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The Complete Folly of an Iranian War

Josh Rogin reports on the Bush administration’s reasons for not attacking Iran: Without an actual occupation of Iran, which nobody wants to contemplate, the Bush administration concluded that the result of a limited military campaign in Iran would be counter-productive, according to Hayden. “What’s move two, three, four or five down the board?” Hayden said, […]

Josh Rogin reports on the Bush administration’s reasons for not attacking Iran:

Without an actual occupation of Iran, which nobody wants to contemplate, the Bush administration concluded that the result of a limited military campaign in Iran would be counter-productive, according to Hayden.

“What’s move two, three, four or five down the board?” Hayden said, arguing that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities was only a short-term fix. “I don’t think anyone is talking about occupying anything.”

Hayden then said he didn’t believe the Israelis could or even would strike Iran — that only the United States has the capability to do it — but either way, it’s still a bad idea.

“The Israelis aren’t going to [attack Iran] … they can’t do it, it’s beyond their capacity. They only have the ability to make this [problem of Iran’s nuclear program] worse. We can do a lot better,” he said. “Just look at the physics, the fact that this cannot be done in a raid, this has to be done in a campaign, the fact that neither we nor they know where this stuff is. [The Israelis] can’t do it, but we can.”

It’s a good rule of thumb that if the Bush administration believed that an illegal war was a bad idea, it still is. Then there is the small matter that Iran isn’t in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, as Yousaf Butt explains again:

In reality, however, Iran is not doing anything that violates its legal right to develop nuclear technology. Under the NPT, it is not illegal for a member state to have a nuclear weapons capability — or a “nuclear option.” If a nation has a fully developed civilian nuclear sector — which the NPT actually encourages — it, by default, already has a fairly solid nuclear weapons capability. For example, like Iran, Argentina, Brazil, and Japan also maintain a “nuclear option” — they, too, could break out of the NPT and make a nuclear device in a few months, if not less. And like Iran, Argentina and Brazil also do not permit full “Additional Protocol” IAEA inspections.

The real legal red line, specified in the IAEA’s “Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements,” is the diversion of nuclear materials to a weapons program. However, multiple experts and official reports have affirmed over the years that they have no evidence that any such program exists.

Somehow Americans are debating an illegal course of action that wouldn’t work against a threat that doesn’t currently exist, but which could very well create the outcome that it is designed to prevent.

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