As 14,000 American Jews and other supporters of Israel gather in Washington, pressure mounts on President Barack Obama to adopt an even more hawkish stance toward Iran. Last week, the president said the U.S. would take military action to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb and warned that “ . . as President of the United States, I don’t bluff.”
But that bald statement was not enough. Many Israelis — and not a few hawkish Americans — want the president to say he will take action unless Iran agrees to stop enriching uranium and to allow international inspectors access to its nuclear facilities to be certain it keeps its word. Such demands were made at the annual gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee last weekend.
The administration says this ratcheting up of U.S. pressure against Tehran was a non-starter. Iran would never agree to stop enrichment before international talks had been held and enough incentives were offered to make such concessions acceptable to the Iranian people. An ultimatum not only wouldn’t be successful, but also could provoke Iranian strikes against Israel and U.S. bases in the region.
What President Obama wants is a resolution of today’s stalemate through diplomacy that makes a new Middle East war unlikely.
Every thinking American should share that goal.
Scholars consulted by the Economist magazine warn a preemptive strike would very likely fail and trigger devastating retaliations:
“… It could retaliate with rocket attacks on Israel from its client states in Gaza and Lebanon. Terror cells around the world could strike Jewish and American targets. It might threaten Arab oil infrastructure, in an attempt to use oil prices to wreck the world economy.
“… Iran’s nuclear sites are spread out and some of them, hardened against strikes, would require repeated hits … (for either the U.S. or the Israeli air force) predictions of damage from an attack span a huge range. At worst an Israeli attack might fail altogether, at best an American one could, it is said, set back the program a decade.
“But uncertainty would rein. Iran is a vast, populous and sophisticated country with a nuclear program that began under the shah. It may have secret sites that escape unscathed. Even if all its sites are hit, Iran’s nuclear know-how cannot be bombed out of existence.
“(After an attack) its entire program would go underground, literally and figuratively. If Iran decided it needed a bomb, it would then be able to pursue one with utmost haste and in greater secrecy. Saudi Arabia and others might conclude that they, too, needed to act preemptively to gain their own deterrents.
“… Can you stop Iran from getting a bomb if it is determined to have one? Not indefinitely and bombing it might make it the more desperate. Short of occupation, the world cannot eliminate Iran’s capacity to gain the bomb. It can only change its will to possess one. Just now that is more likely to come about through sanctions and diplomacy than war.”
THAT ANALYSIS is shot through with maybes and what-ifs, as all careful speculation must be. But it raises enough doubts and fears to counsel President Obama to stick with his try-everything-else-first policy.
Becoming the author of another Middle East war could quickly throw the U.S. economy back into deep recession and rob our nation of its standing as a force for international reconciliation and cooperation for decades to come.
We shouldn’t go there.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
