August 20, 2004
Backdraft
Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani warned that Iran might launch a preemptive strike against US forces in the region to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities.
I’m sure we could all see this coming. Do we pose a threat to Iran’s national security? Of course we do. Do they have a right to preemptively strike at us because of this threat? According to our administration’s practices, yes.
This is a fundamental flaw of the preemptive war doctrine. It's bad enough that invading Iraq under questionable justifications has undermined all future attempts to invoke preemptive self-defense (or even humanitarian action, e.g. Sudan) but it also opens the floodgates to any sovereign nation claiming the same right to preemptive attack. We have, after all, proclaimed Iran as being apart of the Axis of Evil™ and we do have over 100,000 troops stationed right next door.
"America is not the only one present in the region. We are also present, from Khost to Kandahar in Afghanistan; we are present in the Gulf and we can be present in Iraq," said Shamkhani.
I'm sure Ali meant to say "...and we are already in Iraq."
"If Israel fires one missile at Bushehr atomic power plant, it should permanently forget about Dimona nuclear center, where it produces and keeps its nuclear weapons, and Israel would be responsible for the terrifying consequence of this move," General Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr warned.
This is effective rhetorical bluster. It reintroduces the problem of pressuring Iran to admit to and dismantle their nuclear weapons programs while ignoring Israel's, as well as threatening Israeli/American tactics against a specifically named target. The entire situation plays more into Iranian hands than ours. With the recent premature announcement of massive troop realignment and our obvious trouble with managing our occupation of Iraq even with over 100,000 troops, support for military action against Iran would be a hard pill to swallow. And there isn't any reason to believe such a conflict would be the kind we faced in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran might feel the odds are good for them to advance their nuclear weapons program through appeasement. The other fundamental flaw in our Iraq invasion: We committed to a dubious military engagement in Iraq only then to be faced with two real and apparent threats, Iran and North Korea. We have a greatly reduced position of force with which to negotiate and they both know it.
I'm still wondering how much Iran has been manipulating us through counterintelligence over recent years (e.g. Chalabi). Iraq could likely have been the poison pawn that played into Iran's strategy, and given the current position of pieces in the center of the board, an exchange would appear imminent. The situation in Iran demands more attention, appeasement should be out of the question but how can we get to a peaceful resolution when we have driven Iran to such a belligerent posture? Can Bush and his intellectually/logistically challenged and overworked crew handle this kind of diplomacy without exacerbating the situation? Were they hoping for this all along? Would conflict with Iran guarantee reinstating the draft? Will Kerry change his position on troop withdraw from Iraq? Is this just pure bluster from Iran?
Insha Allah, this will all go no further than harsh language.
CIA World Factbook Entry on Iran
Posted by Joseph Briggs at August 20, 2004 11:30 AMJoseph:
Seems to me that virtually any policy one chooses will have adverse consequences if misused. For instance, take judicial sentencing. If we have mandatory sentencing, then we have miscarriages of justice because judges have no leeway. If we allow judges the leeway, then there are those situations where politics, favoritism, ideology or the like influence the sentence disproportionately.
I think everyon agrees that pre-emption would have been a fantastic policy to employ against the 911 terrorists. On the other hand, many decry the pre-emptive nature of detaining Jose Padilla, the alleged “dirty bomber” since he never actually committed the deed. ( I know, I know, there’s lots more issues with the Padilla case, but lets not divert this thread)
Pre-emption also is not a new policy for the US. Its been done many times, and even the Clinton administration had a pre-emptive policy when it ordered Operation Desert Fox—the bombing of Iraq in 1998.
If not pre-emption, then I suppose you are forced to wait until an attack occurs, and then counterpunch. In a bar fight, its sometimes more effective to get the first punch in, rather than wait to be hit. Is there a middle ground that you see?
Posted by: joebagodonuts at August 20, 2004 12:11 PM“If not pre-emption, then I suppose you are forced to wait until an attack occurs, and then counterpunch. In a bar fight, its sometimes more effective to get the first punch in, rather than wait to be hit. Is there a middle ground that you see?”
Middle ground went out the door when we invaded Iraq. Our policy is: a perceived threat is justifiable reason to invade a sovereign country. I don’t see how Iran is doing anything but threatening to apply our own forging policy onto us. I’m sure, as a severly under armed country, they would indeed want to ‘get in the first punch’
Karmas a bitch.
Posted by: Justin at August 20, 2004 12:43 PMGood post, I was hoping someone caught this story! To me, it’s potentially huge in its repercussions; there seems to be an assumption that the rest of the world will stay static, and merely react to our actions and our pre-emptive war. That might be true of Syria, but I’m sure it’s not the case with Iran. What’s good for the goose… the doctrine of pre-emptive war is one of the most bone-headed declarations of doctrine in a long, long time.
The big winners of the invasion- er, liberation of Iraq have been Israel and Iran. Indeed, perhaps the most amusing political moment of the year came when Tenet fell on his sword and resigned, but not before tossing a grenade into the neocon room and closing the door behind him, saying ‘oh, by the way- Chalabi is an Iranian spy.’ Boy, you can’t script that stuff, just priceless.
What might Iran be trying to achieve? Strategically, they seek to defeat the US & its culture… that’s another topic in itself. The first step beyond their borders would naturally be the absorbtion of their fellow Shias in southern Iraq. Al-Sadr is doing quite nicely for them, but you can be sure someone in Iran has put together a war plan for military invasion, and you can also be sure someone in the Pentagon has done the same. How would we react to an Iranian invasion?
Wouldn’t that make a nice October Surprise? Provoke the Iranians into a military attack, create a Gulf of Tonkin incident, bomb their nuclear facility? Bush would need to make it appear the Iranians are the aggressors this time, but that shouldn’t be too hard.
