Interesting editorial in the Strib yesterday. It's titled 'U.S-Iran talk must de-escalate' and it talks primarily about military options for dealing with Iran. Actually, it flat out states that there is no reasonable military option available. Instead it argues that diplomacy is the only way to deal with the situation.
For those not paying attention, here's the deal with Iran. Their president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has stated repeatedly that if Iran has nukes, they'll use them to wipe out Israel. Last week, Iran announced that they've enriched Uranium. This is a critical step towards making nuclear weapons. The Strib poo-poos this as 'political-theater'. They suggest that this is nothing more than posturing and that Iran probably isn't very close to having usable nukes. There are two big problems with this and each one highlights a major problem the left has with national security.
The first problem is an almost religious reliance on diplomacy. Numerous letters to the editor have been in line with this editorial. If only the U.S. would talk to Iran we could normalize the situation with them. Here, they argue that a war gaming exercise from two years ago showed that there was no good military option. Well, two years is a long time for planning. But more importantly, taking the stick out of the equation is stupid. Iran can sit back and talk with the knowledge that they only have to stay at the table and no attack would be forthcoming. The Strib lists a development time of three years for a nuke. That's a pretty short period to wait out the clock. This editorial makes no mention of what to do if talks don't work. There's been talk in other places of sanctions against Iran We've had sanctions against them for almost 30 years. What else can we take away?
The second problem is reliance on projections. Three years is what the Strib mentions. I've seen two years in other places. But we don't know. And that's kind of an important thing, no? Can Israel risk that timeline? It's a small nation and it wouldn't take much to make it uninhabitable. Remember when we said "Never again"? Now it's "Call us in three years". Embarassing. BTW, what's the certainty of that three year projection? 90%? The past few years have shown us that intelligence information can be embarrasingly wrong. Can we risk a 10% chance that Iran will have nukes before we think they will?
Like many issues, I don't have all of the answers here. But I'm underwhelmed by the obvious weaknesses in this editorial. Thank God that these people aren't in charge of actual serious national security.
4 comments:
What about putting more pressure on China & Russia to squeeze Iran. Let's face it - nukes aren't good for anyone!!! And think of the devastation they would cause in a region that is already torn apart by war, earthquakes, violence, etc, etc.....
If Russia and China would help squeeze Iran that'd be great. But how do we put pressure on them? Both of them have somewhat different agendas than the U.S. and it's not clear that either of them fear a nuclear Iran. Neither one has been especially helpful on the UN Security Council. This might be the right avenue but I don't really know how we get their help.
And what if they won't do anything?
Well, put pressure on them, offer them something (doesn't appeal to me that much either but what other options are there?)...I don't know. China is definitely NOT my favorite country but have a lot of pull in this world...and both countries are much closer to the region that would be most affected by nukes going off (and polluting surrounding areas)...It all SUCKS basically. Hmph.
We both think that adding Russian and Chinese presure would be very good. Neither of us know how to bring that about (but that's a little above our pay grade anyway). There's certainly no easy answer there.
So what happens if they just won't help us? What if there isn't a diplomatic solution. The Strib (and others) are loudly proclaiming that there's no workable military solution. Not saying that using the military would be unsavory or even a bad choice. They're saying we can't do it.
Where does that leave Iran? What should they think? How big of a risk is it to them to ride out the diplomatic storm until they have nukes?
BTW, I share your concern for that region as a whole. It's the most cursed spot on the globe.
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