Iran’s nuclear program must be destroyed

Last week The New York Times reported that President Bush had rejected Israel’s request for weapons and other help in attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities. According to NewsMax, informed sources in Washington say Israel, in the absence of U.S. help, will launch an attack in a few days, possibly before Obama takes office. We’ve heard so many statements like this in the past.

I know that there is no chance of this happening, but for the record I will say one last time what I’ve been saying consistently for years. Iran must be prevented from developing nuclear weapons, and the only way to do that is through military force. I therefore urge President Bush in his last week in office to send U.S. forces against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The U.S. has long had the plans and capabilities to do this; it is only a matter of putting them into effect. In possession of nuclear weapons, the fanatical Shiite regime of Iran will be vastly empowered. At the least it will be able to blackmail the West, blackmail Europe, render Europe even more dhimmified than it already is, and extend the power of Islam over and within the West. At the worst, it will use the weapons—against Israel, which Iran’s leaders have repeatedly sworn to destroy, possibly against Europe, possibly against some other country.

For years Bush said he would never allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. As with so many other of his boasts, it turned out to be hollow. Consider how his legacy now stands. He waged an unprecedented pre-emptive war on Iraq in order to destroy weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist, while he has declined to launch a pre-emptive war on Iran, which openly before the world is producing fissionable material for nuclear weapons. This is Bush’s last chance to save his presidency from absurdity and shame, to make good his word, and to spare the world the horror of a nuclear Iran. I urge the president to act.

- end of initial entry -

Ed L. writes:

I think that you’re wrong to call for Bush to take military action against Iran. He’s now in the dustbin of history, and I have no wish to see him try to pull any eleventh-hour wonders to try to rehabilitate his reputation. It’s not a problem that he or anyone can solve in one week.

The only remote rationale I can see for calling upon Bush to act is that it would thrust upon Obama a full-scale war that he wouldn’t voluntarily initiate on his own. That assumes the he and his new administration (including “smart power” Hillary) have the basic ability, but not the whole-hearted will, to prevail against Iran militarily.

The question of whole-hearted will is essentially conterminous with your critique that Israel is not waging a serious war against Hamas. At a gut level, I tend to agree with you on that, but it only begs the question of what, by your reckoning, a serious war waged by Israel would involve. Would it mean abandoning the obligatory pretense of avoiding or minimizing civilian casualties? How would its ends and means characteristically differ from what we’re presently seeing?

Personally, I tend to take the extreme view that any pretense of formalizing warfare is fundamentally ludicrous, especially in transcivilizational conflicts involving Others who are not beholden to Western moral norms of beneficence. Indeed, is it possible at all to fight a “serious” war if you insist on making minimization of civilian (in the case of Muslim enemies, I qualify that as “so-called civilian”) casualties on the enemy side a dominant objective and a matter of moral primacy?

We see that Israel is being accused, in all the grossest unfairness, of having the blood of crimes against humanity on its hands. Being the big fat United States, we too will surely face the same wrathful heat. Do we have the fortitude to resist and defy it? Do we have not just the will not just to resist it but to retaliate against totalitarian European bodies that would harass us? I doubt it; I doubt it given that we agonize so about our “moral standing” all the time (e.g., over Guantanamo), as if we’re a nation of third-graders in a state of constant anxiety about a pending report card.

And why is it that only the United States, Britain, and Israel allow themselves to feel buffeted by anxiety about their “moral standing”? When, for instance, do we ever hear about the moral standing of any South American countries?

LA replies:

Ed’s comment strikes me as all over the place and not responsive to my point. I obviously don’t care about Bush’s reputation. My sole concern here is that I don’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons. And once Obama becomes president, there is no chance of anyone (except perhaps Israel) preventing it from acquiring them.

On the Gaza situation, I am somewhat less positive than I was before in thinking that Israel is not serious. It may be that Israel really is seeking to degrade Hamas as much as it can short of re-occupying Gaza, i.e., it is taking down Hamas enough so that it will not be able to attack Israel for years to come. While this would still be “conflict management” rather than “victory,” it would be conflict management that comes close to victory. At the same time, the fact that Israel has been seeking a cease-fire with Hamas suggests the opposite of what I’ve just said. Furthermore, it remains Israel’s goal to reach a two-state solution with Fatah, and Israel’s leaders see the defeat of (or the successful conflict-management of) Hamas as indispensable to that object. In brief, the larger purpose of Israel’s “war” against Hamas is surrender to Fatah.

January 15

Ed L. replies:

I completely agree with you about the imperative of stopping Iran, but your main point (in the final paragraph of the initial entry) seems to be that it can’t wait another week. I was primarily raising the question of why you were focusing on Bush. It seems that your answer is twofold: (1) you do seem to care about his reputation insofar as you say “This is Bush’s last chance to save his presidency from absurdity and shame…”, and (2) you believe that there’s no realistic chance that Obama will act.

As for “absurdity and shame”, that’s now an indelible part of Bush’s record. As for Obama, I share your scepticism, but I think that all the argumentation about Iran now has to focus on him.

LA replies:

I simply mean that there’s no chance Obama will do it. Therefore, if it is to be done, Bush must do it. My mentioning Bush’s ruined reputation, and how he can partially redeem it, is part of my appeal to him, and it’s also just a statement of fact. Saving his reputation is not my reason for wanting him to act.

January 16

Ed L. writes:

You’re talking about the will to initiate a war with Iran. What would matter most and above all at this point is the competence of the Obama administration to implement such an undertaking. That’s an extremely risky assumption you’re now banking on. An attack on Iran would not be Obama’s brainchild (unlike Iraq was for Bush), and they’d have had only four days of advance preparation time. What assurance, if any, is there that they wouldn’t fumble colossally?

LA replies:

My point was not that I think such a war is going to take place at this point, nor that I wanted Bush to start a war that Obama would have to finish. My point was simply to reiterate my conviction that such an attack on Iran was and is necessary and should have been made.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 13, 2009 12:56 AM | Send