IRAN, STILL

The Iranian Crisis builds and the stakes get higher every day. President Bush refused to rule out a nuclear attack saying that "everything is on the table," and even the Russians are claiming publicly that Iran must give up its uranium enrichment program. Nobody claims to know how to enforce that demand, since the progress they've made thus far was done while they were lying about it, they admit, 'lo these many years.

Two opposed but more thoughtful positions are summarized here: Follow the links to the original, and read the whole of each argument.

Edward Luttwack:

1) Iranians are our once and future allies. Except for a narrow segment of extremists, they do not view themselves as enemies of the United States, but rather as the exact opposite . . They must not be made to feel that they were attacked by the very country they most admire, where so many of their own relatives and friends have so greatly prospered, and with which they wish to restore the best of relations.

(2) In essence, we should not bomb Iran because the worst of its leaders positively want to be bombed—and are doing their level best to bring that about. . . The clerics’ frantic extremism reflects a sense of insecurity that is fully justified, given the bitter hostility with which they are viewed by most of the population at large. In a transparent political maneuver, Ahmadinejad tries to elicit nationalist support at home by provoking hostile reactions abroad.

(3) The effort to build nuclear weapons started more than three decades ago, yet the regime is still years away from producing a bomb.

Mark Steyn, in the Wall Street Journal:

Perhaps it's unduly pessimistic to write the civilized world automatically into what Osama bin Laden called the "weak horse" role (Islam being the "strong horse"). But, if you were an Iranian "moderate" and you'd watched the West's reaction to the embassy seizure and the Rushdie murders and Hezbollah terrorism, wouldn't you be thinking along those lines? I don't suppose Buenos Aires Jews expect to have their institutions nuked any more than 12 years ago they expected to be blown up in their own city by Iranian-backed suicide bombers. Nukes have gone freelance, and there's nothing much we can do about that, and sooner or later we'll see the consequences--in Vancouver or Rotterdam, Glasgow or Atlanta. But, that being so, we owe it to ourselves to take the minimal precautionary step of ending the one regime whose political establishment is explicitly pledged to the nuclear annihilation of neighboring states.

Once again, we face a choice between bad and worse options. There can be no "surgical" strike in any meaningful sense: Iran's clients on the ground will retaliate in Iraq, Lebanon, Israel and Europe. Nor should we put much stock in the country's allegedly "pro-American" youth. This shouldn't be a touchy-feely nation-building exercise: rehabilitation may be a bonus, but the primary objective should be punishment--and incarceration. It's up to the Iranian people how nutty a government they want to live with, but extraterritorial nuttiness has to be shown not to pay. That means swift, massive, devastating force that decapitates the regime--but no occupation.

I've had several good Iranian friends over the years whom I admired as persons, and I've had other dealings with Iranians whom I felt were straightforward and fair. Luttwack's first point resonates with me. I yield to no man in my willingness to fight or to kill the enemies of America, but I do not think those Iranians of whom I speak are our enemies. I don't want them to think of us as their enemy. I wish not to harm them or their families at home.

It's obvious to me that our Administration's position is to split the difference; to keep the heat on, to threaten and cajole, while waiting to see if others add to the pressure, and hoping it will suffice....that the nutcases who run their show will blink...or that the decent people will somehow act rationally.

The ONLY way a "split the difference" strategy can work is for the Iranians to believe us. That requires that we be unified as a people and as a government in our intent and in support of the Administration's effort to walk this tightrope. If it works, it saves the world. If it fails, sometime down the line there lies catastrophe.

Perhaps there is another strategy that the Democrats can propose. One they claim is that we should not "outsource our diplomacy." I think they mean we should "talk" to the Iranians, directly. Alone. One on one. This is a strange position for those who screamed that we didn't include our "European Allies" in the Iraq Pre-War machinations. (They know better of course...we did, for eleven months, but they betrayed Colin Powell.)

Talk about what? Negotiations mean threats if negotiations fail. Do the Democrats propose to make the same threat as the President...everything's on the table, including nuclear war? Some other threat? The U.N.? What y'all been smokin"? The U.N. is paralyzed, corrupt, and cannot DO anything.

Does anybody believe that the Democrat members of the government...and their BMs will unite with the Administration on this? On anything? To believe that is to think that there's something that they believe in beyond Political Power for themselves. To believe that is to disbelieve everything we've heard for the past six years. To suspend belief in belief at all.

So what's their alternative? Don't know. Get rid of Chimpybushhitler and Rummy. That's a plan. Fook'em, the treaonous bastards.

Personally, I don't believe we can accept the timelines inherent in Luttwack's third point. There's no reason to think that the slow pace of the Iranians' beginning can be projected into the future. After we got through the basics, we invented the atomic bomb and used it in just a few years. Waiting for the sake of hope alone simply isn't prudent, which is Steyn's point, of course.

Of the two positions discussed today, Steyn wins, but it's going to be a while before it's clear that's the only choice.