May 06, 2008
Who Lost Iran?
Charles Krauthammer has been taking the Bush administration to task over Iran. His recent National Review piece began, "It is time to admit the truth: The Bush administration's attempt to halt Iran's nuclear program has failed. Utterly."
Simply put, he's angry Bush hasn't overturned the Iranian regime with strong enough sanctions, nor hit Iran with air strikes. Because we've failed so disastrously on these counts, Krauthammer says, the only thing to do is adopt a "Holocaust Declaration" promising massive retaliation against Iran in response to any nuclear attack on Israel.
I admire his determination to secure the United States and Israel, but I can't help but think his position utterly absurd. Why? Because Krauthammer has backed the Bush administration's position from the start--the very same 'utterly failed' approach that has resulted in Iran continuing to enrich uranium, unimpeded.
Like Bush, Krauthammer has opposed any sort of quid-pro-quo with the Iranians, deriding "carrots" and slamming American and European attempts to end Iran's enrichment program via coercive diplomacy--that is, promising sanctions and air strikes if they continue to enrich on one hand, and substantial incentives for nuclear dismantlement, on the other--as naïve and morally confused.
This was true even in the immediate aftermath of the Iraq war, when the United States was at the apex of its power, semi-reformer Mohammad Khatami was president, and Iran was actively cooperating with America against al Qaeda--and it was actively proposing a negotiated solution to the United States. If there was any time to practice coercive diplomacy, that was the time. Yet conservatives like Krauthammer--and the Bush administration--balked.
The absurdity here is palpable. If Krauthammer, Bush, et al. were truly serious about American security, and the security of Israel--if they truly believed we should do anything to prevent Tehran from getting a nuclear bomb--they would not bridle at the concept of negotiating with Iran. "All options are on the table" should mean that all options are on the table, including diplomacy--not just massive nuclear retaliation and air strikes.
Instead, they have adopted and advocated a counterproliferation policy, rather than a nonproliferation policy: it assumes that proliferation is inevitable, and, in doing so, encourages it. (More on this here.) From a U.S. security standpoint, this has indeed been an utter failure.
There's no guarantee negotiating with Iran would have worked. But, by deriding diplomacy as appeasement--rather than treating it as a proactive effort to eliminate a nuclear threat before it becomes extremely dire (necessitating deterrence and missile defense, the second of which assumes we'll wait until literally the last possible second before stopping Iran's nukes)--and declaring that "the era of nonproliferation is over" we've disclosed any hope that Iran's program could be nipped in the bud.
That is a serious oversight, which commits us to one of two possible eventualities: preventive military strikes, or a world where Iran gets a nuclear bomb. Ruling out all other options, Krauthammer has, logically, been resigned to these quite some time. Now, since it's politically non-viable to undertake air strikes without first attempting substantive diplomacy (which he doesn't want to do), he's asking us to plan for the second of those worlds--the world where Iran has the Bomb.
We may well find ourselves adopting a deterrent posture towards Iran one day. But, if we do make some sort of "Holocaust Declaration," it will be worth remembering how we got to that point--and who was responsible.
--Barron YoungSmith
Posted by Barron YoungSmith at 06:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
