The realists want the U.S. out of Iraq. So do the Iranians. The realists want stability in the region. So do the Iranians. The realists, in light of their record, don’t really care by what means they accomplish this. Neither do the Iranians.This cannot happen a moment too soon, and it is entirely feasible.
Where they part company is the point where the Iranian solution winds up with the Persian Gulf, and the bulk of the world’s oil supplies, in the hands of men to whom medievalism represents a progressive future. With American policy in the region effectively negated, our alliances dead letters, our influence nil. With tens, if not hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the Sunni and Kurd massacres in Iran’s new provinces. With the world economy in free fall. With Europe permanently cowed. With Asia, home of our closest allies, turning elsewhere for protection (the place to which they turn is spelled “C – h – i – n – a”). With Chavez’s Latin Reich program, which has been looking increasingly ragged in recent months, given a new lease on life.
And the Jihadis? Don’t worry about them – they’ll know what to do.
The realists don’t want this. They really don’t. They think they can finesse it all.
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Which brings us to a third alternative: if the U.S. has to leave Iraq prematurely – something that is nowhere near as certain as current rhetoric makes it appear – it will only be after assuring that Iran cannot, at any point in the near future, take advantage of it. That means a military strike. This possibility has been discussed in light of Iran’s intransigence concerning its nuclear program. But the current situation has nothing directly to do with nuclear weapons. It has everything to do with keeping control of the Persian Gulf, and all that implies, in the hands of civilization.
The Iranians, in Dr. Kissinger’s words, believe that they are “in a position to challenge the entire world order.” They need to be persuaded otherwise, and that cannot be accomplished by negotiations, concessions, or even visits from Kofi Annan. The Iranians, as shown by every foul speech from Ahmadinejad, every threatening missile launch, every advanced, Iranian-designed bomb that goes off in Iraq, believe they can play in the big leagues.
Well – we can play, too. We’re not proposing, needless to say, invasion and occupation, which, as Iraq has demonstrated can have its drawbacks. We’re talking about a no-holds-barred attack by air, naval, and Special Forces assets, something along the lines outlined by Arthur Herman in his superb Commentary piece, “Getting Serious About Iran”. A strike that will leave Iran with no navy, no air force, no serious nuclear potential, and an army reduced to pre-20th century armaments and mobility. An Iran roughly in the same state as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War.
This is the style of warfare for which the U.S. has no equal in history – cutting an opponent off at the knees, leaving him thoroughly incapacitated and utterly shamed, but with the means of national survival intact.
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What such an attack will do is take Iran out of the strategic equation for the foreseeable future. It will gain Iraq a fighting chance, even without large numbers of U.S. troops. It will be a serious blow to the Jihadis. (The realists have said nothing about recent reports that Iran is trying to take over al Queda.) It will create a true, if relatively short, state of stability in the Middle East, representing an opportunity for local governments to solve short-term problems – including that of the Palestinians – and begin working on longer-term challenges represented by Iran and the Jihadis.
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It will also serve to regain the U.S. a lot that has been lost in Iraq. The international left, along with various appeasers and hysterics, never intended to support the war either in Iraq or the war against the Jihadis in general. Their sole interest lay in attacking the U.S., no matter what the cost to the Iraqi people or the world in general. They knew there would be difficult moments – everyone did, Donald Rumsfeld included – and took advantage of each of them — Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, Halabja — to tear yet another piece out the U.S., undermining its role, its intentions, and its plans. Such an attack would rock these people back on their heels, as they well deserve, and go a long way toward restoring the respect that they’ve stolen from U.S. over the past three years.
As for the Muslim ummah – this would act as a good lesson as to the true nature of the strong horse. The Jihadis have run an outstanding propaganda campaign centered on Iraq. DVDs, cassette tapes, the Internet, have all been used to establish a myth of American stupidity and cowardice and Jihadi invincibility. A strike on Iran would make it clear that all the snipers and suicide bombers and IEDs in the world do not, in the end, add up to the power of a single stealth aircraft.
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Iran has declared the destruction of another nation a state goal, has carried out threatening exercises in the Gulf, has provided weapons, guidance, and intelligence to the Iraqi rebels – assistance that has unquestionably resulted in the deaths of American troops. All of which is not even to mention Iranian defiance concerning nuclear weapons. Wars have been fought – and quite justifiably—for much less in the way of reasons than those.
Of course, there will be repercussions, most of them unforeseeable, some likely to be negative. But that’s one of the factors that nations must live with. We have a clear picture of what the results of doing nothing would be.
Politically impossible?
There's no way anyone can stop us if we simply choose to just do it.
The President should go before Congress and demand they either explain to the American people why we should continue to ignore the fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been in a state of War with the United States since 1979, or officially recognize it and act accordingly.
