath which probabilities are meaningless. The problem with low probability arguments in debate is that they have taken on a life of their own.Debate judges routinely accept minimal risks which would be summarily dismissed by business and political leaders. While it has been argued that our leaders should take these ri sks more

seriously, we believe that many judges err in assessing any weight to such speculative arguments. The solution, of course, is to recognize that there is a

line beyond which probability is not meaningfully evaluated. We do not believe it is possible to conclude, given

current evidence and formats of debate, that a plan might cause a 1 in 10,000 increase in the risk of nuclear

conflagration. Further, even if it were possible, we need to recognize that at some point a risk becomes so small

that it should be ignored. As the Chicago Tribune aptly noted, we routinely dismiss the probability of grave impacts because they are not meaningful: It begins as

soon as we awake. Turn on the light, and we risk electrocution; several hundred people are killed each year in

accidents involving home wiring or appliances. Start downstairs to put on the coffee, and you're really asking

for it; about 7,000 Americans die in home falls each year. Brush your teeth, and you may get cancer from the

tap water. And so it goes throughout the day -- commuting to work, breathing the air, working, having lunch,coming home, indulging in leisure time, going back to bed.18Just as we ignore these risks in our own lives, we

should be willing to ignore minimal risks in debates. Second, we must consider the increment of the risk. All

too often, disadvantages claim that the plan will dramatically increase the risk of nuclear war. This might be

true, and still not be compelling, if the original risk was itself insignificant. For example, it means Hale to double the probability

of nuclear war if the original probability was only 1 in one million. To avoid this temptation, advocates should

focus on the initial probability, and not on the marginal doubling of the risk claimed by the negative.Third, we

must not allow ourselves to become enslaved to large impacts. The fact that the impact is grave, does not, in and

of itself, mean that there is any probability associated with the outcome. Consider, for example, a disadvantage

which posited that the plan would increase the risk of species extinction. While it is true that species extinction

would have serious consequences, this fact should not force us to mindlessly reject any policy that might causespecies extinction. Further, we should take care in assessing evidence purpufting to prove that a prudent policy

maker should reject any action that risks the impact. In other words, evidence claiming that species extinction is

the ultimate of all evils is not sufficient to prove that the affirmative case should be summarily rejected. Finally,

we must rehabilitate the importance of uniqueness arguments in debate. When arguing the position is not

unique, an advocate is arguing that the disadvantage should already have occurred or will inevitably occur in the

status quo. For example, when arguing uniqueness against a budget disadvantage, an affirmative would argue that the President and/or Congress have routinely increased spending.Therefore, such spending should cause the disadvantage.


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A2 Emboldens TerroristsOn balance Iraq is stable & extremists lack capabilities to re-ignite factional fighting

Gompert et al 2010 (David C., Terrence K. Kelly, & Jessica Watkins; Security in Iraq A Framework for Analyzing Emerging Threats asU.S. Forces Leave, RAND National Defense Research Institute, p.xi-xii; http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2010/RAND_MG911.pdf; accessed6/27/10)

The prospects for these U.S. interests in Iraq are better now than they have been since the occupation beganin 2003. By every measure, Iraq has become more secure and stable following its paroxysm of violence in20062007. Over the past two years, most Sunni tribes have turned against al Qaeda in Iraq(AQI),the U.S.troop surge has helped curb sectarian killingin Baghdad,Muqtada al-Sadrs Mahdi Army (Jaish al Mahdi, orJAM) has observed a cease-fire, and Iraqi security forces with U.S. support have suppressed militant Iran-backed Shia special groups (SGs). The main political factionsSunni, Kurd, and Shiahave largely, though not irrevocably,eschewed violence in favor of political engagement to pursue their agendas, even cooperating to confronttheir common concerns, including extremist terror. While the thirst ofextremists(e.g., AQI and SGs) for violence against Americansand fellow Iraqis is unquenched, theylack(for now)the physical means, popular support, and foreign backing to re-ignitelarge-scale factional fighting.

