We may have to bomb Iran
An argument for using military strikes against Iran.
On the issue of Iran, I tend to have an open mind when it comes to
using the military option. There are a number of reasons to take the
threat from Iran more seriously than the lessor one which Iraq had
posed. Key differences:
You can believe them if you wish. It would be a kinder, happier world if we were all able to trust one another. But my suspicion is that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, who has expressed a desire to see Israel wiped from the face of the world, may soon have the wherewithal. A suspicion supported with physical evidence and a statement of malevolent intent. What more evidence do you need? An awful lot more, as far as the international community is concerned. Paralysis has descended since the invasion of Iraq and it afflicts not just the United Nations and the European Union but western public opinion, too. So ill-judged and catastrophic was the Anglo-US adventure against Saddam Hussein that it has warped our ability to think rationally about what to do with Iran. Opposition to pre-emptive military action against Iran will be deafening.
The problem is Bush cried wolf with Iraq and now in the case of
Iran, people aren’t in any mood to use a pre-emptive strike to deal
with the more genuine threat the regime there poses.
The war against Iraq was predicated upon two misconceptions — first of all that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. He did not. His hopeless army possessed scarcely any weapons at all. But even allowing for hindsight, the term “weapons of mass destruction” in Saddam’s case referred only to chemical and biological weapons — which, although thoroughly nasty, are a politically inspired misnomer. It is nukes that inflict genuine mass destruction and there was never a suggestion that Saddam had any of those.
Saddam at least hadn’t been stupid enough to make open threats like
the current Iranian leader is making on a weekly basis. Ahmadinejad may
ultimately be signing his own death warrant in making such threats.
There is the issue of blowback to consider. Whenever a country is
attacked, the general pattern is for the people turn instantly
patriotic, put aside their many differences and rally around their leaders
(no matter how bad or incompetent the are). This would play into the
hands of the regime and undermine the efforts of the moderate Iranians
in the quest for greater democracy. On the other hand, the same thing
happened with the US/NATO bombing of Serbia, but ultimately it helped
to end Milosevic’s rule when he landed the Serbian people in yet
another war which they had grown tired of. Another obvious example of
this would be America after the 9-11 attacks.
The US is currently giving financial support to dissidents within Iran.
But even if the moderates manage to overthrow the regime, the issue of
nukes will still have to be dealt with. Iran’s nuclear program has a
large degree of support, even among those who despise the regime,
so whoever comes to power after the mullahs are deposed may wish to
retain them for the power and prestige nukes would bring to Iran.
The question is can the Americans (or some US/NATO coalition)
actually pull this off? Given that the US military is going to remain
bogged down in Iraq for the immediate future, a ground invasion is out
of the question. That leaves the rather limited option of just using
air strikes and commando operations against selected targets.
Ultimately, perhaps the best option might be to sit back and let the
Israelis sort this one out as they did in the case of their bombing of
Iraq’s Osirak reactor 25 years ago. That may be the safest option how
incompetent and clueless the current US administration has been in
dealing with this area of the world.