Think About It. Plan for It. And Do It.

These authors argue we should not attack Iran, but should contain them, deter them with our own nukes, and apply sanctions when they get nukes. Indeed, they think the idea is so bad that we shouldn't even think about it.

I don't buy the line that military strikes (as long as we're talking a weeks-long campaign and not a one-shot strike over in a matter of minutes or hours) can do no good. We can definitely buy time at the very least. I don't even rule out that a relatively short-duration strike could buy at least some time.

Nor do I buy the idea that Iranians will automatically rally to the regime. Or at least they won't rally for very long before returning to opposition and perhaps opposing the regime even more for inviting attacks on them. And as I've written many times, if we fail to strike, I'll take no comfort knowing that most Iranians are really, really sad that their mullahs nuked Charleston using a nuke in a box (or some other port city).

Further, I don't think the threat of Iran retaliating in Iraq or Afghanistan is much of a threat. If Iran could destabilize the situation more in either place, they'd have done it, in my view. Especially in Iraq, the fact is we beat the Iranians and stopped their best efforts to destabilize Iraq.

I also don't think that Iran can be deterred much. Even if Iran never uses a nuke, given how much terror they sponsor now without nukes, how much more aggressive and dangerous would they be if they had the protection of their own nukes to deter us? At worst, the usually cautious Persians might be controlled by mullahs proud to take an Israeli nuclear retaliation for the Islamic team if they get to go down in history as the ones that smashed Israel in a nuclear fireball.

As for applying sanctions, by 2001 Saddam in Iraq had undermined sanctions so much that we were about to lose them. That was the impetus for our whole "smart sanctions" proposal. Knowing that Saddam had successfully portrayed our sanctions as killing babies in Iraq, the will of the international community (bolsetered by oil-for-food bribes paid by Sadddam) was breaking and not Iraq. How much more effectively will Iran be able to break sanctions when they have nuclear weapons to brandish?

And we haven't even touched on the proliferation issue. Even if it is safe to allow Iran to go nuclear (perhaps arguing that Israel has never used their unacknowledged nukes), what will the risk of atomic war be when Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, and Egypt all have nukes? And Pakistan and India are nearby, too, adding to the danger of one nuke setting off chain reactions.

I'd much rather risk the wrath of Iran for attacking their nukes than risk that Iran is a sane regime that can be deterred or that we can contain the results of Iran getting nuclear weapons. If sanctions don't stop Iran soon--or if we can't get hard sanctions now because of Russian and Chinese objections--we need to start the clock on bombing Iran.

And if it makes you feel better, I bet President Obama would get another peace prize for bombing Iran.