Zero risk of terrorists overrunning Iraq if the US leaves- the support is nonexistent

Carpenter 07 [Ted Galen, Cato Institute, Policy Analysis, Escaping the Trap: Why the United States must leave Iraq, Feb. 14]

Sunni support for al-Qaeda is feeble; Kurdish and Shiite support is nonexistent. Almost to a person they loathe

al-Qaeda. The Program on International Policy Attitudes poll showed that 98 percent of Shiite respondents and 100 percent of Kurdish

respondents had somewhat or very unfavorable views of al- Qaeda.65 The notion that a Shiite- and Kurdish-

dominated government would tolerate Iraq becoming a safe haven for al-Qaeda is improbable on its face. And even

if U.S. troops left Iraq, the successor government would continue to be dominated by the Kurds and Shiites,

since they make up more than 80 percent of Iraqs population and, in marked contrast to the situation under Saddam Hussein, they now

control the military and police. At best, al-Qaeda forces could hope for a tenuous presence of its forces in Anbar Province

and other predominantly Sunni areas of the country, and even there, they would be incessantly stalked and harassed by

government forces. That doesnt exactly sound like a reliable safe haven. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE.) states, I have never been persuaded to believe that whetherwe stay there six months, a year, or two years, that if we would leave, that somehow Iraq would turn into a haven for terrorists. 66 He is right to be skeptical of such

arguments.


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A2 Moral ObligationThere is not a moral obligation to stay in Iraq because we cannot pacify the situation and we owe obligations to

our own soldiers and taxpayers

Carpenter 07 [Ted Galen, Cato Institute, Policy Analysis, Escaping the Trap: Why the United States must leave Iraq, Feb. 14]

Allegation: Leaving Iraq Would Betray a Moral Obligation to the Iraqi People In addition to their other objections, opponents of withdrawal

protest that we will leave Iraq in chaos, and that would be an immoral action on the part of the United States.82Even some critics of the war have been susceptible to that argument, invoking the so-called Pottery Barn rule: You broke it, you bought it. According to that thesis, by

overthrowing Saddam Husseins government, the United States created a moral obligation to stabilize the securi ty environment and to leave Iraq a better place than it was

when we arrived. There are two major problems with that argument. First, unless some restrictions are put in place,

the obligation is seemingly open-ended. There is little question that chaos might actually increase in Iraq after

U.S. forces leave, but advocates of staying the course do not explain how the United States can prevent the

contending factions in Iraq from fighting the civil war they already seem to have started. At least, no one has

explained how the United States can restore the peace there at anything resembling a reasonable cost in American

blood and treasure. Leaving aside the very real possibility that the job of building a stable democracy might never be done, the moral obligation thesis begs

a fundamental question: What about the moral obligation of the U.S. government to its own soldiers and to the

American people? There is clearly an obligation not to waste either American lives or American tax dollars. Weare wasting both in Iraq. Staying the course is not a moral strategy; it is the epitome of an immoral one.


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DisadsHeg

N/U- US Hegemony low in the Status Quo

Siniora 10, Fuad Siniora, Former Prime Minister of Lebanon, World Order In Limbo With End Of U.S. Hegemony, Siniora Says, 7/18/2010,http://www.thegulfintelligence.com/Docs.Viewer/8ff36602-94a8-42d5-a8f5-e7638d13a25c/default.aspx

My argument is that the political ambiguity, security vulnerability, and economic volatility, are all differentmanifestations of a transition from a world that has been solely dominated by United States hegemony at the

political, military, economic and even cultural levels long before and after since the collapse of the Berlin wall , to potentially a multi-polar world; but where thepolitical, military, and economic sharing of power entails different parties, adding further to the complexities ofthe new world order, if we can yet call it such. What is gradually emerging is a multi-polar world where poles aredifferent according to the different issues. A world where the United States of America has to share militarypower with Russia, economic power with China, and political power with Europe. But China also has strategic ambitions that itmay seek to realize, and Russia has political ambitions that it is actively seeking to realize, and Europe had turned its economic ambitions into realities througheconomic integration, but this great experiment is being currently subjected to a tremendous test. All these factors add to the complexity, and to the uncertainties. Evenmore, other countries like Brazil and India are also emerging, economically and in some circumstances politically, as we have witnessed only lately. And others such as

Turkey and Iran have political , economic and military ambitions at the regional level, but they are pursuing them in different ways and with different methods , addingfurther to the complexities and uncertainties of the new global power relations.


