Justus For All

Washington Post

The debate on Iran is drifting toward the ugly question that the Bush administration would most like to avoid. That is: Is it preferable for the United States to live with the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran, or with those of a unilateral American military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities?President Bush has never answered that question; instead, he and his State Department have repeatedly called an Iranian bomb “intolerable” while building a diplomatic coalition that won’t tolerate a military solution. But two of our more principled senators, Republican John McCain and Democrat Joe Lieberman, have this month faced the Iranian Choice — and both endorsed military action. McCain was most direct: “There is only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option,” he said on “Face the Nation.” “That is a nuclear-armed Iran.”

I am not a huge McCain fan, but I agree with him 100% on this.  The op-ed goes on to criticise Bush’s diplomacy for apparently not having decided which choice to make.  I think the criticism is a little off base, although I expect that the Bush administration hasn’t decided yet exactly what course to take, and is keeping it’s options open.

The only ‘military option’ that the op-ed seems to envision is a series of Osirak like raids to damage and set back the Iranian nuclear program.  I disagree that those are the only choices, and the other possibilities don’t require, or benefit from, the ‘end diplomacy as soon as possible’ strategy.

I don’t think that their are any good choices on Iran, I am pretty sure that Osirak like raids, despite the wonders that the original did, are not the solution here though.  The Iranians have prepared for such a contigency and we are unlikely to do as much damage to them via such a tactic as they can do to us.