Appeasers.

Good points because the one note drum-beat of war from the usual quarters with its simplistic drone has a convincing though banal melody. Sadly, those with more sense, as you point out, have lost the initiative and to regain their musical chops if they want the public to understand what is going on here.

If people believe that the Iranians are prepared to use a nuclear weapon against Israel – or anyone else – then they’ll be much more amenable to the idea of making the first strike. The way we win the public debate is by demonstrating that whilst Iran may have a vile regime, it’s not being led by suicidal lunatics.

Agreed – although I don’t think that’s what they’re worried about, although they may say so in public. Rather, the fear is a regional arms race, with Saudi Arabia being a particular concern. It may be a complacent view but I don’t think there’s any prospect of an attack on Iran. A full scale invasion is out of the question and any strike on the facilities would merely reconstitute the problem in a different form. I think this is why Bush, despite all the predictions that he would, didn’t go for it.

I wrote a very long and boring piece on it in 2006. People were predicting a strike on Iran then, if you recall. If there were no other argument – although there obviously is – the fact that military action would not achieve the desired goal should be decisive. And I think, certainly hope, it will be.

Who would Iran use a nuclear weapon against? With Saddam Hussein gone she doesn’t have any real enemies (and don’t say Israel, because they’ve never fought each other). I’m more concerned about India, Pakistan and Israel having nukes than Iran.

MAD should work as I’m sure Iran’s leadership remain rational at the margins. So long as the west maintains a powerful deterrent.

the fact that military action would not achieve the desired goal should be decisive

That’s really the key point. Given it was simple and obvious enough for Bush to understand, Obama would have to be having a real bad day to make him fail to grasp it.

There is ZERO evidence of any nuclear weapons program in Iran, and the Iranians have even offered (among many other things) to open their nuclear program to multinational participation, something other newly-nuclear countries have refused (argentina, Brazil, Egypt, S Korea, — all far less transparent than Iran, and last two recently caught violating their nuclear safeguards)

The intention for bombing Iran, and it would be massive, dwarfing what was done in Cambodia or Vietnam, would be to attempt to accomplish what the Israelis failed to do in Gaza. The mind-set for such heinous military actions is no different. Obliterate the enemy, destroy the infrastructure, weaken their resistance with unlimited firepower. It comes from a perverted view of the world and its humanity. It stems from a neo-liberal agenda (or neo-conservative – take your pick) that ennobles corporate greed and attempts to negate the function of governments (their social purpose) as other than vehicles to facilitate and expedient the policies of the private sector.

The argument against bombing Iran is quite simple. If you do it you kill the chances that the Iranian people have of overthrowing that regime stone dead.

The main argument against? Anti-ship missiles in the Red Sea could severely disrupt global trade (it’s the main shipping route between China and Europe). Stratfor’s got a free article on it somewhere – google it…

Cheers for the comments folks.

I think the point Shuggy & others have made about military action being unlikely (at least under this President) is probably well-founded. That said, I also believe people like Kuperman are far from harmless, for they act as an external pressure on the US to adopt a more hawkish stance than they might otherwise be inclined to take.

If Iran ever did develop a weapon, it would surely be used to argue that Obama’s foreign policy was a failure, and that’ll create further pressure to replace all that detente with some good old fashioned bombing.

I think the main argument is that it is increasingly likely change will come from within Iran

Any attack would kill of the growing democracy movement and force everyone to rally around the religious theocracy. That in turn means a transition to democracy by itself will never come. And if Israel / US commentators are thinking about imposing a democracy on Iran after bombing it then they really are smoking crack – it’ll be worse than Afghanistan.

Darrell’s already pointed this out above.

If Israel can’t even do anything to overthrow Hamas then what chance do they have of overthrowing or pulverising the Iranian govt?

And what would be the legal reasons for bombing Iran? It then becomes all-out. India may decide it wants to bomb Pakistan to pulverise its nuke capabilities etc – what will the US say in response to that?

