July 30, 2004
Unlikely Generals
Charles Krauthammer gives the lie to the mounting meme that not Iraq, but Iran, “was the real threat”. He demolishes the argument on several levels.
“Well, of course Iran is a threat and a danger. But how exactly would the critics have ‘done’ Iran? Iran is a serious country with a serious army. Compared with the Iraq war, an invasion of Iran would have been infinitely more costly. Can you imagine these critics, who were shouting ‘quagmire’ and ‘defeat’ when the low-level guerrilla war in Iraq intensified in April, actually supporting war with Iran?”
Impossible to imagine, indeed. But this type of reflection is not common among the serried ranks of sudden military analysts among liberals and the Left. Anti-war people putter on about North Korea too -- an even more disingenuous stance. As Krauthammer points out, North Korea's nuclear arsenal, however inchoate, makes it "untouchable". Is this what we want for Iran?
When an alternative to force is put forward -- and it's not often that one is -- it relies on ahistorical or irrelevant appeals to multilateral diplomacy and containment. The latter worked against the mostly sui generis behemoth of the USSR. It has not been tried in the long-term against a nuclear-armed, Third World autocracy. And the atavism of multilaterism won't fare much better. Krauthammer writes:
We know the central foreign policy principle of Bush critics: multilateralism. John Kerry and the Democrats have said it a hundred times: The source of our troubles is President Bush's insistence on 'going it alone.' They promise to 'rejoin the community of nations" and 'work with our allies.'Well, that happens to be exactly what we have been doing regarding Iran. And the policy is an abject failure. The Bush administration, having decided that invading one axis-of-evil country was about as much as either the military or the country can bear, has gone multilateral on Iran, precisely what the Democrats advocate. Washington delegated the issue to a committee of three -- the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany -- that has been meeting with the Iranians to get them to shut down their nuclear program.
The result? They have been led by the nose. Iran is caught red-handed with illegally enriched uranium, and the Tehran Three prevail upon the Bush administration to do nothing while they persuade the mullahs to act nice. Therefore, we do not go to the U.N. Security Council to declare Iran in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. We do not impose sanctions. We do not begin squeezing Iran to give up its nuclear program.
Instead, we give Iran more time to swoon before the persuasive powers of 'Jack of Tehran' -- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw -- until finally, humiliatingly, Iran announces that it will resume enriching uranium and that nothing will prevent it from becoming a member of the 'nuclear club.'
The result has not been harmless. Time is of the essence, and the runaround that the Tehran Three have gotten from the mullahs has meant that we have lost at least nine months in doing anything to stop the Iranian nuclear program."
I've been pleasantly surprised by all the hawkish talk during the Democratic National Convention. But can individuals cognizant of the threat posed by Islamist terror stir to action a party that seems to fetishize multilateralism? Pre-emptive action, if necessary?
I took out a bet at work last week on whether and when Israel would fly a sortie into Iran and incinerate Bushehr. This of course would be a reprise of the favor Israel did the world in 1981, when she reduced Saddam and Jacques Chirac's science project, the Osirak nuclear reactor, to carbonized popcorn. In late 2001, a former president of Iran, Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, helpfully observed that the "application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel, but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world." So there is both precedent and incentive for the Jewish state to act unilaterally. But Krauthammer and others have observed that Iran is farther off and much better prepared and equipped than Iraq, and its nuclear facilities are strategically subterranean.
So it may not come to that. Revolution in Iran is the more plausible and desired course, but an American assault -- or some effort coordinated by another coalition of the willing -- is increasingly likely. And, in a final rejoinder to the generals of the Left, Krauthammer observes:
Both of [these], by the way, are far more likely to succeed with 146,000 American troops and highly sophisticated aircraft standing by just a few miles away -- in Iraq."Posted by John-Paul Pagano at July 30, 2004 11:16 PM
Bush’s critics just don’t get it. The strategy of bringing about big changes in the Middle East begins, and doesn’t end, with Iraq. The dominoes are in place and now it’s a matter of time.