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Iraq Politics- MalikiUnique internal linkMaliki/the State of Law Coalition is winning by forming coalitions with the Kurdish

parties

Marina Ottaway, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Carnegie, Danial Kaysi, 7-14,2010The Chess GameContinues, http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=41210 , IA

Maliki has shown so far that he is determined to continue as prime minister. His insistence prevented theformation of a single Shii coalition before the election, leading to the emergence of Malikis own State of Law

(SoL), which he dominates, and the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), which groups the other important Shii parties and personalities, including the Iraqi SupremeCouncil of Iraq (ISCI), the Sadrists, the Badr organization, and former Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari. Malikis insistence that he must remain prime minister has kept the new

parliamentary Shii bloc, the National Coalitionwhich includes State of Law and the INAfrom speaking with one voice. Instead, the parties in the INA are

negotiating separately with Iraqiya and the Kurdish parties, and have even established their own diplomatic contacts

with other countries in the region.

Kurds strongly support US presence would blame Maliki for withdrawal

Sam Dagher, New York Times staff writer, 7-14-10, Prospects Abound Among theKurdshttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/world/middleeast/15erbil.html?_r=1&src=me&pagewanted=printERBIL, Iraq Shortly after leaving his job l ast year as the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad started negotiations with Iraqi Kurdish leaders to become a paid

adviser. His stint as adviser to the semiautonomous Kurdistan regions board of investment lasted about seven months. In May Mr. Khalilzad, who also served as ambassador to Iraq, became a

board member of RAK Petroleum, an oil and gas investment company based in the Persian Gulf Arab emirate of Ras al-Khaimah. RAK is a significant shareholder in Norways DNO, a major oil

producer in the Kurdish region that has been mired in controversy for its in volvement in a deal that granted an interest in its oil field to the former American diplomat Peter W. Galbraith for help in

negotiating the contract with the Kurds. Last month DNO nominated Mr. Khalilzad to its board. As America winds down its war effort in Iraq, Mr. Khalilzad

is among a growing list of former American diplomats and military officials now chasing business opportunities in the oil-

rich Kurdish region or acting as advisers to its go vernment. Some visit regularly, while others call the region and its booming capital, Erbil, home. Kurds treat them like

dignitaries. The Kurdish region may be the only place in Iraq where Americans are still embraced as liberators. The

authorities boast that no Americans have ever been attacked in a place that has enjoyed relative security. Critics say these formerofficials are cashing in on a costly and contentious war they played a role in. The way they see it, though, they have every right to fulfill the American dream after having left their government posts.

At any rate, business and politics are inseparable in a region dominated by two governing parties and families, who have been accused of autocratic rule and corruption. Many of the formerAmerican officials turned businessmen have also become staunch advocates of the Kurdish cause, including the right of

statehood, which clashes with Americas stated policy of p reserving Iraqs unity and being at equal distance from all groups. The Kurds in turn have leveraged their

American connections, which in some cases go back decades, into an impressive lobbying and public relations machine in

Washington. The Kurdish region ranks among the top 10 buyers of lobbying services in the United States, according to the Foreign Lobbyist Influence Tracker, a joint project of ProPublicaand the Sunlight Foundation. They love these consultants here, saidDenise Natali, an American academic and author based in the regions other main city of Sulaimaniya. It brings them

attention, recognition and credibility. Ms. Natali herself has advised corporations like Americas Hunt Oil, which was among dozens of foreign oil companies awarded concessions in the Kurdish

region in defiance of the central government in Baghdad. Mr. Khalilzads firm, Khalilzad Associates, describes itself as serving clients at the nexus of commerce and public policies, and is

advising businesses seeking opportunities in Afghanistan and Iraq. He said he ended his advisory contract with the Kurdish government after his company started advising multinational

