American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Rubin took to the National Review today to posit that, if the Iranian regime was facing an imminent collapse, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps — the ideological force controlled by Iran’s Supreme Leader — might launch its nuclear weapons.

Never mind that Iran is far off from even the potential of nuclear weapons capability, Rubin’s attack is deeply flawed. He latches onto a news hook from Libya — that the remnants of Col. Muammar Qaddafi’s regime launched Scud missiles at the Libyan city Misrata — to raise the possibility of a desperate Iranian nuclear strike:

When Qaddafi recognized his hours were numbered, he launched Scud missiles at his own people. What might the Revolutionary Guards do in a parallel situation? [...] While they might not normally be suicidal, if they believe the regime and perhaps their lives are over regardless of their actions, why not make good on the ideological goal and launch a nuclear weapon against external enemies?

Rubin piles hypothetical question upon hypothetical question and wonders if Iran “might” “perhaps” launch a nuclear weapon that Iran doesn’t yet have and isn’t developing (so far as U.S. intelligence estimates are concerned).

So “why not”? Rubin himself quotes Fareed Zakaria that Iranian regime figures are “building up bank accounts in Dubai and in Switzerland,” thereby demonstrating their knowledge that there is life after the regime. Rubin may also want to consider that two of the three dictators that have thus far fallen in the Arab Spring did not make similar acts of desperation — which is not to imply nuclear strikes are similar to Scud launches in the first place.

A key point in Rubin’s analysis lies in his disclaimer that the IRGC is a “black box” — what Rubin’s sometime boss Donald Rumsfelf might have called a “known unknown.” So because we don’t know what’s going on in the minds of the IRGC, we should be designing a policy based on a chain-link of hypotheticals and a sophistic comparison to Qaddafi’s regime (though Rubin never actually puts forward any policy suggestions).

Rubin’s disclaimers that the Iranian regime “might not normally be suicidal” (another qualified “might”) are a welcome change from a neoconservative pundit who expends much effort fear-mongering about Iran. (As CAP analyst Matt Duss pointed out at Foreign Policy, the notion of the “martyr state” is bogus anyway.) But if he wants to draw comparisons to falling autocracies of the Arab Spring, he should take note that two of the three Arab dictators whose governments have collapsed didn’t take the bold, desperate measure of shooting off a few scud missiles.

One of the topics that most dominates the nation’s political and policy discussions is the threat of terrorism. Politicians regularly warn of the dire threat of terrorism and the need to dedicate more resources to battle it.

While identifying and then preventing or combating terrorism is an important part of the nation’s national security strategy, it is important to keep things in perspective when deciding national priorities. Last week, the State Department its annual Country Reports On Terrorism, which surveys terrorism injuries and deaths worldwide last year.

The report notes that 15 American private citizens died from terrorism last year worldwide, with almost all the deaths occurring in Afghanistan and one each occurring in Iraq and Uganda. While this statistic is tragic, it should be noted that it is dwarfed by the number of Americans who died from two other causes which do not receive nearly as much sensationalistic media coverage: dog bites and lightning strikes.

According to a website that collects media reports of dog bite fatalities and data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 29 Americans were killed by lightning strikes last year and 34 Americans were killed by dog bites. ThinkProgress has visualized these statistics in the following chart:

Terrorism is certainly a national security concern that should be taken seriously. Yet given its relatively low fatality rate in comparison to other threats to humanity — the State Department’s report found that 13,186 people died worldwide from terrorism in 2010; in 2007, the United Nations estimated that 18,000 children died every day from hunger alone — we need to have a realistic assessment of our priorities.

In 2006, Avigdor Lieberman, now Israel’s foreign minister but then just the head of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, called on U.S. Ambassador Richard Jones to press his controversial idea that “separation of Israeli Jews from Israeli Arabs is necessary,” referring to those Palestinians who live within Israel proper and hold Israeli citizenship. But, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, Jones pushed back:

Lieberman asserted that states that are composed of different “nations” continue to experience conflict. The Ambassador noted that the United States maintains its diversity without experiencing such conflict.

In the memo, titled “RIGHT-WING LIEBERMAN UNABASHEDLY ADVOCATES TRANSFER OF ISRAELI ARABS,” Lieberman was short on specifics for his proposals for Israeli-Palestinian peace. In what he called “creative” solutions, he proposed shifting the borders of future Israeli and Palestinian states to include Palestinian villages within Israel in a Palestinian state and Israeli settlements in the West Bank within Israel. But the cable noted that Lieberman did not address settlements like Ariel, which is deeper into the West Bank, or the fate of mixed cities inside Israel, which the now-foreign minister acknowledged were “more complicated.”

Lieberman also proposed to Jones that Israel institute a “loyalty oath” that would strip citizenship from those who refused it. Lieberman acknowledged that most Palestinian citizens of Israel would never accept it, accusing them of only wanting to retain their citizenship because of the “social benefits” they receive from the state. Just such a bill was introduced in the Knesset last fall by a legislator from Lieberman’s party. It was watered down on its way through parliamentary procedures before failing to pass. (HT: Joseph Dana)

The Defense Department has just released its annual assessment of China’s military capabilities and development to Congress. The report is being covered in much of the media as a dire warning to the United States warning of the looming threat of Chinese military expansion.

The Hill notes that the report will be “fuel for congressional hawks — mostly Republicans in the House, who point to China as the main reason annual Defense Department budgets must continue to grow.” Politico quotes Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), whose most major campaign contributions come from the defense industry, saying that American security will be “jeopardized” by defense cuts in the wake of China’s military rise:

“China clearly believes that it can capitalize on the global financial crisis, using the United States’ economic uncertainty as a window of opportunity to strengthen China’s economic, diplomatic, and security interests,” said Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a leading opponent of deep defense spending cuts. “Security in the Pacific could be further jeopardized if our regional allies also come to believe that the United States will sacrifice the presence and capability of the U.S. military in an attempt to control spending. This is an unacceptable outcome in such a vital region of the globe.”

What both the Hill and Politico fail to provide in their coverage of the Pentagon’s report and the right-wing response to it is any context about the relative levels of U.S. and Chinese military spending. The U.S. defense budget is six times as large as annual Chinese military spending. The following graphic from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute chronicling U.S. defense spending from 1989 to 2008 visualizes this:

While it’s not unreasonable to discuss the growth of Chinese military spending and debate the U.S. response, these discussions in the media should include the context of relative spending between the two countries to best serve readers.

While China’s military spending remains far eclipsed by that of the United States, there is one area where it is besting the United States: investing in clean energy. China invests twice as much money in clean energy as the United States, and for every dollar it spends on clean energy, it spends two to three dollars on defense. In the United States, every clean energy dollar is paired with 41 dollars of military spending.