What’s that? Don’t believe the neocons would do that? Remember the timing of the invasion- er, liberation of Iraq? This is a terrible situation where war might meet the aims of groups in both Iran and the US.
o/~ What God wants/ God gets/ God help us all o/~
“We have driven Iran to a belligerent posture?” This is classic appeasement talk. The appeasers before World War II usually started their statements/excuses with something like how the allies had driven Hitler to be so aggressive. Of course, he was aggressive not because he was driven to it, but rather because it was a successful tactic when dealing with civilized people more interested in the immediate peace than freedom. The Iranians must have studied the transcripts. They can bluff about a preemptive strike all they want. They are already fully deployed in causing trouble in the region. Their own internal problems don’t allow them to do much more. The difference between them and non-state actors is that they have something they need to defend. They can’t act as irresponsibly as they talk. The most credible threat is that Iran would shatter if it took action and the mess would be hard to clean up. It is something we should take seriously, but in what way should it change our behavior today?
Posted by: Jack at August 20, 2004 01:11 PMTrue, joebagodonuts. I’m not necessarily opposed to preemptive war. There may be times when it is a sound proposition, as in Desert Fox. The problem is, as Justin said also, that the premise has been spoiled by Bush’s execution of the Iraq invasion. The main difference between Iraqi Freedom and previous ops is that it was a full scale military invasion and occupation. I think for this kind of prospect, we would want to be absolutely certain we are making the correct choice. The fact that we didn’t and that we are now faced with actual clear and present dangers speaks to the neccessity of an exacting evaluation in any preemptive scenario. Iran requires our full attention. North Korea requires our full attention. Iraq before the invasion just didn’t seem to measure up compared to these two situations. The sanctions were very effective in forcing Saddam to settle for writing novels and building palaces.
Posted by: Joseph Briggs at August 20, 2004 02:19 PMI wrote a long time ago about the slippery slope of preemptive attacks as a policy,,, I am surprised to see it take so long for a nation wet the slope for themselves. Now we will see a “No we will preempt you”. No, I will preempt you before you can preempt me”. Watch for the dialogue… it is the next step. Like two kids in a school yard with hand grenades in case the insults become too humilating…
The scenario will not play out quite that simply, but, the script has been written in thousands of years of history and is classic.
Posted by: David R. Remer at August 20, 2004 03:40 PMGreat article. When the U.S. attacks a foreign country that did not attack first, we are liberators. When an Arab country attacks a foreign country that did not attack first, they are terrorists.
Posted by: entertainment news at August 20, 2004 07:29 PMExcellent article Joseph.
If not pre-emption, then I suppose you are forced to wait until an attack occurs, and then counterpunch. In a bar fight, its sometimes more effective to get the first punch in, rather than wait to be hit.
What we did in Iraq was not pre-emptive joe. A more apt analogy would be kicking the crap out of a six-year old because he might be in a bar with you some day when he gets bigger. Framing this debate as one of pro- or anti- pre-emption is misleading.
Everyone agrees that in the face of an imminent threat a pre-emptive strike is justifiable. We all - including President Bush - agree that the invasion of Iraq was not in response to an “imminent threat.”
Iran’s position is justifiable because there is reason for them to believe either the US or Israel will strike their nuclear facilities soon. We still need to dismantle the facilities, but let’s at least be honest about our motives this time if the situation calls for military action.
Pre-emption’s a good thing as long as you don’t make it a regular thing. It’s too much of a judgment call, especially in nations where your intelligence picture may not be all that sharp.
It may sound could blooded, but we should be willing to be the grieved party when it comes to national defense. Let some idiot be stupid enough to attack us, and then we show the world how stupid attacking us was.
It only sounds cold-blooded if pre-emption is a surefire way of stopping terrorism. Otherwise, we are simply setting our policy so that the right messages are sent when our homeland security efforts fail. We may not be invulnerable, but any idiot who attacks us, or allows us to get attacked will pay the price. In that fashion, it’s not our military that will pre-empt attacks, it will be our military’s reputation. Not only will it save our citizen’s lives to go back to defensive doctrine, it will also save our soldier’s lives.
All that said, we should not be unwilling to intervene, so long as we are clear on what we’re supposed to do.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at August 21, 2004 12:06 AM“When the U.S. attacks a foreign country that did not attack first, we are liberators. When an Arab country attacks a foreign country that did not attack first, they are terrorists”
Alright, please give me a time when an Arab country which was led by a democratically elected president attacked a foreign nation, overthrew its dictator and then attempted to establish a regime that respected human rights. If you can give me an example where all of this happend (or even some of this), and someone called them terrorists, I will grant you have a point.
As for this overall topic- Almost everyong on this thread seems to agree that pre-emption is SOMETIMES justified- so it is not the concept of pre-emption that you are against, but Bush’s particular use of it in this context. As such, since we all accept the notion that pre-emption is a justifiable justification for the use of force in some cases, Iran could have used this little PR ploy anyway.
Now if you were to take the position that we should never use pre-emption, no matter what, and thus denying Iran this propoganda tool, then that would be a consistent arugment. But I think we all know why few would take such a stand…
Posted by: Misha Tseytlin at August 22, 2004 08:07 AMAs for this overall topic- Almost everyong on this thread seems to agree that pre-emption is SOMETIMES justified- so it is not the concept of pre-emption that you are against, but Bush’s particular use of it in this context.
Misha, as you of all people should know, there is a legal basis on which a country can make a pre-emptive strike. I believe (correct me if I’m wrong) it rests on facing an “imminent threat.”
Bush recently took great pains to explain that invading Iraq was NOT in response to an imminent threat.
