QandO: The Iranian Problem

August 25, 2004

The Iranian Problem
Posted by Dale Franks

Youssef M. Ibrahim writes in USA Today that we'd better think twice before confronting Iran.

A confrontation with Iran could considerably widen the Iraqi quagmire, threaten the survival of any government in Iraq and unleash a wave of terrorism, car- and suicide-bombing attacks against all American interests in Islamic countries as far as Pakistan and as close as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Iran would make sure of that. No cakewalks here.

Just as ominous, it is not possible to conduct two wars in the single region of the world where two-thirds of the global oil and natural gas reserves reside without pushing oil prices even higher than their current record levels of nearly $50 a barrel. Such a conflict would wreak havoc on the U.S. and world economies...

Iran's tentacles reach far and wide. They were amply demonstrated in the 1980s and 1990s in Lebanon, where Hezbollah, the Iran-sponsored militia, forced both the United States and Israel to unilaterally withdraw their troops.

Just as a reminder, a few weeks ago, the Iranians stirred a little trouble in Bahrain when threats were made against Americans. The words came from some of the 475,000 Shiites who constitute a majority of the population of Bahrain, where the United States maintains its largest naval base in the Persian Gulf. The Bush administration panicked and ordered all U.S. dependents to leave immediately.

If a confrontation with Iran erupted, we would be taking on more than a single country. Iran and Syria have maintained a 25-year strategic alliance. Both have been targeted by neoconservatives for "regime change."

Together, they share the longest open borders with Iraq. They have built and retained armed militias inside Iraq for years, and those forces have been considerably reinforced in the past 14 months.

More arms, men and logistical support would flow through these borders to attack overtaxed, demoralized U.S. troops already locked in a war of attrition. Both countries would also press into action various dormant terrorist cells, which would attack, among other things, oil facilities in the region.

Despite the overly tendentious tone of Mr. Ibrahims opinion (Iraq as a "quagmire", The Bush admninistration panicking, etc.), he makes some valid points:

Confrontation with Iran will make the situation in Iraq much more difficult.

The effect on Gas prices would be...bad.

Iran's terror tentacle reach far and wide, which would make any place in the region unsafe for US personnel or interests.

Iran would, in all probability, use any confrontation as an excuse to attack Israel, possibly setting of a large-scale regional war.

All very valid points. The trouble is, though, that Mr Ibrahim doesn't also expound on what consequences a nuclear-armed Iran would have on the region. In such a case, an attack on Israel would touch of his feared war, anyway, this time with nukes, and Israel has a lot more than Tehran would have, by the way.

Mr. Ibrahim notes that Iran denies it is making nuclear weapons. So, he concludes, we should negotiate more, rather than risk a horrific war by offending them.

Maybe so, but it's hard to take with anything less than a metric ton of salt that Iran isn't seeking to produce a nuclear arsenal.

First, if they were seeking such an arsenal, they certainly wouldn't admit it. Unfortunately, Mr. Ibrahim doesn't explain to us how we can be sure that their denials are being issued because they really aren't trying to produce such weapons, or because they really are. But their rejection of any demands that they stop their uranium enrichment program isn't a positive sign. They are saying, essentially, that it's vitally important that they be able to enrich uranium, which would give them the capability to make nuclear weapons, but that they will never do so.

Because, it would be, you know, wrong.

But, totalitarian states don't have a sterling track record of actually doing what they say they will do. Indeed, quite the opposite is usually the case.

But, because the WMD argument went so horribly awry in Iraq, any similar claims about Iran will now meet an almost insurmountable barrier of skepticism from both the press and the electorate.

The sad thing is that a nucelar-armed Irtan would be even scarier than a nuclear-armed Iraq, by almost any measure. Saddam Hussein may not have been playing piano with both hands, if you know what I mean, but at least he didn't think he had God whispering instructions in his ear. The mullahs, on the other hand, do.

No matter how you cut it, it's a tricky situation, despite Mr. Ibrahim's childishly naive assumption that we can negotiate our way out of this mess. Negotiating with a potential enemy who desires nothing you can offer him other than capitualtion, is usually not productive, a fact that is often completely lost on the chattering classes.

Mr. Ibrahim paints a very dark picture about the dangers of a confrontation with Iraq. Of course, in 1941, a very dark picture could've been painted about a possible confrontation with Germany and Japan. We did it anyway, of course.

But, not because we wanted to.

What Mr. Ibrahim seems to forget is that it takes two willing partners to make peace. It only takes one party to go to war. Mr. Ibrahim assumes that the decision between war and peace rests solely in Washington. It would be nice if that were true. In the real world, however, the US and Iran can be at war withing minutes of Iran's head Mullah, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, making a phone call.

The Iranians, after all, have the ability to make choices, too.

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Comments

It would seem that Mr. Ibrahim's entire thesis revolves around the belif that this is going to be hard and it could make things worse in the short term. That is most likely a true statement. The question I pose is, when was the last time the right thing was really easy?

Posted by: Curt Mitchell at August 25, 2004 01:12 PM

Can't you see? It doesn't matter, because Bush is not going to do a damm thing. Israel is therefore going to take out Iran, and without our permission.

Of course, it would have been better had Bush not gone into Iraq, and in the process upset the balance of power in the Middle East. But now that he has done that, Israel is not going to sit idly by as Iran gets its back up.

And when Israel does go to war with Iran, the rest of the Middle East will descend into chaos, oil will go to $200 a barrel, and the US economy will shut down. Seem fantastic? Not really. Look at what the Israel did back in '81.

