With Iraq in an ever-steeper downward spiral, and a loss of control in Afghanistan, it seems hard to envision the Bush administration launching another military undertaking in Iran. But Bush is not daunted by logistic nightmares, and he may feel obligated to keep his promise to keep the world’s worst weapons out of the hands of its worst regimes. The sad irony is that the proximate cause of this mess is the containment strategy that held Iran in check since the Khoumeni revolution is in tatters, as a result of botching Iraq. The Admin. believed that the post 911 wars would leave US troops and American-leaning regimes to each side of a “Shocked-and-awed” Islamic Republic.
But causes and blame are grist for the historians’ mill. There is ample grounds for preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons,
even a politically weakened Bush could, with a focused public relations campaign build sufficient support for military action. Of course, if an invasion were politically unpopular and were hurting Republican chances in 2008, the decision might be bequeathed to the next administration. It’s unlikely, whatever the outcome in 2008, that President Guilliani/Clinton/Obama/McCain/Gore/Romney or “_______”, would be inclined to take the military route. Repairing America’s relations with estranged allies and making new ones would take priority, and America would prepare for containing a nuclear Iran, while mitigating the outcome in Iraq.
But I wouldn’t be dismayed if Bush stood true to his demonstrated instincts and rolled the dice on a military option. Of course, we’d have to commandeer the Straits of Hormouz before Iran choked of the flow of trade, especially oil. And we’d blow any chance of rally the support of Iranian dissidents.
Any foreign policy experts in here? What are the chances of a successful military campaign to disable Iran’s nuclear program?
Did Bush botch Iraq, or would any war in Iraq inevitably end in sectarian violence, increased terrorism, trillions of dollars, thousands dead, and us in a quagmire.
Check the new newly declassified NIC from January 2003, all of this was predicted, Bush and his administration knew this was a very strong possibility, and he went to war anyway, and told no one that these were the predicted concequences.
The Report warns that a War in Iraq will push other nations to HURRY THEIR OBTAINMENT OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS so as to get them before America can pre-empt their attempts, as it apparently did in Iraq.
I’m with you on this one. He’s no Carter. Carter’s lame policies are part of why militant Islam arose. But Bush’s term is running out and he has little support, even in his own party. What do you think?
So if Bush si rational he considered and dismissed the report? That is, he found its warnings either so remote as to not be taken seriously or he expected what they predicted and is pleased with the current situation, the risk of a nuclear Iran notwithstanding? How should I read you? And, at the risk of sounding ignorant, what does NIC stand for?
He circulated the report throughout his administration, so he obviously took it seriously. I would imagine that he wanted to go to war so bad, that he wasn’t going to let anything stop him, whether it being saddam not actually having WMD’s, al-qaeda not being linked with Iraq, or the consequences of the war setting us back in the war on terror and provoking Iran. This interpretation is borne out by the fact that this report was not released prior to the war, despite it being crucial to U.S. citizens and the world making a decision about going to war. Suggesting he didn’t want people outside those who aren’t going to question him, to know about it.
Honestly, I find it hard to even speculate a reason why he would do what he did, despite seeing the implications of this report. I suppose the desire to go to war was just to strong.
NIC=National intelligence council. It’s the end all be all of mid to long-term strategy in the US Intelligence community.
If America went to war with Iran, it would surely be WW3, and most likely
the war of all wars. France,Britain and Israel would surely be on
America’s side. And all the hostile arab nations would jump at the opportunity to destroy the western nations and Israel. And be sure some
other countries would start taking sides and demolishing each other.
We all know the best country in the world would win. AMERICA!
The problem, of course, is that further sabre-ratting doesn’t help the situation much. Given the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan right now, I do not think that we could defeat and occupy Iran in the same way we have those other countries. Sure, we could take a huge chunk out of Iran and weaken the country to the point where we’ve neutralized the effectiveness of the government (kinda like we did with Saddam in the first Gulf conflict), but of course the problem with that path is that it legitimizes what the extremists are saying.
I think the best path would be to scale-back out troop involvement in both Iraq and Afghanistan while increasing our financial investment into their infrastructures in a no-strings attached manner. Have America pump money into both private and public sector areas, in a manner similar to the Marshall Plan. Heck, if the US has ideological reasons for mimicking the Marshall Plan and just pumping money into the private sectors I am fine with that too . . . but nothing says somebody loves you like working infrastructure.
Unfortunately, I also think that de-investing (at least somewhat) in Israel isn’t a bad policy move. The motives are Machiavellian, but I think that having the power to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons is worth the price.
By making the US a good-guy in the region, as opposed to an occupying power, it helps the US gain back a good deal of credibility while also giving our military a break to recover in case we need to use it against Iran. Also, by having the US back-off somewhat, it gives Pakistan some breathing room. While Iran might someday have the ability to make nuclear weapons, Pakistan can make them and does have them. All that it would take is a populist revolution, similar to what happened in Iran, and we’d be pretty screwed. Pakistan vs. India is not a scenario I’d like to think about.