Libya, Pakistan, Syria and even Saudi Arabia are under pressures now they never experienced before Iraq (and this is bearing significant good results).
Critics have tried to pretend this is was all about oil from the beginning, or even just weapons of mass destruction. But from the very the start it was about bringing massive pressure to bear on the Middle East’s autocracies and demanding fundamental change after 9-11.
Iran’s goverment has a strong and viable internal opposition that has been strengthened immeasurably by what’s going on next door. Why do you think the mullahs are terrified and Iranian agents have been captured trying to stir things up in Iraq? It’s now more likely than ever that we will be able to bring them down with a shot fired.
Bush’s stategery is working, and will continue to work. A single-minded desire to see a Democrat in the White House doesn’t change that one iota.
Posted by: Martin at July 31, 2004 01:41 AMGood points John-Paul. Except I have serious doubts we will be positioned in Iraq in the long term. I doubt the American public will continue to support having our soldiers continue to be targets for the Muslimists in what will continue to be an unstable Iraq. If Iran becomes a threat to Israel, I’m sure she’ll react. Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, if they feel threatened, will invite us in to help. An attack by Iran on it’s neighbors will invite Global resistance and marginalize the already unpopular muslimist government regime, perhaps inciting the Iranian revolution II. While they have a significant army they would wither quickly under Nato or US supported attack. An invasion of Iran would be a different matter. It would be Iraq multiplied ten fold. Not a pretty picture.
Posted by: Greg at July 31, 2004 01:46 AMRight Martin, It’s all about truth, justice and the American way.
It IS about oil. please stop deluding yourself.
Posted by: Greg at July 31, 2004 01:51 AMIf we just wanted Iraq’s oil, we would have just seen that sanctions were lifted against Hussein and started making sweetheart deals like the Russians or the French. That would have been infinitely easier and less costly.
Or—and this is just obvious—we wouldn’t have built an oil infrasture for Iraq after conquering the country and then allowed them to keep all the revenue from it. There’s nothing whatsoever backing up the candard that invading Iraq was an attempt to get its oil. Some lies die hard (especially during an election yer).
Posted by: Martin at July 31, 2004 02:01 AMI love Krauthammer. Anytime I want to remind myself why I’m not a Republican, I read his column.
This is a great example of what Krauthammer considers editorial. He fabricates a position, then argues against it. It’s great fun - you almost never lose.
Martin, it’s about oil. If the United States is to continue its dependence on foreign oil, we need a stable Middle East.
Bush’s energy plan (chapter 8) relies heavily on investing in Middle East oil production. If the region is unstable, it impacts our economy and way of life.
If this country were independent of Middle Eastern oil, we’d be as likely to intervene there, as we are to intervene in the Sudan.
John-Paul, Martin-
You can’t see that what your president is doing would not be the Democrat way of doing things, not post 9/11. We would be applying that aggressive diplomacy. What gets me, is that you have the capital of state-sponsored terrorism in the world, and you go for its next door neighbor, which hasn’t aimed a terrorist attack at us since the beginning of the Clinton Administration.
These are the guys who blew up the Khobar Towers for heaven sake! A successful attack! Not at all like the one that Iraq last tried. That attempt to assassinate Bush failed because the idiots carrying out the mission got into a traffic accident. How pathetic is that?
Made no difference for Clinton. He blew up the Intelligence HQ with a cruise missile and told Saddam he’d better not pull anything else, lest he get “Saddamized” by the next cruise missle. When Iranian agents went after us at the Khobar Towers, our response was to basically roll up their intelligence networks in the region.