Now, you may think: My God, apocalypse in the Middle East? Gosh Bush didn't really think that would happen when he invaded Iraq, did he? Wasn't there supposed to be the flowering of democracy in the Middle East?

Or did he? Doesn't the Bible call for an all out war in the Middle East? Doesn't that signal the end of days? Isn't that what the Bush people believe and therefore want to happen? It's a good thing then, right?

Bush: Inspector Closeau meets the Book of Revelations.

Posted by: mkultra at August 25, 2004 03:02 PM

mkultra,

Doesn't the Bible call for an all out war in the Middle East? Doesn't that signal the end of days? Isn't that what the Bush people believe and therefore want to happen? It's a good thing then, right?

Your comments show an appalling ignorance of evangelical Christianity (Bush's kind of Christianity, which I largely share).

We do believe in an "end of days" which will involve war in the Middle East. But that does not make the war a good thing. Both good things and bad things will lead to the return of Christ--Christians try to involve themselves in the good things and prevent the bad things, to the best of our abilities. We do not try to hurry the bad things.

For example, many evangelicals oppose any national ID card. In addition to the usual privacy concerns, we realize that the Bible predicts that the Antichrist will use such an ID card for his own evil ends. People like you may assume that we would support the ID so that the end will come sooner, but it simply is not true. And Bush will not deliberately hurry along a final Mid-East war, despite the prejudices of others.

Hmm, you write about Bush's religion as though you know something about it, even though you don't seem to have that knowledge. You also write about Bush's politics....

Posted by: Rory Daulton at August 25, 2004 03:30 PM

"Of course, it would have been better had Bush not gone into Iraq, and in the process upset the balance of power in the Middle East."

We took out Iraq, a country that couldn't have stood up to Iran anyway because of the crippling sanctions it has been placed under. You could say that we became a major player in the region by conquering Iraq, but that would be a lie. Saddam's containment had kept us a major player in the region since the start of the first Gulf War.

Posted by: Jeff the Baptist at August 25, 2004 03:47 PM

If we left Iraq alone and all oter factors remained the same.

The likely result would be another Iran-Iraq war. This time with nukes, chems, biological, etc.

Is that a better scenario?

Posted by: capt joe at August 25, 2004 04:34 PM

This is a hit piece straight from the mouth of the mullahs in Tehran...

1) He's threatening to "make it worse" in Iraq...How so? They're already flooding the borders with every able-bodied jihadi they can throw at it. An open conflict with Iraq would probably lead to tighter border security than we have today. It would definitely lead to a lot more dead Iranians before they ever reached Iraq...Strike One: Iran loses this one...

2) So gas prices go south for a while...so what? Sure it would be a hardship, but aren't the Democrats always complaining that we should be willing to make sacrifices in a time of war? What's that? Hey...where'd they go? Besides even if oil prices went up in the short run, Iran wouldn't be able to benefit from it and the ensuing blockade of their oil exports would completely shut down their economy and their ability to wage effective warfare. Strike Two: Iran loses again...

What they fail to mention is what would happen on the other side of that conflict. As in Iraq, the flow of oil would actually wind up increasing and the profits would no longer be flowing directly into terrorists' hands.

3) With regard to their terrorist network: Like they're not doing everything they can to strike us today? Puuulleeaase. In the event of direct conflict with the United States they would be up to their eyeballs in problems, our embassies would be filled to the teeth with very angry and heavily armed Marines and the civilians would be out of country. Strike Three: Iran loses again...

Excuse me if I refuse to buy into the "you're gonna make the terrorists mad by striking at them" argument...This is the weak-kneed response advocated by John Kerry - and it's the kind of response that leads to appeasement. If you don't understand by now that appeasement and weakness only lead to future problems then you never will.

4) As far as striking Israel, I agree that they probably would. However, the Israeli defenses are so far superior to their neighbors that worrying about Israel is far down on the list of problems we need to worry about. What the mullahs in Tehran should be worried about is Israel turning Tehran into a glass parking lot because that is the most likely end result of aggression against Israel. Double ouch...Iran is down for the count...

In short, Iran has far more to fear from direct confrontation with the U.S. and/or Israel. That's why they support terrorists and don't come streaming across the border of Iraq with uniformed troops. They know this. We know this. This kind of commissioned hit piece is just designed to support the weak-kneed opposition in the U.S. to prevent us from ever taking the decisive action necessary to rid the planet of the scourge of these tyrants.

Don't believe the hype.

Posted by: Jim B at August 25, 2004 10:12 PM

We owe them from payback from events stretching back to Beirut 1983-84; to Pan Am 103; to the
laisse passes to the hijackers, sheltering high
profile AQ like Seif Al Adel and Saad Bin Laden
etc

Posted by: NARCISO at August 25, 2004 10:49 PM

We can play with words and ideas all we want, but there is a certain reality here.

Hashemi Rafsanhjani, former president of Iraq publicly called for the development of nuclear weapons and called for their use against Israel (as well as the enemies of Islam).

His rationale was that the use of nuclear weapons would only hurt Islam, but would result in the destruction of Israel.

His remarks,publicly made, were met with near hysterical delight and approval.

Posted by: AH at August 26, 2004 10:35 AM

We ended WWII by nuking Japan, we can quickly end WWIII by turning Iran, Syria and Iraq to glass. This is what it will come down to, because these people see us as merely dust beneath their feet-you can not negotiate with that.

Posted by: m at September 15, 2004 09:09 PM