Bill Kristol and Jamie Fly invoke Churchill to argue that Obama is a poor leader because he won’t attack Iran when told to by the editorial board of the Weekly Standard. They also argue that Iran won’t dare retaliate with a nuclear weapon. Isn’t that enough reason to stop going all breathless over Iranian nukes?

You can’t have it both way boys, either they’re crazy and will use a nuke to preemptively wipe out Israel or they’re too afraid of a US conventional attack to retaliate to a direct attack on their nation with a nuke. If you won’t use them when you get invaded, you won’t use them at all, I’d argue. Why does anyone pay any attention to Kristol anyway? He’s been consistently wrong about everything regarding the Middle East.

It doesn’t seem like this will be helpful in any conceivable way. Andrew Sullivan passes along this bit on if this will at least dissuade other “rouge” states:

Aside from Obama loyalists and administration members, no one thinks that this round of sanctions does anything of the kind. Engagement advocates find the pursuit of a new round of sanctions misguided, but recognize weak sanctions when they see them. As the Leveretts correctly observe, this round of sanctions is very weak and had to be very weak to gain Russian and Chinese support. On the other side of the debate, Jackson Diehl points out all the reasons why these sanctions are not very significant. Many governments will not adopt the stricter financial sanctions and ship inspections that the resolution allows but does not require.

So, to recap, it won’t stop Iran, it’s ineffective and unlikely to stop other nations from doing the same thing. It also causes Iran to reduce cooperation with international inspectors. This effectively makes it a lose-lose-lose proposition.

The only thing it actually does is create an appearance of action, which in the world of Washington “optics”, is far more important than effective action. Which brings me back to this question: why is Iran having a nuke more dangerous than Pakistan? If we simply make it clear that if Iran is crazy enough to actually use one, Tehran will be reduced to a pile of radioactive rubble. Despite the obvious horror of “mutually assured destruction” it did create a certain stability during the cold war. This is a bit different, in that it’s more of a “unilaterally assured destruction”.

Also, we remain the only country to ever actually use nuke. So who’s the crazy rogue state again?

Another way to think of this is to look to the example of Pakistan. The Pakistani nuclear deterrent hasn’t prevented the United States from overthrowing Pakistan’s client in Afghanistan, continuing the fight against that client for nine years (as the fight destabilized Pakistan’s border regions), and even launching a long campaign of attacks within Pakistan’s borders. It’s almost enough to make one doubt that nuclear weapons actually provide any serious leverage in ordinary diplomatic and military disputes.

I think that leaves out the fact that the US $11 billion in aid to Pakistan since 2001, 72% of it in military aid. It’s not that the people of Pakistan don’t harbor strong anti-America feelings, exacerbated with every drone strike in the tribal regions, but the leadership and military needs the aid to counter a perceived threat from India.  They play along with us as best they can, within local political constraints.

It seems unlikely to me that a nuclear Iran would use a weapon against the US forces or Israel. They lack ICBM capability to get a weapon to the US. They have regional capability reminiscent of the Pershing missile system I worked on the Army long ago and far away. In any case, I believe we have such an overwhelming advantage in conventional forces that we could, if we choose to, take out what they have rather quickly. The question is at what cost?

They would cut oil shipments through the Straits of Hormuz and that would have a crippling effect on the world economy. And exactly how many foreign wars can our military support at one time anyway? If they really did lob a nuke at US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan or at Israel our retaliation would leave them looking like a large glass topped parking lot. I don’t think any US President could afford to not retaliate in a major way.

Some would say “but their mullahs are crazy and want a war with us”. That may be true, but it’s certainly debatable. Perhaps some do a want a war with the west, but I don’t think many want a war that would result in the destruction of their nation, people, holy cities, etc.

I think much of what we coming out of their leadership that we see as crazy is directed primarily at their domestic audience. They don’t want appear weak to internal opposition. It’s mostly empty chest thumping, IMHO.

Is there a threat from Iran? Yes, but I think it takes the shape of supplying anti-American groups like Hamas is Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shiite militias in Iraq. I don’t think there’s any percentage in it for them to provoke an American response to an Iranian nuclear strike. We may have economic repercussions but their very existence is at stake.

People like John McCain, Charles Krauthammer and William Kristol are simply wrong to seek an American military response to Iran’s nuclear program and intervention in the recent protests against the Iranian election results. I don’t think you can stop the spread of the underlying technology, Pakistan and India have certainly proven that point. What we can do is make it crystal clear that use of a weapon will meet with certain destruction. Ah the good old days of the Cold War and “Mutually Assured Destruction” are making a comeback.

As for recent protests and the ensuing reactionary crackdown in Iran, events don’t lend themselves to American meddling. The best way to kill the hopes of Iranians who want change is our involvement. That offers an excuse for worse behavior by the Mullahs.  Repressive regimes need outside enemies to remain in power. Giving them something to use isn’t helpful. There’s something happening in Iran that’s uniquely theirs, our “help” isn’t needed or useful.

