Out with a Bang
Even senior officials at the agency, who have gone out of their way to accommodate the Iranians’ concerns, have little confidence that the Iranians have any intention of reaching a compromise. “All they seem interested in is extending the talks as long as possible while all the time they continue with their uranium enrichment programme,” said an official close to the talks. “Their entire strategy appears to be based on playing for time.” telegraph
Not even the UN is able to kid itself much longer that Iran is going for a bomb, Or at least the materials to make a bomb.
George Bush has five months, more or less, in office. At the moment his place in the history books, fairly or unfairly, stinks.Which means that he has very little to lose pushing over the rotten edifice which calls itself the government of Iran. Nor do the Israelis have much to lose trying to take out a capacity which could eliminate Israel.
Yes, the Euros will whine and, no doubt, Lloyd Axworthy will let out a howl. But there is no reason at all for Bush to leave the Iranian problem his successor.
July 25th, 2008 at 5:48 am
What gets me about most “progressives” is that they won’t admit Iran was going for a bomb until Tel Aviv is “flat, black and glows in the dark” (about three seconds before Tehran is, but Dinnerjacket isn’t exactly rational, what with his belief in Islamic “end of days” bullshit.).
The, of course, they will slide very easily from their “Iran isn’t even working on a bomb” to their “Iran deserves a bomb, too” positions.
Nice to have such morally casual attitudes…
July 25th, 2008 at 7:13 am
While I agree that the Israelis would act preemptively in a tactical way, as they have before, I think the chances of Bush acting against Iran are incalculably remote. I can think of several reasons:
1. While the Iraq action had at least a nominal coalition of the willing, the politics of the day would make this action entirely unilateral and unsupported on the international stage —something the US couldn’t do even when they had good standing.
2. While the Europeans would certainly not support it, the objections from China and Russia would be a lot stronger than whining and I doubt the US has moral currency to force the issue.
3. There is little domestic support for another action. Modest support at best for the motivation and almost no support for the economic and human losses.
4. The republicans would still like to win in November and there is not enough time to engineer the case for war.
I guess that’s really only two reason: international political reality and domestic political reality.
July 25th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
It would be an entirely good thing to push over “the rotten edifice which calls itself the government of Iran” but I can’t see it happening. I agree with Kevin’s points—the problematic issues of US domestic politics, and conflicts with other players on the international stage—and I would add this one: Ahmadinejad has far more political support in Iran than Hussein had in Iraq, which makes the outcome of an invasion even more unpredictable. He’s not universally popular within Iran, and in fact he’s widely opposed, if not all that openly, by certain demographics in his country, but in contrast to the brutal, realpolitic hammer that Hussein wielded Ahmadinejad’s power is based more on a populist version of Islam.
If the US bombed and created havoc and fought the Iranian troops on the ground, and even captured Ahmadinejad, it wouldn’t necessarily translate into the sort of positive outcome that’s being touted as the reason for doing it. If there’s one single lesson from the Iraq war that more or less everyone agrees on, regardless of whether they supported the war or not, it’s that removing the bad guy and his government doesn’t necessarily translate into the assumed outcome. Some things that are good ideas—“world peace”— aren’t necessarily achievable.
I think we’re far more likely to see a major operation in the form of a two or three day in-and-out strike, probably by Israel with US support, on Iran’s nuclear facilities and maybe a few other military targets. If Iran and Ahmadinejad are very close to having a viable nuclear weapon, or if they actually test one, a military strike will be imperative. There’s a good chance that such an action would actually entrench Ahmadinejad in power and make him more popular in Iran and among other ME nations, but that’s a trivial concern compared to the prospect of nukes raining down on Tel Aviv.
July 25th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Anything specific and quick and dirty will just prolong things and get the lunatics even angrier…just bomb the hell out of them…really really really really big bombs…pakistan hills and border regions too, and a few of their big cities…syria…jordon (only because they put out fatwas and arrest orders on the grounds of blasfemy for geeert wilders and others) southern lebenon, gaza and one of the a-rab states just for good measure…Ah…that’s my dream….there would be less people killed in all of that than in the last ten years of world starvation and disease causes…let alone all the small wars, internal conflicts and genocidal type senerios…
July 25th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
They will not say it, but the Arab states would love to see Iran humiliated , and they certainly do not want them to have the bomb.
July 26th, 2008 at 3:01 am
Plus Israel gets a bucket tipped it on for pretty much everything it does. Bomb Osirak? Attack Jenin? The usual UN censures and college papier-mache heads waving stars-of-David-turned-into-swastikas placards. Yawn. Another day, another “Israel is a racist colonialist settler state” diatribe from the extreme Right and all but the centre Left.
The trick to denouncing a country is to imply that you would love it if only it changed its policies for the better. (You know, just like how everyone loved the US when Clinton was President and when Bush Senior got near-unanimous UN approval to attack Saddam.)
July 27th, 2008 at 10:54 am
I don’t know that Bush’s place in the history books stinks right now—hell, even the AP is declaring victory in Iraq now.
But yes, he could make it better by taking on Iran.
July 27th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I agree, Ben, and he might just do that.
July 28th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Why should George W. Bush’s place in history books stink since now even mainstream news outlets are acknowledging that the United States is winning the war in Iraq.
Or do they assume that Obama has won it since he has already done his victory lap in Germany.
Deborah
July 29th, 2008 at 5:54 am
I doubt Bush will be able to do it and his record and that of previous Presidents has been to look the other way yet actively encourage Nuclear expansion even in countries that still to this day have not signed on to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Accord.
Isreal, India and Pakistan are 3 that stand out and the last 2 are not what I would consider exactly stable. While they may be only a threat to each other, they are nontheless a real and present danger.
July 29th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Deborah, you know the Democrats are claiming credit due to their opposition. They claim that spurred the Iraqi government to act. Pure bunk as far as I’m concerned.