Is war with Iran in America's interests?

[freedomfries]

Is war with Iran in America's interests?

Kirk Caraway
Nevada Appeal
February 18, 2007
http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20070218/OPINION/102180085

There has been a lot of saber rattling going on with respect to Iran.

American officials claim they have no plans to attack Iran, yet they moved a second aircraft carrier battle group into the Persian Gulf, and they briefed the press on Iranian weapons that are being used in Iraq, alleging that the "highest levels" of the Iranian government are involved.

The fact that people are skeptical of American intelligence claims shouldn't come as a surprise, seeing what a bang-up job they did next door.

The Bush administration claim that Iran's government is meddling in the war isn't exactly a slam-dunk case. The presence of Iranian weapons does not equal involvement. The U.S. also recently learned of a shipment of Austrian sniper rifles being delivered to the insurgents in Iraq, but that doesn't mean we are going to be bombing Vienna anytime soon.

While people argue about this evidence, I think they miss the real point here. Let's say it's true, Iran's leaders are shipping bombs to Iraq. Does that mean we should attack Iran?

No.

Certain pro-war people will go crazy at this notion, that we shouldn't attack those who ship weapons to our enemies.

Really? If that is so, why didn't we attack the USSR and China for supplying weapons to our enemies in Korea and Vietnam? The answer is that attacking either of these nations directly was not in our best interests. The fallout of an attack, both literally and figuratively, would have been detrimental to us and the rest of the world.

How did we deal with the Soviets and Chinese for arming our enemies? We talked to them, negotiated, and eventually found peaceful solutions. Richard Nixon was talking to both the Chinese and Soviets at the same time we had troops on the ground in Vietnam being killed with their weapons. And eventually it worked.

Attacking Iran at this point in history would be a disaster that would endanger the entire region and the economies of half the world.

Iran is no Iraq. It has almost three times the population and four times the land area. Iran could flood Iraq with fighters and weapons to the point of making it untenable for U.S. forces to stay there. They could also cause trouble in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large portion of the world's oil flows.

The fact of the matter is that Iran has more justification for intervening in Iraq than the U.S. This is a country they waged war with for a decade, that had its people gassed by Saddam Hussein, where they share a religion, and whose stability directly affects their security. Frankly, I'd be surprised if Iran wasn't trying to intervene, though probably not as Bush is proclaiming. It is in Iran's interests to have a stable, peaceful Iraq.

While every effort should be made to debunk whatever false evidence may come out of the Bush White House as it tries to justify an attack on Iran as it did with Iraq, it would be a mistake to couch the argument in such a way as to justify an attack if some solid evidence is found of Iran's meddling. That was the mistake made in Iraq. It really didn't matter that much whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. What mattered is that our invasion set up a civil war we can't control, and the resulting chaos is worse than if we had just stayed home.

What is really scary is that we have a politically wounded president who is hoping to salvage something of a legacy, being encouraged by his neoconservative enablers to attack Iran, despite the warnings from the military and diplomatic sectors, some of the same warnings that turned out to be true about Iraq.

There is an opportunity here for the Bush administration to talk with Iran, to work out a deal that serves both country's interests, that could help bring peace to Iraq and send our troops back home. The truth is that we are both backing the same parties in Iraq, yet we are too stubborn to accept that we share some of the same goals as our sworn enemies. If Roosevelt and Stalin could work together as allies to bring and end to World War II, certainly we could work something out here.

But it's hard to talk to someone who you are swinging a sword at.
http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20070218/OPINION/102180085