Israel Matzav

It's time to bomb Iran

There is now an industry of talk-show, official-deliberative, and anonymous-expert comment dismissing force as an option. We are endlessly told that the Tehran regime would be strengthened by an attack on its nuclear facilities; that an attack would fail militarily and unite all Iranians behind their government. The famous “Arab street,” now extending throughout Islam and doubtless on, via Peoria, to Antarctica, would erupt. We should let Iran’s dismal theo-thugocracy stew in its own juice, and we must not be rattled by Iranian nuclear weapons. It is all a little like the arguments that before invading Iraq in 2003, we had to capture bin Laden, end the Israel-Palestine conflict, and try “smart sanctions” (which meant smart for France and porous for Iraq) for at least five years.

There are always a thousand reasons not to do anything. As Woodrow Wilson said of the anti-submarine war in 1917, “Nothing was ever done so systematically as nothing is being done now.” Iran has made a total mockery of attempts at good-faith negotiations, has played peek-a-boo about its nuclear ambitions (just as Saddam did), is being indulged for mischievous reasons by China and Russia, is the world’s leading terrorist-supporting country, and has constantly espoused and threatened the destruction of Israel.

If China and Russia join in comprehensive sanctions — which have never worked, but have rarely been tried and have acceded to some legitimacy as an intermediate step — they should be given an opportunity to produce a change of nuclear course in Iran. If Russia and China do not join, or if they do and the sanctions don’t work as Iran approaches a nuclear capability, then the U.S., France, Germany, the U.K., and any responsible country that wishes to join (though perhaps not Israel) should attack Iran’s nuclear facilities as firmly and repeatedly as necessary, and, of course, as antiseptically as possible in terms of avoidance of collateral damage.

The problems of the Tehran government would multiply, the U.S. would cease to be seen as a paper tiger, the Western alliance would come back to life, the Arab powers could be persuaded to take a stronger line against Iranian incursions in their region (especially by Hamas and Hezbollah), and the derelict peace process with the Palestinians might even be invigorated. Iran would lose its ability to meddle successfully in Iraq, including through the egregious former protégé of the Pentagon and of Richard Perle, Ahmad Chalabi. The streets of the world would be as calm as they were after the anti-nuclear strikes on Iraq and Syria, and The New York Review of Books might even cease to represent the Khomeini revolution as a great democratic breakthrough with some resemblance to 1776.

The excruciating series of humbling acts that the Obama administration has called “engagement” could yet turn to account, as stern measures from Obama will be much harder to portray as naked aggression than the armed virility of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, the magnificently mustachioed John Bolton, et al. Bush’s promotion of democracy, which was fine as long as it didn’t unsettle America’s undemocratic allies, would be a clear success if plausible elections are regularly held across the quadrifecta of former hostile states and Afghanistan. Those formerly closed gates would be portals of opportunity, an immense international geopolitical success, and hailed bipartisanly within the U.S., as militant Islam is decisively defeated and moderate Islam enhanced.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:41 PM