corporations investing in the Kurdish region and Iraq. We felt it created a possible conflict of interest to represent both sides, he said. He said he was trying to find a way to pay rent on an

apartment in Erbil provided to him free by the Kurdish authorities as part of his contract. The regions Oil Ministry owns the apartment. Mr. Khalilzad made several high-profile appearances last yea

while on contract for the Kurds. They included an election rally for the regions powerful president. Massoud Barzani. Mr. Khalilzad, along with most of the regions top leaders, sits on the board of

regents of the American University of Iraq in Sulaimaniya. John Agresto, who served as a senior adviser for higher education under Americas post-invasion Coalition Provisional Authority, helped

found the university with the strong b acking of Barham Salih, the regions current prime minister. Mr. Agresto said he had accomplished in the Kurdish region what he had failed to do in the rest of

Iraq, namely introduce American-style liberal arts education. The American brand is much more welcome here, Mr. Agresto said. This is

probably the last place in the whole world where George Bush could still win an election. The majority of Kurds are

grateful for the American-led invasion to topple Saddam Husseins government and Americas support of the no-flight

zone in the 1990s that helped them establish their present autonomy . Thousands of foreigners, including many Americans, now live and work in the Kurdish

region, enjoying comforts that are rare in the rest of the country. We love them, Haro Ahmed gushes about Americans. His family owns a real estateconglomerate, whose assets include a sprawling mall in Erbil that would not be out of place anywhere in suburban America. Mr. Ahmed has reserved space in th e mall for several American fast-

food chains and says he is in talks with Marriott to build a hotel and golf course nearby. Jay Garner, the retired lieutenant general who briefly headed th e reconstruction effort in Iraq after the

invasion, says that it is precisely this pro-American attitude, coupled with the regions oil wealth and strategic location between Iran, Syria and Turkey, that makes Kurds the perfect partner in Iraq.

Why we do no t wrap our arms around them, I do not understand, General Garner said. He said he did free consulting for the Kurds. But he also sits on th e advisory board of Vast Exploration, a


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Calgary-based company prospecting for oil in an area of the region known as Qara Dagh, where drilling started in May. On the seventh anniversary of Mr. Husseins fall, in April, General Garner flew

to the Kurdish region on a chartered plane accompanied by oil analysts and executives. The visit included meetings with Kurdish leaders and a camping trip to Qara Dagh.

Iran1. Non-Unique- Iran isnt proliferating.

FARS 10, FARS News Agency, Iran to Continue N. Fuel Production, 7/6/2010,http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T9806682634&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&start DocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T9806682637&cisb=22_T9806682636&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=356949&docNo=11

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast stressed on Tuesday that Tehran is resolved to continue uranium enrichment to

produce nuclear fuel for its power plants and reactors. "Definitely, the (nuclear) fuel cycle will continue its

activity in Iran," Mehman-Parast said in a weekly press conference here in Tehran today. He stressed Iran's right of nuclear enrichment, and added, "All the

International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) member states and signatories to the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) are entitled to the

right to enrich uranium within the boundaries of peaceful activities." The spokesman defended the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear

activities, and stated,"No activity in Iran has been carried out without IAEA cooperation and supervision and

none of our enrichment activities has ever been recognized by the Agency as a non-peaceful behavior." Thespokesman further reminded that uranium enrichment to the purity level of 20% is part of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities. Earlier, a top Iranian lawmaker said that Tehran

could stop 20% uranium enrichment (not enrichment process) if it receives the nuclear fuel i t needs for its Tehran research reactor. Washington and its Western allies

accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate

their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Tehran stresses that thecountry has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry. Despite the rules

enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four

rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium

enrichment. Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions

and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path.


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2. No Link- The US cant contain Iran- previous failures and lack of positive incentive.

