The United States’ role in the 1953 coup here that deposed the Middle East’s first democratically elected government lives in memory. Any U.S. attack would propel 56-year-old Iranian demons into overdrive and lock in an America-hating Islamic Republic for the next half-century.
Hmm. The Iranian public seems to mostly like us now. I guess all is forgiven over that 1953 unpleasantness. Heck, Cohen seems to forgive Iran for that unpleasantness from the more recent Hostage Crisis after Iran stormed our Tehran embassy.
But the major flaw in his thinking isn't the lack of current hatred amongst most Iranians, it is the idea that it is important for the Iranian people to like us. Right now, with a majority liking us, Iranian rulers have been and continue to arm people who kill us and kill our allies. In what way has public favor toward us affected Iranian foreign policy?
And if the mullahs hit us with a nuclear missile after we fail to stop them form going nuclear, will Cohen really take comfort in the fact that most Iranians will feel really, really sad that their mullahs hit us with atomic bombs? I know I won't.
Cohen goes on:
From Basra through Kabul to the Paris suburbs, Muslim rage would erupt. The Iranian Army is not the Israeli Army, but its stubborn effectiveness is in no doubt. Rockets from Hezbollah and Hamas, and newly tested Iranian long-range missiles, would hit Israel.
Ah, the infamous Moslem street eruption. It has been predicted through the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Desert Fox strikes against Iraq in 1998, and the liberation of Kuwait in 1991. Given that most of the Moslem street is Sunni Arab, I think we could get away with hitting Shia Persians. I think it is time to give this worry a rest given the absolute failure of the "street" to rise up against anything. I assure you, lots of Arab governments will be quietly very happy that Iran is defanged or knocked down a notch.
Cohen continues:
It is doubtful that a bombing campaign would end Iran’s nuclear ambitions, so all the above might be the price paid for putting off an Iranian bomb — or mastery of the production of fissile material — by a year or so.
In short, the U.S. military option is not an option. It is unthinkable.
Certainly, a military campaign could fail. The longer we wait, the wider and deeper the capabilities to build atomic weapons are entrenched in Iran. But if we take the time for a real campaign, striking again and again over weeks, we could do more than delay the inevitable for a year or so.
Indeed, our 1998 4-day Desert Fox strikes on Iraq seem to have done lasting damage to Saddam's WMD programs despite Clinton administration claims at the time that we may have only delayed them a year.
I'd rather overthrow the mullah regime, to be sure. But even if we only buy a year by attacking, I want that year if the alternative is Iran with nuclear weapons. Who knows what we might be able to do in that year to change the regime, or find out what is left to strike again and buy a little more time.
In the end, Cohen finds military action unthinkable only because he himself is unthinking.
Perhaps Cohen would like to explain the joys of having a nuclear-armed mullah regime in Iran. Perhaps he'd like to explain how a nuclear-armed Iran would affect the stability of the Gulf states. And perhaps he'd like to explain the effects of Iran using or even threatening nuclear weapons on the price of oil.
That would be fun to read.
