Should we bomb Iran?
Cross posted from Radarsite
http://radarsite.blogspot.com/2008/05/should-we-bomb-iran.html
Recently, in a discussion on Radarsite about Iran a commenter complained that because we had gotten ourselves bogged down in our "Iraqi debacle" we had compromised our ability to react effectively to Iran's evolving threat. This relentless negativism is typical of the skewered thinking of the left -- whose primary function in life is, after all, to find something negative to say about the policies of the right.
I would suggest that it's pretty difficult to prosecute any war without getting 'bogged down'. I would suggest that it's the nature of warfare to get bogged down. We were bogged down in Vietnam and Korea, and we were bogged down for four long years in both the Pacific and in Europe during WWII.
If being bogged down means finding yourself confronted with myriad difficult and unforeseen developments, then I would argue that this is the very essence of warfare -- the Fog of War.
The enemy hardly ever does what we expect them to do, when we expect them to do it. The battleground is in a constant state of flux. Old allies suddenly become new enemies. Neutrals start taking sides. Invariably, all of those carefully-devised pre-war plans and strategies have to be thrown out the window and new plans developed. That's how it works.
It is not my intention here to rehash all of those old arguments about the manner in which we've conducted our Iraq War. That's a futile endeavor. I would, however, suggest that this particular complaint is wrong-headed for other, more important reasons.
Consider this: Had we not invaded Iraq and taken down Saddam we would now be facing two formidable ME powers both feverishly building nuclear weapons capabilities.
If Saddam were still around does anyone honestly think that he would just sit idly by while Ahmadinejad built up a formidable nuclear arsenal next door? Of course not. He was already preparing for this eventuality before we took him out.
Rather than being in a better position strategically, we would be in a much more precarious one. A position filled with even more serious threats than we presently face.In short, taking Saddam Hussein out of the equation has given us a stronger hand, not a weaker one.
But, should we actually bomb Iran?
Well, now, let's see. There are other alternatives.
We could wait until Ahmadinejad has a viable nuclear weaponry program and then sit down and try to negotiate with him. We could rely on the omnipotent UN and their toothless watch poodle, the IAEA to keep him in check. Or, finally, we could just take the good gentleman at his word that his nuclear ambitions are only peaceful.
Do any of these options look good to you, my friends?
Well, they certainly don't look too good to me.
We must act.
If the Allies had checked Hitler's geopolitical ambitions in Czechoslovakia in '38 we could have stopped the rise of the Nazi war machine in its Panzer tracks. By a preemptive military strike against Hitler's meager military forces at that point in history we could have saved millions upon millions of lives.
But we didn't act, did we?
We prevaricated and procrastinated ourselves into the monumental horrors of World War Two.
Now, as then, it's not a matter of if we have to confront Iran but rather when we confront Iran. The choice is basically pretty simple. Either fight them now on our terms or fight them later on theirs.
We made a terrible blunder in the Thirties by not listening to Hitler's threats and by not believing that he was actually serious about carrying them out. We simply cannot afford to make this same mistake again with Ahmadinejad, not with the threat of nuclear bombs. We must believe what he is telling us and the world, we must acknowledge the uncomfortable but undeniable fact that, regardless of our puny sanctions and our sanctimonious condemnations, he is daily backing up his threats with irreversible actions.
Should we bomb Iran?
The proper question should be:
Can we afford not to bomb Iran?
There are some good plans on the table for doing it the right way. I, for one, don't see that we have a choice, do you?
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