We Must Suffer Them All Again
The Best and the Brightest Mark II edge closer to bombing Iran. Arnaud de Borchgrave lays out the possible consequences:
Most of Iran’s secret nuclear installations are not only underground, but also close to population centers. The first pictures of a B-2 raid would be dead women and children on al-Jazeera television newscasts, now as globally ubiquitous as CNN and FOX. The collateral damage would then rival Abu Ghraib’s devastating impact on America’s good name. The perceived American indifference over the loss of Arab lives would now be seen as spreading to another Muslim country.
At almost half a trillion dollars by year’s end, the Iraqi “cakewalk” turned out to be (thus far) a costly boondoggle, which translated into a gain for Chinese and Russian influence on the global chessboard and a corresponding loss of U.S. influence. While we continue to dig a deeper hole in Iraq, China cuts deals to dig deeper oil wells . . .
Neocons are unfazed by the fact that Iran is an ancient civilization of 70 million people with retaliatory assets that range from a choke-hold on the world’s most important oil route in the Strait of Hormuz, to an anti-U.S. Shiite coalition in Iraq with two private militias, funded and armed by Iran, to terrorist groups throughout the Middle East that have a global reach. Iran is also a power that not only resisted an Iraqi invasion, but fought Saddam Hussein’s legions to a standstill in an eight-year-war of attrition that killed about 1 million soldiers on both sides.
Joseph Cirincione, in Foreign Policy, says that, yes, they might really be that stupid:
For months, I have told interviewers that no senior political or military official was seriously considering a military attack on Iran. In the last few weeks, I have changed my view. In part, this shift was triggered by colleagues with close ties to the Pentagon and the executive branch who have convinced me that some senior officials have already made up their minds: They want to hit Iran.
As he points out, the official Democratic Party will be ill-poised to slow a rush to war:
If diplomacy fails, the administration might be able to convince leading Democrats to back a resolution for the use of force against Iran. Many Democrats have been trying to burnish a hawkish image and place themselves to the right of the president on this issue. They may find themselves trapped by their own rhetoric, particularly those with presidential ambitions.
He also offers a useful suggestion for the antimatter-universe counterpart to the Victor Davis Hanson Dimension into which our own Earth wandered in early 2002:
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors have been in Iran for more than 3 years investigating all claims of weapons-related work. The United States has satellite reconnaissance, covert programs, and Iranian dissidents providing further information. The key now is to get all this information on the table for an open debate.
The administration should now declassify the information it used to estimate how long it will be until Iran has the capability to make a bomb. The Washington Post reported last August that this national intelligence estimate says Iran is a decade away. We need to see the basis for this judgment and all, if any, dissenting opinions. The congressional intelligence committees should be conducting their own reviews of the assessments, including open hearings with independent experts and IAEA officials. Influential groups, such as the Council on Foreign Relations, should conduct their own sessions and studies.
An accurate and fully understood assessment of the status and potential of Iran’s nuclear program is the essential basis for any policy. We cannot let the political or ideological agenda of a small group determine a national security decision that could create havoc in a critical area of the globe. Not again.
Joseph, you slay me, man!
(Note: Just like Pagliacci did, I try to keep my sadness hid.)
Comment by Nell —
April 4, 2006 @ 10:34 pm
The Iran hawks have lost Arnaud de Borchgrave, that human slime mold? Wow.
Comment by Jim Henley —
April 4, 2006 @ 10:40 pm
DeBorchgrave, like most of UPI, has been dovish on the Million Mom War since 2002. If you read his pre-invasion columns you’ll find a thorough skepticism about the sensicality of Iraq War Phase III.
Comment by Grant Gould —
April 5, 2006 @ 7:01 am
Call it Osirak envy. The same Israel-as-Sparta boys you pointed to just cannot get over how terribly clever the Israeli attack on Osirak was. If only we could be that manly, that cool, that decisive.
Of course, the parallels between Osirak and this new hypothetical operation — Osiran, if you will — are narrow and mostly cut in the wrong direction. Israel attempted non-military operations against Osirak first — diplomatic, then (probably with Iranian help!) covert. And the eventual bombing of the reactor led to Husseing pursuing a much more efficient, secret, and unconstrained nuclear weapons program interrupted only by Gulf War v.1.
But Osirak has taken on heroic status in the hawkosphere as a result perhaps of ignorance but most notably because of wishful thinking. ”There must be a good resolution to the Iran thing somewhere,” the reasoning goes, ”and Osiran is available. Ergo: Osiran.” The premise is silly, the conclusion absurd, but the reasoning is quite familiar.
Comment by Rich Puchalsky —
April 5, 2006 @ 7:10 am
”He also offers a useful suggestion […]” — I can’t tell whether you’re being sarcastic here. At any rate, of course it’s not useful to consider this evidence. Iran would be crazy if it weren’t trying to make nuclear weapons. We would be crazy if we attacked Iran. Therefore, considering evidence could only have two possible branches: a) we find actual evidence that they are working on nuclear weapons, leading us to crazily go to war; b) the Bush administration fakes evidence that they are working on nuclear weapons, leading us to crazily go to war.
As soon as I heard ths report, I assumed that Joseph Cirincione was carrying the Bush administration’s water. It has all the hallmarks of a Bush authorized leak.
Comment by Jeff in Texas —
April 5, 2006 @ 10:48 am
The NIE on Iran says they are ten years away. I trust our intelligence services as much as the next guy (if the next guy thinks our intelligence agencies are near-worthless), but since the end of WWII, the intelligence agencies’ tendencies have been to overstate threats. If someone thinks the NIE guess of 10 years is wrong, it is up to them to say why, and you know, cite evidence. This push for war is even more surreal than the one before Iraq II. I read something the other day that suggested it has to do with the price of oil, inflation, interest rates, the Fed needing to pump out cash to support the stock market while at the same time needing to not scare off foreign investors. Basically, the only way the assholes can see to avoid real consequences for our staggering debt, tax cuts, and the Iraq fiasco is to go into Iran. I don’t buy the entire argument, but it is a reason to do what otherwise appears utterly insane. And it ties nearly everything this administration does into a seamless web of incompetence and deception.
Comment by Frank —
April 5, 2006 @ 11:32 am
Jim- I think Rich has you here.
Comment by Jim Henley —
April 5, 2006 @ 11:33 am
What part of ”anti-matter counterpart to the Victor Davis Hanson dimension” strikes people as sincerity?
Comment by Lemuel Pitkin —
April 5, 2006 @ 1:23 pm
The thought occurs to me that the day the bombing of Iran starts, I will simply leave work and … well, not set myself on fire, but sit down in the middle of a major interesection with a big sign saying, ”Stop It” and stay there until the police cart me away.
Comment by Francis —
April 5, 2006 @ 2:45 pm
There is a deeply hidden and dark part of my soul that wants the US to just get it over with, so we can discover what the Iranian response will be. Closing Hormuz? Missile strikes against Saudi oil fields? Detonating a LNG tanker in Galveston? And there’s an ever darker part of me that wants the iranian response to be effective and devastating, causing a massive backlash against the Republican party.
i rarely let my inner liberal thug out to play. The amount of misery that this little fantasy would cause would be off the charts. but given that ProteinWisdom was recently fantasizing about doing a harp seal on the Kossites in Las Vegas, i’m feeling increasingly comfortable about allowing my inner thug to vent.