For Iran Is It ‘Kick ‘em While Their Down?’
Two recent articles by John Bolton and Max Boot have come to the conclusion that now would be the opportune moment for Israel to strike Iranian nuclear sites. Essentially, Bolton states that Iran is continuing its “delay negotiations to buy time” strategy to develop nuclear weapons capability. Further, diplomacy is a loser option that will not reverse this inevitability of a nuclear Iran. Ok, nothing new, but what is disturbing is WHY Bolton thinks this is the best time for Israel, not the US, to strike Iran.
Bolton highlights the recent post-electoral conflicts in Iran, “makes it more likely that an effective public diplomacy campaign could be waged in the country to explain to Iranians that such an attack is directed against the regime, not against the Iranian people.”
This seems like typical Bush-era logic of the “greet us as liberators” simplicity that must be too good to be true. How would such a campaign work? How long would it take? The logic is painfully light on the lynchpin of the argument: that public diplomacy would alter perceptions of Iranians to see the favorability in Jewish planes bombing their nation with near impunity.
Exactly how would this come about? Such a campaign, which would have the people being bombed identifying and supporting those doing the bombing, is the stuff of dreams.
If John Bolton to going to make the argument that (1) the militarization of the Iranian nuclear program is simply not tolerable. (2) That the only feasible way to prevent this is by military strike. And (3) that the overwhelming US power makes any confrontation heavily balanced to the US’s favor. That is a position you can get behind. But to suggest that we can prod Israel into doing our dirty work, and then have a majority of Iranians thank us has Bolton bordering on the megalomaniacal.
Again, this is not to say that the position of military solutions to difficult foreign policy options is not valid, but that delusions of its effect on the target nation is a familiar failure for the senior members of the Bush era that has not lost its appeal.