Monday, January 23, 2006

[Foreign Policy]

Time to Invade Iran.

If, that is, you bought the bogus rationale that Iraq was a "threat" in 2003.

There are a couple of interesting questions here. When Bush came to office, he pushed through a new national security strategy that allowed the US to invade pretty much anyone it was scared of, using as justification that very fear. Well, if the neocons got spooked by Saddam, they must surely be piddlin' in their pants over Iran. But to put aside paranoid neocon panic, Iran is emerging as a serious issue.

Way back when--late 2002--many of us argued what the neocons called discredited pacificist pap: invasions piss people off. We said that the notion you could bring peace to the middle east on the wings of your shock and awe was delusion. They said the old rules don't apply: watch us democratize the Middle East.

Well. Having exercised their little trillion-dollar, 100,000-life experiment, the neocons are now discovering what we held from the start: shock and awe, shockingly, rouses anger, not guazy-eyed love. So the emergence of Iran as a real threat and a destabilizing force in the Mideast is actually the result of the great Iraq invasion. Yesterday, John McCain rattled sabres and implied that invading Iran wasn't such a longshot inevitability:
"If China and Russia want to be on record as being supportive of Iran in their nuclear ambitions, then I think that obviously has consequences as well... "A nuclear capability in Iran is unacceptable."
I suspect many good liberals are also in the invade camp, owing to their fear of wild-eyed, black-hatted ayatollahs; they were the same folks who bought into the "bringing democracy to Iraq" rationale--[cough] Tom Friedman [cough].

Who knows what to do? The same idiots who spoke so very seriously about our doom if we failed to invade Iraq will predict the same fate about Iran. "Serious people" will nod sadly and agree that it makes the most sense. No one will consider seriously the fact that Iran, as a sovereign nation, has the same rights to nukes that we have. Nor that that Iran, who has watched the US twice send invasions into the neighborhood, may actually have a pretty damn good reason for thinking that it needs some firepower to defend itself.

But hey, if John McCain thinks we ought to invade Iran, what can you do? He looked very serious on FOX. Serious people are never wrong, of course, only idiot peaceniks who think that ill-conceived invasions may not stabilize dangerous countries.

On the other hand, it might be worth considering a more multilateral response--something that doesn't isolate and enrage, something that helps encourage Iran to move out of the 8th Century. Just a thought.

8 comments:

The Manly Ferry said...

I bumped into an interesting post on this subject over on Daniel Drezner's site. His basic point is that a lot of liberals are, essentially, throwing up their hands on Iran, claiming that because Bush is involved that defines the calculus on how folks in opposite camps ought to react. Somewhere down in the bottom, he points out that, so far, Bush is doing something pretty damn similar to that - leaving it to the EU-3, working through the Security Council, etc.

Iran's a mess, a much deeper one than Iraq ever was. I took some time to play around with two sides of the question of what we do, using two posts from other sites as examples. I think it's a worthwhile excercise, mainly because it helps to walk this thing down to a level of who runs Iran and what their intentions are. If, for instance, we're actually dealing with a millennialist nut in Ahmedinejad, a nuclear-armed Iran is serious business; if, on the other hand, we're looking at a country seeking leverage for bargaining (call this the "Libya pattern") we would respond differently.

I don't have the answers to those questions; I don't really know who does.

I also wonder whether we can look at the relative empowerment of Iran as a result, direct or otherwise, of the U.S. invasion. I don't think the math is very clean there. Honestly, the biggest limitation on American action right now is domestic opinion. The extent to which you think this is good or bad has a lot to do with how you feel about the Iranian threat. And, like I said, I'm more antsy here than I ever was with Iraq. This one has potential to be very messy.

Anonymous said...

yeah, i'm extremely worried about Iran...much more than i ever was about Iraq, WMDs or no.

i might actually get behind a strategic air strike or two...just enough to knock out their facilities.

Jeff Alworth said...

This is not, at base, a military issue in my view. For the Iranians, it's an issue of self-determination. Much as we've miscalculated with Iraq, Israel, and most famously, Vietnam, we're failing to look at this through Iranian eyes. Every time we invade another sovereign nation and rub the world's nose in our power and disregard, we steel their resolve not to give into our will. With Iran, it's far worse--we've meddled in their politics for half a century.

Their intentions are to keep us the hell out of their country. I don't agree with fundamentalist Islam, but on the other hand, I can't blame them a bit.

Neil Shakespeare said...

I think I'd be pretty nervous if I was Iran. We already have them pinched, North, South and now East and West as well. That's called a crossfire, I do believe. That's called 'surrounded'. I'd sure be looking around for a big gun if I was them.

Anonymous said...

its hard to imagine any way of dealing with the u.s., currently and historicaly, that you wouldnt get screwed

kinda like when tibet was stuck between england and china. yer *ucked

Anonymous said...

also carefull with your '8th century' comments. jus cuz we got ipods and stretch denim doesnt mean we act 13 centuries more mature than anyone else.

Jeff Alworth said...

I'm sticking with the eighth century comment. While I respect Iran's national sovereignty, it doesn't extend to their mode of governance.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/11/21/iran12072.htm

We're not talking ipods here--it's basic human liberty.

Anonymous said...

bet you that 6-pack that the u.s. has the higher domestic and foreign body count, which it increases daily.