That’s how you send a message. That’s how you do diplomacy with terrorist states. What we need, at this moment, is to act the bad cop, while we get some ally to act the good cop. We’ll put pressure on them, ask for sanctions (instead of sticking around like a bump on a log like Bush has us doing), while the other guy tempts them with the carrot. With that kind of tag teaming approach, we could quickly encourage them that a nuclear program is not in their best interests. Same thing with any other country. Okay, we’ve convinced them we’re crazy Americans, lets use that to our advantage. Lets set up one situation after another where we eat crow on our threats, but where we get what we want nonetheless. And if somebody is dumb enough to attack us, we stomp on them.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at July 31, 2004 09:46 AMIran has always been a big problem for the U.S. That is why Reagan and Bush Sr. armed Saddam in the first place, to counter the Iranian threat. The only problem was that Saddam turned into a uncontrollable maniac with his new military powers and had to be taken out.
Our military is stretched too thin right now with Afghanistan and Iraq. The best strategy is what we did with Iraq when Clinton was President, keep them in check with embargos and limited military engagements.
We need to form an international oil embargo and enforce it with a blockade of their oil tankers and with repurcussions against any country who trys to buy Iranian oil.
Then our military should fly in and take out their nuclear bomb making capacity, but without starting an all out war.
The use of our resources will be limited and we will suffer mimimum losses and the results will be what we want, no more nuclear threat.
Meanwhile, we should infiltrate the country with operatives who can help the Iranians form a democratic govenment not controlled by religious fanatics.
Posted by: KEVIN SCHMIDT, STERLING VA at July 31, 2004 11:30 AMKevin, you do understand that you are proposing two or three acts of war within the context of your suggestions. The Embargo isn’t, but a blockade is. This is why Kennedy called our blockade of Cuba a “quarantine”, because they knew a blockade was technically an act of war. Going in and bombing the nuclear facilities is both an explicit act of war and a good way to start another Chernobyl.
You can say that our loss of people, and expenditure of resources will be minimal, but saying that’s so will not make it so. The Iranians have had a decade and a half of peace, and have a much more substantial and intact army and air defense. We will be fighting on their turf, and against people who may very well expect paradise and 72 nubile virgins for attacking us all out. We should understand what we’re getting into and not kid ourselves that its guaranteed to be easy.
The last suggestion, though, bears some consideration. We do need to start infiltrating those governments most hostile to us and undermine them.
John-Paul: Who exactly has argued that we should have invaded Iran? Who exactly are you and Krauthammer trying to rebut? Besides, of course, Mr. Straw Man.
… more likely to succeed with 146,000 American troops and highly sophisticated aircraft standing by just a few miles away — in Iraq.
Oh, that’s smart. As if our overstretched men and women in Iraq weren’t having a hard enough time dealing with Iraqi problems, now we’re entertaining fantasies of sending them into Iran next?
I’d be in favor of bombing facilities in Iran that we credibly suspect of being used to develop nuclear weapons. Just as I thought we could contain Iraq, I think we can contain Iran. Invasion should always be our last resort.
-Cf
Posted by: Christopher Fahey at July 31, 2004 05:37 PMit doesn’t matter. bush doesn’t know what the heck he’s doing. he’s been called by god who personally told him to solve the middle east problem. anyway, like chicken little who will believe this man anymore. he tends to fabricate and shape shift. you know if he really believes he is talking to god or god is talking to him, we have a name for that, channeling. you all should think very carefully before you support this guy.
Posted by: susan daniel at August 1, 2004 02:21 AMJohn Paul, we don’t do the things you suggest because we haven’t the military to back it up, thanks to Bush’s committment to staying the course in Iraq. The longer we stay in Iraq, the weaker we get internationally and diplomatically because we haven’t an available military as a big stick to back up talking softly - and Iran, N. Korea, Sudan, and China know it and are taking advantage of Bush’s weakness as Commander in Chief of an otherwise engaged military.
It is all about priorities and Bush has certainly managed to bungle just about every priority he set save for invading Afghanistan in response to 9/11. Now he’s working hard on bungling that one too! Quite a historical chapter he is writing…
Posted by: David R Remer at August 1, 2004 05:44 PM