Moraitis 10, Tilemachos MORAITIS, MA in Strategic Studies and International Political Economy, SAIS, John Hopkins University,Deterring Iran,3/19/2010, http://files.mgkworld.net/cipt/docs/CIPTdeterringIRAN.pdf

It is very difficult to deter Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is true that the U.S. has committed itself in the context of itshegemonic role in the global community to mitigate any nuclear threat. However, one of the substantial hindrances is the absent of an international organization thatcould punish Iran for not following the regulation of the NPT which Iran has ratified. Already in 2005 the IAEA handed out publicly a report which pointed out that

Iran was not consistent with the NPT regulations. Unfortunately , the NPT does not include the appropriate tools to effectively punish a member that does not comply

with its regulations9. Hence,Iran lacks a significant incentive to abandon any attempt to acquire nuclear weapons. Thethreat coming from the international community is also not very effective. Even though the U.N. SecurityCouncil has expressed its concerns at the same time it appears divided. The U.S. is leading the diplomatic offensive against Iran withBritain being in its side, but Russia and China are opposing any strict measure to be adopted. Especially Russia has every interest in Iran continuing his nuclear program

because it has signed a contract to build one of Irans nuclear reactors. Thus ,Iran is able to absorb the U.S. pressure as it can rely on thesupport of Russia, primarily, as also China. Therefore the international community does not share the unity necessaryto deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The U.S. being the sole superpower definitely has the militarycapabilities to pressure Iran by itself. Besides, it was able to overthrow Saddam even if the U.N. had opposed its plan. However,there arecertain obstacles which prevent the U.S. from posing a credible threat to Iran. First, the US is not free in its movesbecause of its mass military presence in Iraq. Furthermore, a military strike in Iran is likely to end up overthrowing the current regime which willdefinitely cause a much more rigid and fierce reaction of the Islamic World. Bombing Iran can provoke a chain reaction of attacks

against American and European facilities and individuals throughout the world. There is another reason due towhich America cannot pose a credible threat to Iran and that is the case of North Korea. As it was referred in the beginningof this paper North Korea was a part of the infamous axis of evil because it, too, was accused of attempting to acquire nuclear weapons. The U.S. threatenedthe Pyongyang numerous times and declared its commitment that it would not accept a nuclear armed NorthKorea. The outcome was a complete failure of the U.S. strategy. Despite the U.S. threats, North Korea proceeded with its nucleararmament and developed nuclear weapons. Since then the U.S. has completely changed its rhetoric regarding North Korea and had adopted a policy of appeasement

instead of aggression trying to reach some concessions on the use of nuclear weapons. This precedent provides Iran with the incentive toacquire nuclear weapons. Taking into account the example of North Korea Iran will be less susceptible to any U.S. threat because its threat will now appearless credible. Also,it will be motivated by the fact that in case it acquires nuclear weapons its relationship with theU.S. will be significantly improved. An additional failure of the U.S. strategy which diminishes even more thechance to deter Iran is that it is completely one-sided. More specifically,the U.S. strategy only poses to Iran the threat

of destruction in case the latter does not comply with the U.S. demands, but it does not offer a promise ofreward in case Iran does comply. This strategy clearly does not take into consideration the rule that a threat ofmassive destruction may deter an enemy only if there is a corresponding implicit promise of nondestruction inthe event he complies10. In the case of Iran, where there is a lack of promise for nondestruction,the subsequent danger lies that sincethe U.S. has the capacity to strike Iran first by surprise the latter may be induced to strike first to avoid beingdisarmed by a first strike from us (i.e. the U.S.)11.

3. Containment fails- Obama isnt willing to do the work.

Rubin 10, Michael Rubin, USA Today, Containment Wont Work , 7/11/2010, http://www.michaelrubin.org/7602/iran-containment

Spinning centrifuges run down the clock.When Obama asked Iran to unclench its fist, it lacked the uranium to build a bomb.Today, it has enough for two. If President Obama does not act quickly and unilaterally to paralyze Iran's banking sector and stop the gasoline imports the

Islamic Republic needs to survive, he will be left with a stark choice: Launch a military strike or let Iran get the bomb. Containment will not work:Obama isunprepared to deploy the forces, build the bases, or spend the billions of dollars that containment would

cost.Regardless,with an intercontinental ballistic missile capability by 2015, the Islamic Republic could leapfrogany containment.Nor will Arab states and Israel accept the promise of a U.S. nuclear umbrella after Obamacasts aside a decade of assurances that the United States would never tolerate a nuclear Iran.


