Iraq, Iran--it's all the same to the Bush administration.

A desire to attack Iran

Thanks to Kevin Drum, I was alerted to a recent column by Joseph Cirincione entitled "Fool Me Twice" (free registration required to get the full article). The subject of the column is spelled out in the opening paragraph:

I used to think that the Bush administration wasn’t seriously considering a military strike on Iran, because it would only accelerate Iran’s nuclear program. But what we're seeing and hearing on Iran today seems awfully familiar. That may be because some U.S. officials have already decided they want to hit Iran hard.

Un-freaking-believable. Cirincione paints a frightening picture:

Does this story line sound familiar? The vice president of the United States gives a major speech focused on the threat from an oil-rich nation in the Middle East. The U.S. secretary of state tells congress that the same nation is our most serious global challenge. The secretary of defense calls that nation the leading supporter of global terrorism. The president blames it for attacks on U.S. troops. The intelligence agencies say the nuclear threat from this nation is 10 years away, but the director of intelligence paints a more ominous picture. A new U.S. national security strategy trumpets preemptive attacks and highlights the country as a major threat. And neoconservatives beat the war drums, as the cable media banner their stories with words like “countdown” and “showdown.”

According to Cirincione, his sources with close ties to the Pentagon believe that some senior officials have already decided in favor of military action against Iran. But wait, there's more. According a February 4, 2006, report by the Telegraph, senior British officials

believe[] that an American-led attack, designed to destroy Iran's ability to develop a nuclear bomb, is "inevitable" if Teheran's leaders fail to comply with United Nations demands to freeze their uranium enrichment programme.

*******

The United States government is hopeful that the military operation will be a multinational mission, but defence chiefs believe that the Bush administration is prepared to launch the attack on its own or with the assistance of Israel, if there is little international support.

Remember the line about Israeli assistance.

Reasons why an attack is ill-advised

Cirincione lists some of the obvious reasons why this is an exceedingly bad idea.

...a military strike would be disastrous for the United States. It would rally the Iranian public around an otherwise unpopular regime, inflame anti-American anger around the Muslim world, and jeopardize the already fragile U.S. position in Iraq. And it would accelerate, not delay, the Iranian nuclear program. Hard-liners in Tehran would be proven right in their claim that the only thing that can deter the United States is a nuclear bomb. Iranian leaders could respond with a crash nuclear program that could produce a bomb in a few years.

And there are more. I will state right now that I am not making a sweeping, all-inclusive statement that military action against Iran should never be considered. Indeed, it probably should have been considered before action against Iraq. As I will explain in a post on Iraq: missing link in the war on terror? Iran--not Iraq--had established and extensive ties with terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda. What I am saying is that under the present circumstances--caused almost entirely by the Bush administration's Iraq cluster f***--military action against Iraq is an amazingly stupid option. It is beyond established fact that our military has been and continues to be stretched to the limit (if not beyond) by the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither one of those countries is under control and will not be for some time to come. We simply do not have the military capacity to now wage a war on Iran. Even if we did, we then would not have the capacity to do anything else in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, in terms of geographic size, Iran is approximately 3.75 times larger than Iraq. If we can't secure Iraq, why should anyone think we can handle matters in a place more than three times larger?

The Telegraph article basically says that any action would not be an invasion but air strikes limited to Iran's nuclear facilities. So what? Such "limited" action would not address the problems raised by Cirincione. And what are the chances that such "limited" action would remain limited? Talk about your slippery slopes. Is Iran just going to sit back and do nothing in response? Perhaps, but is that a risk worth taking? And does anyone honestly believe that the Bush administration will be satisfied with only "limited" action? Does anyone honestly believe that the Bush administration will be satisfied with anything less than regime change in Iran? Does anyone honestly believe that limited air strikes would result in regime change?

Of the concerns listed by Cirincione, the one which troubles me the most is that military action against Iran would further inflame the Muslim world. Iran is a Shia nation, while a vast majority of the remainder of the Muslim world is Sunni. As I have stated elsewhere on this blog, the bitter fight between these two factions has existed from the early years of Islam. However, remember that the pro-war geniuses insisted all along that this sectarian conflict did not and would not keep Sunni and Shia from working together against the U.S. Remember also that one of the few times (and perhaps the last time) there was unification in the Muslim world against a common enemy was under Saladin during the Crusades. Now consider that many of our enemies in the Muslim world have always characterized our action in Iraq as a repeat of the Crusades and that good ol' George referred to the war on terror as a crusade, and you don't have to look too hard to see the potential for Shia and Sunni to unite against a common enemy.

NOTE: Admittedly, my use of Saladin as an example is not entirely on point because 1) Saladin acheived unity in part through force, and 2) I do not think he was too interested in coexisting with Shiism, but he nonetheless acheived unity.

And one more reason...

Remember that the Telegraph article said an attack on Iran might be done with Israeli assistance? Well, someone should check with Israelis about this.

Over at Talking Points Memo Cafe, Steve Clemons has a post entitled "US War Planners Should Listen to Israel Regarding Iran." In it, Clemons says that that "Israeli national security bureaucrats -- diplomats and generals -- have far greater confidence that there are numerous potential solutions to the growing Iran crisis short of bombing them in an invasive, hot attack."

Clemons also cites analysis by Chris Nelson of The Nelson Report:

Our sources have consistently maintained that Israel has repeatedly warned the US that it would NOT attack Iran, due to Israel's vulnerability to missiles and terrorism. We reported at the time, two years ago, then-Prime Minister Sharon standing in the Oval Office to warn Bush precisely on this point.

I have not yet found any corroboration of Nelson's reporting, but still, don't you think this issue needs to be determined before deciding to attack Iran?

Does anyone honestly think that the Bush administration will do that OR heed the advice of the Israelis? After all, the Bush administration appears convinced that it knows what is best for the entire world.