Patrick Disney, the former Assistant Policy Director for the National Iranian American Council, has written a great piece responding to Ray Takeyh and Steven Simon’s Washington Post op-ed, which Tony Karon described as “a ‘how-to-bomb Iran’ manual.”
(Ali discussed the increasingly hawkish rhetoric coming out of the Council on Foreign Relations in his blog post Monday.)
Disney’s critical analysis of Takeyh and Simon’s article concludes that a bombing campaign of the type proposed by the CFR scholars would have disastrous effects.
Disney writes:
First, there is no military option short of a full-blown invasion and occupation. Even if all of Iran’s nuclear facilities can be located, and even if they can all be destroyed with surgical air strikes, the ruling hardliners will just rebuild them — only this time without the contraints of the IAEA.
Indeed, no proposed air strike would permanently destroy Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions and would probably exacerbate already tense U.S.-Iran and Iran-Israel relations.
He continues:
Secondly, and most disappointingly, Takeyh and Simon’s analysis totally ignores the devastating impact an attack would have on the long-term prospect of democracy in Iran. Iranians last summer took to the streets in the most passionate outbreak of popular dissatisfaction since the 1979 revolution. Those who know their history viewed the events of last year as the latest step in Iran’s democratic evolution — a process that began over 100 years ago with the constitutional revolution of 1906. Although the street protests have died down and the democracy movement is in some disarray, it is clearly still a factor in Iran. Unfortunately, dropping bombs on Iran now is the surest way to uproot any hope for peaceful democratic change in the country. The hardliners will most likely use an act of foreign aggression as justification for a brutal crackdown, and the focus of political discourse will shift away from questions of internal reforms and regime legitimacy toward external threats and the need to rally the nation’s defenses.
While Takeyh and Simon may have the luxury of discussing their hypothetical best-case scenarios for bombing Iran, Disney draws a believably dismal picture of what a U.S. or Israeli military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities might bring.
An Iranian regime which has quit the IAEA, crushed its domestic opposition and turned its nuclear program into a symbol of avenging the countless deaths from an Israeli or American air strike is a frightening thought, but one which — no thanks to alarmists such as Takeyh and Simon — could become a reality.
Disney concludes:
With the anti-Iran rhetoric at a fever pitch in Washington, it’s easy to forget sometimes just how remote of a threat Iran’s nuclear program actually is. According to numerous unclassified assessments by the U.S. Intelligence Community, Iran has not yet decided to pursue a nuclear bomb, and the US and international community still has time to convince them not to. The three to five years an attack would gain now will most certainly not be worth the cost it would incur: a non-democratic Iran with an overt nuclear weapons program and a vendetta against Western powers who attacked it.
Real Americans love starting wars as much as they do building prisons.
Well I’m sure the attack on Iran will turn out as swimmingly as the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hey, just for giggles, look up how many wars and covert ops the US has initiated in the past 30 years.
And Iran is the threat? Really?
Before we assume an American cakewalk, let us not forget that the US has yet to beat Iran in their own war games. Frontline or 60Min (I think) covered this story back in perhaps 2004 that in our own war games that the retired general that was Red (Iran/enemy) team kept devastating our forces with little guerrilla tactics. Evidently this kept happening, then those running the exercise would prohibit these non conventional attacks. The wily general simply pulled another string. After 8 runs the US failed to achieve her aims and suffered debilitating losses.
That’s just tactically. Strategically, there is no benefit to bombing Iran. We don’t simply want to destroy, no, we want to have a hand in the architecture of Iran’s governance. For that we get an Afghan redux. This too is packed with self contradictory objectives that make navigating a clear course quite perilous.
The US economy is staggering. I don’t think we have indefinite ability to borrow money. We don’t have growth, but inflation is bound to be affected by debt, ineffectiveness and profligate policies. We are asking our politicians to forgo millions of dollars personally to do what’s right.
What disturbs me about the Charlie Rangel charges is how very common they are. He is disconnected and I couldn’t defend him against being called “scum.” But, look at Kay Bailey Hutcheson, Diane Fienstien and Nancy Pelosi’s nepotistic nexus they have with their husbands, those demonstrate deep conflicts of interest, while Charlie is simply a thief.
Looks like Lobelog’s hit a nerve with its focus on Iran.
Alex nailed it. Iran will take the war to us! In Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Saudi Arabia, In Somalia, in Yemen, in Isreal and especially here in the United States.
Who has the moral high ground? We ignored all intel to attack Iraq after crippling sanctions that resulted in the malnourished deaths of hundreds of thousands of kids, according to Madelin Albright. Now we want to do the same to Iran that has never threatened us till we threatened them.
Bin Laden said it best. America will die when it runs out of money. We cannot afford to do what we are doing. NATO is getting less and less support. Soon America and Israel will strand alone. That is not a good thing, at least for Americans and Israelis