The size of the Iran War is daunting to many who watch it. It is also the consequence of relying on an "imminent threat" standard to justify military action.
Long ago I warned against the "imminent" threshold for justifying military action as "the last resort" (quoting a 2003 post):
When you believe that any path, no matter how unlikely to bear fruit, keeps you from that "last" resort, then military force is practically speaking never an option.
And while many here continue to insist that military action must be the last resort, the more the knowledge of nuclear weaponry becomes deeply embedded within Iran. More people acquire the knowledge of how to proceed and unless we kill them all, destroying buildings is the least effective way to slow them down. Iran can rebuild structures if they have the scientists and technicians who take decades to train ready to pick up the pieces. Indeed, Iran could rebuild in other countries and subcontract various stages of the work in locations that may be immune to future attacks.
Sure, time may provide a solution other than military action. But it can also lead to stupid paper deals to achieve seriously farcical "solutions" resting on fantasy:
President Barack Obama has spoken of his ambition to bring Iran in from the cold, saying the long-time US foe could be “a very successful regional power” if it agrees to a deal over its nuclear programme.
I long worried that a president confronted with finally being the one standing when the music turned off in the game of musical Oval Office chairs in the nearly fifty years of mullah rule in Iran would take the easiest option by unleashing the four-step plan.
Yet here we are with time short but not out, working the much larger Iran problem rather than shrugging our shoulders and hoping the mullahs are not as mad as their rhetoric and violence would indicate.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
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