In response to my last post commending Flynt Leverett's NYT op-ed on Iran, David Keppel, from Bloomington, Indiana, sent me an op-ed on the same subject that he submitted unsuccessfully to the NYT (thereby joining the multitude of us who have our musings rejected by that particular MSM organ on a regular basis). I think it deserves a hearing here on America Abroad-- particularly when Senators Bayh and Clinton are trying to out-tough Bush from the left.

Common Sense and Iran

By David Keppel

As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defies the West's increasingly dire warnings to stop research in uranium enrichment that could, at some point, lead to a nuclear weapon, Americans have a sickening sense of reliving the foreplay to the attack on Iraq.  In the first instance many Americans might sympathize with a military strike, as they did with President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in March 2003.  Mr. Ahmadinejad, like Saddam Hussein, is repellent to us, and for good reason.  

But Americans have learned from Iraq that just because someone's a bad guy, that doesn't necessarily mean it's smart to attack his country.  The consequences of launching a war go on and on and are costly to everyone.  Crucially, in the case of Iran, bombing could set off the cascade.  We are accustomed to thinking that only invasion does so, but that's judging from the case of Iraq 1992-2002, when it had already been severely weakened by the first Gulf War, as well as from other very weak countries or regions the U.S. chooses to bomb occasionally.  You do not casually bomb Russia, China, North Korea - or Iran.  In Iran's case, its retaliatory capability does not entirely depend on nuclear weapons; it comes from its crucial position in oil and natural gas, both as a producer and through its ability to mine the Strait of Hormuz, strike Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and other Gulf targets, sending world oil prices above $100 a barrel and plunging industrialized countries into economic crisis.  The Iranian leadership has explicitly threatened to do this if we bomb them.    

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