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4. Turn- A. US attack on Iran would take international legitimacy destroying US hegemony.

Leverett and Leverett 10, Flynt Leverett, director of the Iran Project at the New America Foundation, where he is also a Senior ResearchFellow, and Hillary Mann Leverett, CEO of Strategic Energy and Global Analysis (STRATEGA), a political risk consultancy, IS IRAN OBAMASCUBAN MISSILE CRISIS, AND WILL HE RISE TO THE OCCASION?, 7/25/2010, http://www.raceforiran.com/2010/07Recently, there has been a torrent of high-profile calls for military strikeseither by the United States or by Israelagainst Iranian nuclear targets. Amid this push for war

with Iran, no one is askingmuch less answeringwhat we believe is a cri tical and fundamental question: What, exactly, would be the legal basis

for attacking the Islamic Republic? While the legal basis for Americas invasion of Iraq in 2003 was clearly inadequate, there were at least some legalauthoritiesSecurity Council resolutions, etc.that could be (mis)interpreted and stitched together by clever lawyers to make a case for war, even if large parts of the world

did not accept that case. (Once Saddam had been overthrown, Americas European partnerseven those that had opposed and questioned the legitimacy of the invasion

focused on getting a United Nations Security Council resolution in place to legitimate the post-Saddam occupation, so that we could all move beyond the previous

unpleasantness.) But, in the case of Iran, there will be no legal justification for an attack. All of the relevant Security

Council resolutions dealing with the nuclear issue say explicitly that they do not authorize the use of force

against the Islamic Republic and that such authorization would require further and separate action by the

Council. That action will not be forthcoming. And while, no doubt, the U.S. government has lawyers at the StateDepartment, Pentagon, and theNational Security Council who would do their best to come up with a self-defense case under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, literally no oneeven advocates of

attacking Iranwill be able to take that case seriously. There will be no casus belli. As we wrote in May, see here, a proper assessment of Iranian military capabilities

should put to rest the constantly recycled, hyperbolic rhetoric in the United States and some quarters of the Middle East about the Iranian threat to peace and security.

Iranians correctly point out that their country has not invaded any of its neighbors for centuriesand, since 1979, theyhave not developed the military capabilities that would let them carry out large-scale offensive operations. In the end, we will be attacking Iran because it is enriching

uranium. We have written previously, see here, about the immediate costs of strikes against Iranian nuclear targets on Americas strategic position in the Middle East. But

the United States would also pay a heavy price in terms of international legitimacy. This matters, because

legitimacy is a critical factor influencing how others view Americas still prominent role in international

affairs. Throughout the post-Cold War period, the United States, underDemocratic and Republican administrations, has presented itself to the world as a uniquelybenign hegemona superpower that other important states did not need to fear. That image was called profoundly into question with the invasion of Iraq. Launching an

illegitimate war of aggression against the Islamic Republica war that would have deeply negative consequences for virtually everyone else in the international system

would have a much more strategically consequential impact on international perceptions of the United States than the Iraq war did. Other important states would almost

certainly determine that using non-military means to constrain such a dysfunctional hegemonic power need to become a much higher and more explicit goal of their foreign

policies. As we also wrote in May, [A]ny wars that the United States chooses to fight in the Middle East in the future will

be fought on borrowed moneymoney borrowed from creditors like China and Saudi Arabia that will not be

amused by Washington undertaking a military initiative that would be so harmful to their own interests.Starting a war with Iran would breakthe back of Americas increasingly strained superpower statusjust as surely as the British mistake of invading Egypt and seizing the Suez Canal in 1956 (with help from France and Israel, to be sure) forever ended the United Kingdoms

claims to great power status.

B. U.S. Hegemony is essential to maintaining global peace

Khalilzad 95, Defense Analyst at RAND, (Zalmay, Losing the Moment? The United States and the World After the Cold War The Washington Quarterly,RETHINKING GRAND STRATEGY; Vol. 18, No. 2; Pg. 84)

Under the third option,the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rivalor a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance,this is the best long-term guiding principle andvision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States

exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open andmore receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second, such a world wouldhave a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation,threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would helppreclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the world to avoid another globalcold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership wouldtherefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.


