Reality As A Construction: Bernard Lewis

Norman Podhoretz presented a case in June 2007 for bombing Iran.
Norman Podhoretz has a good many philosophical fish to fry and is hardly a disinterested observer.

However, when one thinks about it, how could anyone who is calling for the Dresdenization of another country be anything but interested. Norman Podhoretz is very, very , very interested. He cites Bernard Lewis. In case you do not know who Mr. Lewis is, let Podhoretz introduce him: ..Bernard Lewis, the greatest authority of our time on the Islamic world...
Perhaps Mr. Podhoretz means that Mr. Lewis is the greatest authority in the West about the Islamic world, or the greatest non-Islamic authority on the Islamic world. Usually Mr. Podhoretz means "So-and-So agrees with me" when Mr. Podhoretz call So-and-So the greatest whatever.
Just a note: Bernard Lewis is not the greatest authority on anything except Bernard Lewis. Mr. Lewis was in the situation perhaps of being focused on the world of Islam when few others in the West were. That is about it: right place, right time. Serendipity, not greatness. Greatness calls for serendipity and strength of insight.

Anyway, what is wrong with the following:  
The Case for Bombing Iran Norman Podhoretz
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/The-Case-for-Bombing-Iran-10882  

But listen to what Bernard Lewis, the greatest authority of our time on the Islamic world, has to say in this context on the subject of deterrence: MAD, mutual assured destruction, [was effective] right through the cold war. Both sides had nuclear weapons. Neither side used them, because both sides knew the other would retaliate in kind. This will not work with a religious fanatic [like Ahmadinejad]. For him, mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement. We know already that [Iran’s leaders] do not give a damn about killing their own people in great numbers. We have seen it again and again. In the final scenario, and this applies all the more strongly if they kill large numbers of their own people, they are doing them a favor. They are giving them a quick free pass to heaven and all its delights. Nor are they inhibited by a love of country: We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world. These were the words of the Ayatollah Khomeini, who ruled Iran from 1979 to 1989, and there is no reason to suppose that his disciple Ahmadinejad feels any differently.

There are numerous things I find distasteful about this claptrap. I assume I have made my disdain for Bernard Lewis sufficiently clear that I need not repeat it. What else is wrong?
MAD or Mutually Assured Destruction is cast as the way rational beings live with nuclear weaponry! MAD is not the Western-style logical and rational way of doing things. It was the historical outcome of the events that led up to it: the revolution in Physics, World War I, the Communist Revolution, World War II and its aftermath. Therein is the genesis of MAD. It is NOT THEE way that people who are part of the in-crowd must do nuclear war.

The USA and the Soviet Union found themselves at a point of history and MAD was their response. Beyond this, the Soviet Union and the USA accomplished one of the greatest Moral and Ethical victories in the history of mankind: they did not lose control, they did not go to war. They backed away from the mad MAD system they created. (Of course, the Nuclear Confrontation Era is being re-built now, but that does not diminish the accomplishment. Furthermore, after what I have seen in the last 15 years or so, I do not trust the USA to be able to play the game of Thermonuclear Warfare in a manner that will attain the same outcome as it did in the original Cold War game.) MADmen with bombs.

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