The Occasional Observer

Out of Iraq --> Into Iran!

Just when the Bush administration seemed likely to ride off into the sunset, and leave a massive and unfinished undertaking in Iraq to its successor, apparently they're not done on the foreign policy front. The Bush doctrine, long scuttled operationally if not rhetorically, is apparently making a comeback in the oval office, if this story is correct.

Here is the upshot:

The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.

Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. "The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern," the source said this week.

I'm sure the Weekly Standard is doing cartwheels, but there comes a time when one has to wonder, has anyone been paying attention around here? Or in the parlance of my boys in the Orange and Blue, "Can't anyone here play this game?"

Oh, sure, I can conceive of certain situations in which a military strike might make sense. But not until those running DoD have shown the American people that they understand that nation building in the middle east is a futile undertaking (at least with the limitations that are inherent for the U.S., with our all-volunteer military and political environment). With that framework in place, one could argue in favor of a strike meant to destroy Iranian terror-making capacity, without any grandiose dreams of making Iran an ally. Of course, with arguably little progress in Iraq and no recognition that we've been walking the same dead-end road for 5 years, I have a hard time giving this administration the green light to begin a new military excursion. They simply haven't earned the trust (on judges, yes; on nation building, no).

Even if the proper framework were in place for an attack on Iran, I would view it skeptically. There are far too many pitfalls diplomatically, and the threat posed by Iran would have to be catastropic and immediate to justify the downside. For those who scoff at the diplomatic downside, I too once thought the same way. But the Iraq venture has proven that the diplomatic shock waves caused by unilateral regime change are real and consequential. The effects go further than the mere "squawk box" on the East side of Manhattan.

For one, real relationships become strained. Close friends become less likely to back you (Germany/Italy/Spain/Britain). Marginal/neutral powers who sought to foster good (or at least calm) relations, become increasingly aggressive and confrontational, as they perceive us as meddling in their sphere of interest and presenting a real threat to their national interest (Russia).

Then we come the third world. In the Cold War, poorer nations were important only symbolically (at least in the geopolitical sense), as the US and USSR argued about the inevitability of Communist revolutions. But in the age of terror (where a man and a plan and a little government-sanctioned space can do serious damage) such nations are important in and of themselves. And the "summits" we have seen are troubling, where anti-US leaders have started to band together to create a Lilliputian counterweight to protect themselves from US interference (Cuba/Venezuela/Iran).

Finally, unified international action becomes increasingly difficult in such a fractured diplomatic environment, even against known rogue states (North Korea).

In short, an aggressive, military-first solution to the terror problem is changing the way world thinks of America. Instead of the city on a hill, that far-off land where the streets are paved with gold and freedom is cherished, I fear we are becoming viewed as the bully willing to hit the little guy with a billy club at the first provocation. We are becoming the interventionist European state of yore that the founding fathers specifically warned us not to become.

At this point, unless the President has intel that Iran is firing up the rockets or shipping the warhead to AQ, I hope he has the common sense to stand down until 2009. The next administration may have the judgment, competence, and political capital at home, that if military intervention becomes necessary in Iran, it can be successfully executed.