Does Anyone Think We Shouldn't Attack Iran?

Ken Baer has an overwrought post up attacking me for suggesting that Democrats should publicly state that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons will not trigger a military response. Baer, in a graf that reveals his own lack of engagement with the issue, wonders, "And as for those who doubt the strategy of no nukes, no options off the table, my only question is: what is that based on? Again, is there any person with real experience with the Iranians, diplomacy, or nonproliferation who has argued that? If so, let’s hear it. But – to my mind – rightly, the major candidates are listening to seasoned experts on this issue, and are thus sticking with the above formulation of no nuclear Iran, no options off the table."

Well, Matt gets us started off with two, noting that, "Ray Takeyh, Council on Foreign Relations Fellow and author of two books on Iran along with Vali Nasr, another CFR fellow and author of three books on Iran or Shia politics, think we should eschew military threats in favor of engagement. Joseph Cirincione, formerly senior associate and director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and currently something or other at the Center for American Progress, thinks there's no military option whatsoever here."

Ken Pollack makes three, as he recently said that "a war with Iran would be very messy and would cost us a lot more than we would gain. While many members of the Administration agree with that, others do not, and some seem willing to risk it to accomplish other goals. I am very concerned both by the President’s military moves toward Iran (like moving a second aircraft carrier and Patriot anti-missile batteries to the Persian Gulf, and ordering the U.S. military to use “all necessary means” to shut down Iranian activities in Iraq) and his unnecessarily threatening rhetoric toward them. Some degree of quiet pressure on Iran to stop their more damaging operations in Iraq could be useful, and the Iranians probably would back down under those circumstances; but the President’s policy risks engaging Iran’s nationalist pride, its strategic interests, and its real fear of the United States." And Bruce Jentleson, Baer's co-contributor at TPM Cafe thinks, "the use of military force against Iran likely would set off a rallying effect around both the regime and a nuclear weapons program. This is one way in which the presence of regime change as an option has a counterproductive effect on
current diplomacy."

But that's not all!

Scott Ritter, who we of course can't listen to because he got Iraq exactly right, is against hyping war with Iran. Iranian-born Shahram Chubin, author of the best book on the subject, is fundamentally pessimistic about any military options, and makes exactly the argument I did when he writes, "After all, the only conceivable justification for Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons might be that they are needed as a deterrent against the United States. Yet, it is in fact only Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons that makes a U.S. attack on Iran at all likely." My argument, of course, was that we short-circuit that cycle by taking our attack off the table.

Flynt Leverett thinks proposing war with Iran is nuts ("analyses have raised serious doubts that U.S. military strikes against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure would delay significantly its nuclear development...[and] Tehran could reconstitute its nuclear program relatively rapidly. At the same time, U.S. military action against Iran almost certainly would have profoundly negative consequences for a range of other U.S. interests"), while James Fallows summarized the conclusions of wargame composed of experts by saying, "The experts disagreed on some details but were nearly unanimous on one crucial point: what might seem America’s ace in the hole—the ability to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations in a pre-emptive air strike—was a fantasy."

Meanwhile, if you listen to the candidates Baer is talking about, they're perfectly aware war with Iran is a stupid idea. Indeed, it was talking with Edwards himself that helped convince me of the essential idiocy of the "no options off the table, no nuclear Iran" formulation. Here's Edwards, the recipient of all that star advice Baer is enamored with:

what happens if America were to militarily strike Iran? Well you take this unstable, radical leader, and you make him a hero -- that’s the first thing that’ll happen. The Iranian people will rally around him. The second thing that will happen is they will retaliate. And they have certainly some potential for retaliating here in the United States through some of these terrorist organizations they’re close to, but we’ve got over a hundred thousand people right next door. And most people believe that they have an infrastructure for retaliation inside Iraq. So, that’s the second thing that’ll happen. And the third thing is there are a lot of analysts who believe that an air strike or a missile strike is not enough to be successful...I think would have very bad consequences.

Nevertheless, Edwards, like all the other "serious candidates," is keeping "the options open." And the reasons seem clear enough: Crafters of elite consensus opinion will absolutely pillory a Democrat who publicly swears off the use of force in a situation. It clicks right into a preexisting narrative about the party. Were I Edwards, I'd twist away from my questions too. But what Baer is doing is far more pernicious, pretending that the entire weight of wise, elite opinion agrees that Iran should be publicly threatened.

Not only is that actually untrue, but the folks Baer is grouping within his superteam of advisors are exactly the crew who got Iraq so very wrong, and this tactic of Baer's -- to marginalize competing arguments -- is exactly what enabled the previous disaster. About four years ago, John Kerry, and John Edwards, and Richard Gephardt, and Joe Lieberman -- who together comprised every initially "serious" candidate for the 2004 Democratic nomination for president -- listened to their advisors and voted "yes" on the Iraq War resolution. Four years later, every one of them but Joe, who's basically become a Republican, wishes they could take back that vote. Ken Baer, it seems, has learned nothing about the fallibility of that process, or the dangers of enabling Bush's belligerence.