I don’t watch the debates, I don’t have a high enough threshold for nausea. Between the inane stupidity from the moderators and the genuinely stoopid answer, I just can’t take it. In the latest dolt-fest that passes for a GOP debate, all candidates promised to extend the Bush era economic policies that are doing so very well (if your a millionaire) right now. The Huckster repeated his call for his “Fair Tax” plan to make the tax system much more regressive. It seems he gets his economic advice from the same village idiot that told him he cut Arkansas taxes.

They then moved on to see who could thump their chest the loudest over the dust up with Iranian US navy ship in the Persian Gulf. Oh boy another war. It looks as if they’d like to fall over each other to see who gets to be the next war President. The last possible thing the US needs right now is a conflict with Iran.

A salivating ultra-hawk admits that the recent Iran NIE makes the chances of a strike against Iran extremely unlikely. Thank God.

Wow that’s good news. I guess the president will have to back off the bellicose saber rattling directed at Iran, right?

No so much:

President George W. Bush said on Tuesday that Iran remains a danger despite a U.S. intelligence report that Tehran halted its atomic weapons program four years ago.

Bush also said “all options” are on the table for dealing with Iran. He was speaking at a news conference a day after intelligence agencies released an assessment that contradicted his administration’s earlier assertions that Iran was developing a nuclear bomb.

Can’t allow silly facts to get in the way of really cool new war now can we?  Facts have a well know liberal bias.

Iran wants Western “apology” after IAEA report – Yahoo! News
Iran called on its Western foes on Friday to apologize to the Islamic Republic after the release of a U.N. nuclear agency report which Tehran said showed it had been telling the truth about its atomic plans, according to state media.

I think the past shows that the Bush administration does care if they really have WMD’s or not. Apology? Not likely.

Take a look. Ezra argues that as long as we antagonize Iran and use bellicosity instead of reasonable diplomacy, Iran has no incentive to help in Iraq. Once Iraq is secure, guess which country is next on the Bush-Chenney hit list?

Bush Wants $50 Billion More for Iraq War – washingtonpost.com
The revised supplemental would total about $200 billion, indicating that the cost of the war in Iraq now exceeds $3 billion a week. The bill also covers the far smaller costs of the war in Afghanistan. The Pentagon said recently that the cost of the Iraq war has surpassed $330 billion, while the war in Afghanistan has cost $78 billion.

As I write this CNN is talking about how the slightest provocation could lead to war with Iran, given the elevated state of tensions between the nations.

The Democrats confused the American public’s unhappiness with the way the war was being fought with a desire for surrender and retreat. To be fair this was made easier by the high decibel shrieking from their lunatic fringe.

Over the months since the election they have forced to deal with the hard cold reality of the fact that the American people actually want to win.

It will be fun to watch the heads exploding on the left as the truth sinks in.

Winning would be nice, but can you define what “win” means? Hasn’t Gen. Patreus already stated that there’s no military solution to the mess in Iraq?

It would be nice to put the genie back in the bottle and turn the clock back and do what Gen. Shinseki suggested and use sufficient forces to ensure that there wouldn’t be Al Qaeda infiltration, sectarian violence and general lawlessness. But our beloved decider-in-chief overruled the Army Chief of Staff and tried to do it on the cheap. The violence unleased by that high level stupidty is what got us where we are today.

Of course the public is unhappy. The Bush admin. failed miserably in Iraq. Not the military, the Bush admin. The military continues to rip a new one into any forces that attempt to stand and fight. It’s what they do best. But those opportunities are few and far between. It’s counter-insurrgency occupation at this point, never a strength for large conventional forces. I doubt the American public has the stomach to do what’s needed in terms of time, spilled blood and spent treasure. The Bush admin. misunderstood the psyche of the American public, they didn’t stay fearful enough, were never asked to make any real sacrafice and aren’t sufficiently blood thristy.

Plus this debacle in Iraq hasn’t been in our national intersts. We’re pinned down and unable to present a credible threat to forestall larger national security threats in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea.

You may express glee at the inablity of democrats to muster a veto proof majority at this moment, but infantile political posturing isn’t going to make us safer, secure the homeland or prevent larger threats looming on the horizon. And this will come up in congress again. The closer we get to election day the less support his lame duckness will muster in congress.

It’s strange how often Bush gets forced into doing things he said he would not. Why does he always wait? What is it that leads him to act that way, petulance, immaturity, stubborness or some inflated sense of entitlement? I wish the decider would decide to grow up.

Somehow the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Pete Pace didn’t get the memo. He failed to back the position that EFP’s are sent to Iraq from Iran with the complicity of the Iran government during visit with Aussie PM John Howard. I find it odd that there’s been so much emphasis on weapons provided to Shiite militias. Of 3125 military deaths to 2/13/2007 the mystery briefing says that 170 were caused by these EFP roadside bombs. Sunni groups, by all accounts, caused the bulk of American casualties. Why has there been no anonymous breifings about the roll of the Saudi Arabia in fianancing and arming Sunni groups that have been formenting most of the violence and causing the bulk of American deaths in Iraq?