Patrick Disney Describes The Day After the US Bombs Iran

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.

Eli Clifton

Eli Clifton reports on money in politics and US foreign policy. He is a co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Eli previously reported for the American Independent News Network, ThinkProgress, and Inter Press Service.

SHOW 44 COMMENTS

44 Comments

  1. Mac made the “13th Imam” comment. I really want some verification of this. It is, of course the height of hypocrisy for Christians or Jews to accuse Muslims of being religious fantasists. It’s the Christian Church that is awaiting the return of Jesus.

    I think that perhaps the next Israel might be much closer to the one of prophecy–maybe after all the religious nuts on all sides kill each other. It will be sad that innocents will suffer, but the Judeo Christian God doesn’t seem too concerned with killing innocents.

    It is the height of hypocrisy and projection that Neo-cons, in cahoots with John Hagee.

    Jon, as to keeping the Straits of Hormuz open, while Iran could shut them down for a while with their fleet of small speed boats, even Bin Laden has pointed out, (similarly to Castro) that of course they’d sell the US oil, that’s what they do. Bin Laden knows that he can swat our hand and we’ll send up a committee, lobbyist will advocate war, security measures and the result will bankrupt us. He knows he can drive us out of the Middle East, but we will NEVER compromised on oil, (till oil is no longer indispensable.)

    I totally agree relative to Russia and China. They are all too happy to let us over-reach. They won’t veto or stop us, they will let us wear out our welcome, we Americans are exquisite at that.

  2. Meant to finish the Hagee sentence, but I guess you know where I was going.

    As to the last point, when it comes to wearing out our welcome, we Americans are exquisite, but we Texans are like the “Chosen (to wear out our welcome) People.”

  3. The irony about the whack jobs promoting a strike on Iran is this: they are mostly pro-2nd amendment. These people demand the right to bear personal arms, however when it comes to states bearing arms, their hypocrisy knows no bounds. The people justifying an attack on Iran have the same mentality as a mugger or a rapist who wants defenseless victims.

    Everyone knows the reason North Korea has been left alone is because they CAN hit back in kind. The pro-Iran bombers don’t want that situation in the Middle East. Heaven forbid that brown-skinned nations get the ability to fight back against the crusading legions! You can’t exactly pillage and plunder a nuclear armed nation, can you?

    As far as Ken Mac is concerned, go enlist if you feel so strongly about that:

    http://www.goarmy.com

    Nothing makes me sicker than a keyboard commando trying to pose like a big man. You don’t speak for all of the US – just for a minority of mentally deranged politicians and financiers – so please STFU before using the word ‘we’ when it comes to your lunatic policy positions…

  4. im afraid the hawks have become brazen on some successes attacking
    weakling “states” – well get to the many failures later – and have no clue
    what attacking a country with a real military that has many allies with even larger ones will bring.

    and bring to their very doorsteps.

    tsk.

    truly delusional.

  5. Could the real issue be, should Iran bomb Empire USA? Because it the answer is yes, then we must ask why it is that the majority of the world thinks Iran should bomb Empire USA?

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