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Obviously, Iran Would Retaliate Against U.S. Attacks

Yet if we carried out a targeted campaign against Iran’s nuclear facilities, against sites used to train and equip militants killing American soldiers, and against certain targeted terror-supporting and nuclear-enabling regime elements, the effects are just as likely to be limited. It’s unclear, for example, that Iran would want to risk broadening the conflict and […]

Yet if we carried out a targeted campaign against Iran’s nuclear facilities, against sites used to train and equip militants killing American soldiers, and against certain targeted terror-supporting and nuclear-enabling regime elements, the effects are just as likely to be limited.

It’s unclear, for example, that Iran would want to risk broadening the conflict and creating the prospect of regime decapitation. Iran’s rulers have shown that their preeminent concern is maintaining their grip on power [bold mine-DL]. If U.S. military action is narrowly targeted, and declared to be such, why would Iran’s leaders, already under pressure at home, want to escalate the conflict, as even one missile attack on a U.S. facility or ally or a blockade of the Strait would obviously do? ~Jamie Fly & Bill Kristol

One need only think about how our government would react if a state or group launched unprovoked “targeted” attacks on major military and energy facilities to see how foolish this is. It wouldn’t matter to our government if the attack was “targeted” or not, and it wouldn’t matter to the American public what absurd rationalizations the attackers used to justify what they were doing. If a foreign military started bombing Sandia and LANL and assorted military bases throughout the Southwest and declared ahead of time that it would do this, I doubt that Washington would respond with a shrug. “Oh, they’re only attacking our nuclear labs and military facilities–that’s all right, then!” Americans would not respond to this by casting blame on their government for inviting attack, but would instead become excessively deferential to whatever course of action the government proposed and would mute whatever other criticisms of the government they may have had in the past. We would be fools to think that Iranians would respond differently.

If most Iranians support the nuclear program, and all Iranians oppose foreign military attacks on their country, what makes Fly and Kristol think that the government will have any choice except to retaliate to satisfy popular anger and demands for retribution? The hard-liners and hawks within Iran’s government would be greatly aided by any foreign attack, and they would exploit the opportunity to increase their hold on power and to quash any political opposition by portraying dissent as subversive. American hawks should be familiar with how this works, since they have practiced doing these very things against their domestic opponents.

The current Iranian government is under pressure at home right now, but everything that it can use to deflect attention away from itself and towards a foreign enemy is a gift to the regime. Obviously, an unjustified foreign attacks is ideal for the regime’s purposes. Barring a large-scale war aimed at toppling the Iranian government, which the American public would not support for very long and which our military would be hard-pressed to carry out given its already excessive obligations, the Iranian government might end up benefiting politically from a war that all Iranians would see correctly as a war of national defense against unwarranted attack. The Iranian military and security forces will not simply fold and disintegrate, and the growing power of the military and IRGC within the Iranian government may make it impossible for the civilian government to avoid launching retaliatory strikes.

If the Iranian government is most concerned with retaining its grip on power, as opponents of sanctions and military action have been saying for years, that means that it will act in its own basic self-interest. If regime preservation is its main priority, that suggests that any nuclear weapons program it might be pursuing is principally intended as a deterrent against attack. If retaining power is its main concern, the Iranian government is not at all likely to embark on suicidal or self-destructive paths that would lead to its certain annihilation. Note that Iran hawks attribute different degrees of rationality to the Iranian regime depending on the specific argument they happen to be making at any given moment. Yesterday Iran could not be trusted with nuclear weapons because it is run by a millennarian death cult and deterrence is of no use against religious fanatics, but today we can safely start a war with Iran that it will not dare escalate because it is too preoccupied with the survival of the regime. Both claims cannot be right, but both can be and are wrong.

Escalating a conflict that the U.S. starts would not definitely result in the regime’s defeat or overthrow, so it is much harder to argue that an Iranian government interested in self-preservation and consolidating its hold on power would not escalate. It is hard to see how any government with regional power ambitions could refrain from retaliating against an unprovoked attack, which is what U.S. military strikes on Iran would be. It doesn’t matter if many or most Americans do not see the proposed strikes this way. What does matter is that this is how Iranians and much of the rest of the world will see the strikes. When counting the costs of unnecessary, unjustified military strikes on Iran, we have to acknowledge the disastrous damage that a full-scale war against a united Iran would do to U.S. interests, armed forces and allies in the region. Pretending that military action against Iran will have minimal costs is as delusional as the action is reckless.

Update: Scoblete has more.

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