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Midterms Link Turns- Plan=Dems WinWithdrawing from Iraq is key to Democrat success in midtermsplan prevents backlash from the base

Feaver 10 [Peter, professor of political science at Duke University and director of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies, What's dictating

the Iraq withdrawal timeline?, Foreign Policy, 4/28;http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/28/whats_dictating_the_iraq_withdrawal_timeline acc 6/23/10]

The article dangles tantalizingly the possibility that it is the American political calendar that is dictating the timeline now: "...with his liberal base angryat the Afghan troop buildup, any delay of the Iraq drawdown could provoke more consternation on the left."It is hard to predict where August will fall in the Iraqi political trajectory, but it is a rock-solid certainty thatAugust comes comfortably before the U.S. midterm election. The reporters are right that letting the Augustdeadline slide could pose an enormous political headache for an administration already struggling tomobilize its base when the national mood favors the Republicans. But a failure to heed the situation on theground in Iraq would, I suspect, pose much greater headaches down the road for the administration so Ifervently hope that the U.S. midterm elections are not dictating the timeline.

No risk of backlash- Voters dont care about Iraq withdrawal.

Beinart 08. [Peter, senior fellow @ Council on Foreign Relations, Beinart Gets It, Many Left Blogs Don't TalkLeft of the Politics of CrimeJuly 6 lexis]

When Democrats worry about the backlash that awaits BarackObama if hedefends civil liberties, orendorses withdrawal

from Iraq, or proposes unconditional negotiations with Iran,they are seeing ghosts. Fundamentally,the politics of foreign policy have

changed. . . . Because Americans are less afraid and because Republicans have abandoned the foreign policy center,

Democrats need not worry that Obama will suffer the fate ofGeorge McGovern, JimmyCarter, WalterMondaleor John Kerry.He

won't lose because he looks weak.


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Politics Link Turn- Plan PopularContinued U.S. military presence in Iraq crushes Obamas political capital

Landler and Cooper 10 [Mark and Helene, March 5, 2010, International Herald Tribune, U.S. fears Iraq vote could delay pullout, Lexis;acc 6/23/10]

Butfor Mr. Obama, such a sleight of hand could have huge political repercussions in Washington. The

centerpiece of Mr. Obama's foreign policy platform when he ran for president - and the reason manypolitical experts say he was able to wrest a primary victory from Hillary Rodham Clinton - was hisopposition to the Iraq war from the start. At a time when Mr. Obama has already angered his liberal baseby increasing the number of American troops in Afghanistanand missing his own deadline to shut down the military prison inGuantnamo Bay, Cuba,even the appearance that he has fudged the troop drawdown in Iraq could set off a rebellionas Democrats face difficult midterm elections.

Plan boosts Obamas political capital--withdrawing from Iraq on schedule upholds Obamas campaign promise

Associated Press 10 [US reconsidering pace of Iraq withdrawal, May 11th, 2010 , http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0511/reconsidering-pace-iraq-withdrawal/; acc 6/24/10]

In Baghdad and Washington,U.S. officials say they remain committed to the deadline, which Obama has said hewould extend only if Iraq's security deteriorates. Getting out of Iraq quickly and responsibly was amongObama's top campaign promises in 2008. Extending the deadline could be politically risky back home butso could anarchy and a bloodbath following a hasty retreat


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Spending- Plan Saves MoneyWithdrawing from Iraq saves the US over $1.1 trillion

Heiser 09 (James, reporter, NewAmerican, 9-4-2009, http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/health-care/1822) CM

The Army Times is reporting that a congressional study has once again discovered the obvious: pulling out of Iraq will

save money. A speedier withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan would shave $1.1 trillion off the

budget in the next decade, a new congressional budget projection says. The Army Times article declares, That would be a sizeable cut in

defense-related spending from 2010 through 2019, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office

estimates at $7.4 trillion. The mind-boggling $7.4 trillion to be alloted for defense spending is based on

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