1. Bombing won’t achieve anything. The Iranians have built their new enrichment plant under a mountain. It’s bombproof. Even a small nuke would just bounce off. A large nuke would kill hundreds of thousands. Other plants are scattered around the country. No raid can damage them all and they’d be re-built.

2. Bombing Iran will really, really piss off the Russians and the Chinese. In particular the Chinese depend on Iranian gas supplies. You aren’t going to get that bombing mission through the United Nations. Want to go outside the UN like the invasion of Iraq? Want to be a complete pariah state?

3. Iran wants to be in the international fold. They want security. They want peace. Everything they’ve done for the last generation has been trying to cut a deal with the west that delivers them peace, security and international acceptance. From negotiating freeing hostages in Lebanon to backing our invasion of Afghanistan with intelligence and contacts to offering support in Iraq to cutting deals to get us out of poo in Basra the Iranians want to be players alongside other nations. They’ll cut a deal with their nuclear programmes in time, once the right deal is on the table. They’re hard negotiators but empty sword rattling about bombing them doesn’t impress anyone, least of all the Iranians who know it isn’t going to happen.

4. Iran lies between Afghanistan and Iraq and has been one of the keys to what little success we’ve had in both. Bombing them will piss all that down the drain, they’ll enter the Afghanistan war and not on our side. The Shia majority in Iraq will go mental and the Iraqi civil war of 2005 will look like a picnic.

5. Iran is on the path to reform. Western, principally American, threats simply put the reformists back and give the hardliners ammunition. Ahmedinejad right now would love nothing more than a US bombing flight.

6. We are not going to bomb Iran. It’s not possible. Empty threats make us look weak. Dubya Bush painted himself into a corner with threats against Iran he couldn’t follow through. The Iranians laughed at him. You want to humiliate yourself more with empty threats just go ahead, meanwhile the big boys of Europe, Russia and China will get on with making deals with Iran.

7. Seriously dude, bombing Iran will send oil prices soaring and fuck the US economy. They’ll close the Straits of Hormuz, shut down their own, Iraq and Kuwait’s oil production and generally be pains in the arse leaving everyone in America unemployed and queuing for food. You’ll be begging Chavez to bail out your country with emergency loans and fuel supplies within weeks.

@ inks

Absolutely. Brilliant.

@inks.

damn – well that’s complete pwnage right there. I’m impressed.

inks

> 4. Iran lies between Afghanistan and Iraq and has been one of the keys to what little success we’ve had in both

I’d be interested to learn more about that – could you point to any good sources?

thanks

I hadn’t realised bombing Iran was seriously back on the menu. Maybe this explains why we’re being warmed up with a major bout of China-bashing and the creation of an Evil Empire Axis thingy in the media.

Cheers for the nice comments

Much more important than the “bomb Iran” non-story is the split in the theocratic ruling class currently tearing Iran in half.

My guess is Ayatollah Khamenei and the current regime will maintain their grip on power but it’s only a guess. The Iranians don’t know what the outcome’s going to be so I sure don’t.

Just Visiting: sorry, no sources, but google on “Iran, America, Afghanistan, Northern Alliance, war, Taliban” and similar and you’ll find stuff. Essentially Iran and the Taliban didn’t get on. When they captured Kabul the Taliban killed Iranian diplomats and threatened to invade Iran. In response Iran backed the warlords holding out against the Taliban and who later became the Northern Alliance. When the Americans wanted to invade Afghanistan the Iranians hooked them up with their contacts in the Northern Alliance and helped as a conduit for arms and money. Since then they’ve been supportive of the Karzai government although perhaps not so much recently.

Unless we know what is being discussed in Qoms,amongst the senior religious leaders, it is impossible to know with any certainty, the intentions of Iran.

The problem for Israel, is that they have to lose only one battle and they lose the war. Israel is unlikely to accept a nuclear armed Iran starting a Yom Kippur War Part 2. There is also the issue of how Pakistan and the GCC view a nuclear armed Iran. Israel destroying Iran’s nuclear capability would benefit Pakistan and the GCC countries.