Below The Beltway

George Will has a column in today’s Washington Post wherein he pretty effectively tears apart Bill Kristol’s recent Weekly Standard editorial calling for an American war against Iran.

Kristol’s editorial can be found here and says, in its most essential part, the following:

An Islamist-Israeli conflict may or may not be more dangerous than the old Arab-Israeli conflict. Secular Arab nationalism was, after all, also capable of posing an existential threat to Israel. And the Islamist threat to liberal democracy may or may not turn out to be as dangerous as the threats posed in the last century by secular forms of irrationalism (fascism) and illiberalism (communism). But it is a new and different threat. One needs to keep this in mind when trying to draw useful lessons from our successes, and failures, in dealing with the threats of the 20th century.

Here, however, is one lesson that does seem to hold: States matter. Regimes matter. Ideological movements become more dangerous when they become governing regimes of major nations. Communism became really dangerous when it seized control of Russia. National socialism became really dangerous when it seized control of Germany. Islamism became really dangerous when it seized control of Iran–which then became, as it has been for the last 27 years, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

No Islamic Republic of Iran, no Hezbollah. No Islamic Republic of Iran, no one to prop up the Assad regime in Syria. No Iranian support for Syria (a secular government that has its own reasons for needing Iranian help and for supporting Hezbollah and Hamas), little state sponsorship of Hamas and Hezbollah. And no Shiite Iranian revolution, far less of an impetus for the Saudis to finance the export of the Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam as a competitor to Khomeini’s claim for leadership of militant Islam–and thus no Taliban rule in Afghanistan, and perhaps no Hamas either.

(…)

The right response is renewed strength–in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions–and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.

Will’s response is short and to-the-point:

“Why wait?” Perhaps because the U.S. military has enough on its plate in the deteriorating wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which both border Iran. And perhaps because containment, although of uncertain success, did work against Stalin and his successors, and might be preferable to a war against a nation much larger and more formidable than Iraq. And if Bashar Assad’s regime does not fall after the Weekly Standard’s hoped-for third war, with Iran, does the magazine hope for a fourth?

As for the “healthy” repercussions that the Weekly Standard is so eager to experience from yet another war: One envies that publication’s powers of prophecy but wishes it had exercised them on the nation’s behalf before all of the surprises — all of them unpleasant — that Iraq has inflicted. And regarding the “appeasement” that the Weekly Standard decries: Does the magazine really wish the administration had heeded its earlier (Dec. 20, 2004) editorial advocating war with yet another nation — the bombing of Syria?

Neoconservatives have much to learn, even from Buddy Bell, manager of the Kansas City Royals. After his team lost its 10th consecutive game in April, Bell said, “I never say it can’t get worse.” In their next game, the Royals extended their losing streak to 11 and in May lost 13 in a row.

While Will is getting eviscerated by war hawks on the right, I think he has the better point here. We listened to neo-conservatives like Kristol four years ago as the build-up to Iraq commenced. Invade Iraq they told us. Overthrow Saddam Hussein they suggested. I agree that Iraq and the world are better places with Saddam in jail, but where the neo-conservatives got it wrong is in underestimating the resistance that would follow and the power vacuum that would be created by the fall of the Ba’thist regime and the subsequent insurgency that we continue to deal with on a daily basis.

The repurcussions of American military action against Iran right now would be serious, and I somehow doubt that they would be quite as healthy as Bill Kristol makes them out to be. More importantly, where does Kristol propose we take the forces that would be needed in any action against Iran. Air power alone would not topple the regime any more than air power succeeded in toppling Saddam before we sent troops into Baghdad.

Of course, Kristol doesn’t really address those questions in his article beyond saying that organizing such an attack would “take time.” As usual, the neo-cons are long on imagination and short on detail.

Further thoughts at Outside The Beltway