Israel Matzav

NY Times op-ed: It's time to bomb Iran

Shockingly, the New York Times published an op-ed on Thursday that called for the United States to bomb Iran. The op-ed was written by Alan Kuperman,the director of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Program at the University of Texas at Austin. Curiously, he insists that the US should do the dirty deed and not Israel.

The final question is, who should launch the air strikes? Israel has shown an eagerness to do so if Iran does not stop enriching uranium, and some hawks in Washington favor letting Israel do the dirty work to avoid fueling anti-Americanism in the Islamic world.

But there are three compelling reasons that the United States itself should carry out the bombings. First, the Pentagon’s weapons are better than Israel’s at destroying buried facilities. Second, unlike Israel’s relatively small air force, the United States military can discourage Iranian retaliation by threatening to expand the bombing campaign. (Yes, Israel could implicitly threaten nuclear counter-retaliation, but Iran might not perceive that as credible.) Finally, because the American military has global reach, air strikes against Iran would be a strong warning to other would-be proliferators.

Negotiation to prevent nuclear proliferation is always preferable to military action. But in the face of failed diplomacy, eschewing force is tantamount to appeasement. We have reached the point where air strikes are the only plausible option with any prospect of preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Postponing military action merely provides Iran a window to expand, disperse and harden its nuclear facilities against attack. The sooner the United States takes action, the better.

Read the whole thing.

Tom Gross comments:

The article is dry and academic and long (it runs to two pages online) and there are much better arguments to be made for such a move, but it is significant nonetheless as it might finally open up liberal public opinion in America to this possibility.

I wonder if anyone at the White House read it.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:07 AM