Saturday, September 26, 2009

No sooner do I mention how imprudent it is for 'pundits' to dismiss out of hand the logic of a US strike on Iranian nuclear facilities than I read on STRATFOR's site an essay making my very point [well, not my very point but one similar to others I've made] to wit, if Israel concludes sanctions are not viable and that Obama, out of weakness, cannot be trusted to take their concerns seriously, they may very well feel they have no choice but to act themselves - in which case it would be best for the US to do it for them as a means to both improve the chances for success and mitigate the dire fallout. STRATFOR also agrees with me in believing the only way Russia and China support sanctions is if either the sanctions are toothless or they've been promised something significant in return.

Of course, the problem of a military strike on Iran, no matter who does it, is that unless it leads to fundamental political change all you get is a delay to their nuclear program, not an end to it - and unfortunately the most likely scenario is that a strike will enhance the influence of the hardliners, of the Republican Guard, of the religious fanatics, not diminish it - Russia would rush to support them with new arms, new defense systems - America would be forced to commit to more raids to interdict attempts to rebuild capacity otherwise the whole strategy doesn't make much sense - sympathetic Iraqi Shiites would become restive - things would escalate...

On the other hand, you don't stop Iran from getting the bomb you send a pretty clear message to any other troublesome powers who might be thinking about it - not to mention that such a thing would generate a conflicted miasmic wave of Muslim enthusiasm and fear and send it flooding through Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah's Lebannon and Hamas' Gaza Strip, Egypt's embittered jihadists, stirring up demons and setting in motion events that conceivably conjure forth a worse scenario than that imagined for the military strike...

So, what are you saying? That the best option is to allow Iran the bomb and then hope to crush it with economic sanctions that no reasonable person can believe will ever be thoroughly enforced? Ah... well... the best option is to invade the country and destroy it, but assuming that won't be on the table I'm gonna go with, thinking long term, mind you... the least bad option is a military strike... I think. Best guess.