The bad Iraq precedent.
Remember when Bush first asked Congress for a resolution authorizing the military invasion of Iraq, he wanted one that would enable him to pre-emptively go after any regime in the Middle East that the Admin deemed complicit in the other side of the War on Terror. Fortunately, Congressional Dems insisted in the compromise resolution that the wording of the authorization be limited explicitly to Iraq.
But now that Ahmadinejad has triggered off the American neocon advocacy of a preemptive conflict with Iran, the spirit of that first resolution is back. In the Weekly Standard, Jeffrey Bell explains why We Can Never Look Back:
But what is starting to become clear is that Ahmadinejad's seemingly reckless challenge will extract, and is meant to extract, a cost in U.S. standing among our friends and allies, in Iraq and across the globe. A war president who can be portrayed as having given up on the core of his own war strategy will be seen as a leader considerably less capable of deterring our terrorist enemies, wherever they are and whatever it is they are plotting.
Via, the Weekly Standard's blog, Gerard Baker gets (in part) at the same idea writing for the Times of London:
If Iran goes nuclear, it will demonstrate conclusively that even the world’s greatest superpower, unrivalled militarily, under a leadership of proven willingness to take bold military steps, could not stop a country as destabilising as Iran from achieving its nuclear ambitions.
Diplomacy and a strategy of waiting for generational upheaval to change the government in Iran are still, in my opinion, the most viable policy options regarding Iran. But the Iraq precedent has probably made them less viable political options, and made the prospects for an honest, non-hysterical-face-saving debate on the matter inside the US that much more bleak. The Bushies are certainly sounding cautious right now on the subject of Iran. Recall, though, in the period after 911, how impressed a lot of liberals were with the Bushies' apparent judicious handling of impending war with the Taliban and coddling of world opinion. That certainly didn't last.
In this instance, too, the problem may be compounded by the fact that the Bushies are politically a lot weaker than they were before. That might not bode well for bold new doctrines, but it does limit their ability and willingness to stand up to special interest groups, like the neocons, especially given how the neocons influence media narrative and partisan opinion of the Administration.
Preemptively attacking Iran's nuclear facilities is a terrifying idea and liberals ought to stay out in front in making the case against neoconservative hysteria on the subject. But in the end, it may be a far more difficult case to make than was the one against the pre-emptive attack on Iraq, which was, in 2002, still a relatively exotic concept. The War in Iraq has its own self-contained lessons. The longer time goes on, the more foolish the belated reverse-domino-effect justification looks. Elections in Iran and Palestine suggest that relatively free elections are no pancea, while the situation in Egypt suggests that it's fairly easy to talk about free-society without really doing much to achieve it). But as precedent, Iraq isn't self-contained at all. The hawks will argue that Bush is bound by his own "Bush Doctrine" not to stand down with regard to Iran. Liberals can argue that it's just a matter of compounding our errors, but, as Bell points out happily in his article, Americans have never been very good at standing down.
I bet the neocons understood this from the start.
But now that Ahmadinejad has triggered off the American neocon advocacy of a preemptive conflict with Iran, the spirit of that first resolution is back. In the Weekly Standard, Jeffrey Bell explains why We Can Never Look Back:
But what is starting to become clear is that Ahmadinejad's seemingly reckless challenge will extract, and is meant to extract, a cost in U.S. standing among our friends and allies, in Iraq and across the globe. A war president who can be portrayed as having given up on the core of his own war strategy will be seen as a leader considerably less capable of deterring our terrorist enemies, wherever they are and whatever it is they are plotting.
Via, the Weekly Standard's blog, Gerard Baker gets (in part) at the same idea writing for the Times of London:
If Iran goes nuclear, it will demonstrate conclusively that even the world’s greatest superpower, unrivalled militarily, under a leadership of proven willingness to take bold military steps, could not stop a country as destabilising as Iran from achieving its nuclear ambitions.
Diplomacy and a strategy of waiting for generational upheaval to change the government in Iran are still, in my opinion, the most viable policy options regarding Iran. But the Iraq precedent has probably made them less viable political options, and made the prospects for an honest, non-hysterical-face-saving debate on the matter inside the US that much more bleak. The Bushies are certainly sounding cautious right now on the subject of Iran. Recall, though, in the period after 911, how impressed a lot of liberals were with the Bushies' apparent judicious handling of impending war with the Taliban and coddling of world opinion. That certainly didn't last.
In this instance, too, the problem may be compounded by the fact that the Bushies are politically a lot weaker than they were before. That might not bode well for bold new doctrines, but it does limit their ability and willingness to stand up to special interest groups, like the neocons, especially given how the neocons influence media narrative and partisan opinion of the Administration.
Preemptively attacking Iran's nuclear facilities is a terrifying idea and liberals ought to stay out in front in making the case against neoconservative hysteria on the subject. But in the end, it may be a far more difficult case to make than was the one against the pre-emptive attack on Iraq, which was, in 2002, still a relatively exotic concept. The War in Iraq has its own self-contained lessons. The longer time goes on, the more foolish the belated reverse-domino-effect justification looks. Elections in Iran and Palestine suggest that relatively free elections are no pancea, while the situation in Egypt suggests that it's fairly easy to talk about free-society without really doing much to achieve it). But as precedent, Iraq isn't self-contained at all. The hawks will argue that Bush is bound by his own "Bush Doctrine" not to stand down with regard to Iran. Liberals can argue that it's just a matter of compounding our errors, but, as Bell points out happily in his article, Americans have never been very good at standing down.
I bet the neocons understood this from the start.
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