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July 16, 2010

Nuking Westphalia: Obama’s Deep Convictions Point to War With Iran

Walter Russell Mead

In spite of what some conspiracy-minded critics on the right think, mainstream journalists like Time’s Joe Klein do not often agree with Fidel Castro.  That both Klein and Castro think the chances of war between the United States and Iran have increased recently is worth noting.  I happen to think they are right.

The problem is not, as Castro would argue, that the United States under President Obama is bellicose and imperialist.  President Obama genuinely does not want war with Iran and would make any reasonable concession (and even a few unreasonable ones) to keep the peace.  And while what I hear matches Klein’s observation that the US military is more confident than it was a year or two ago about its ability to succeed against Iran (“The Iranians aren’t ten feet tall,” is what one soldier told me), the military isn’t exactly pulling on the leash.

Nevertheless, there is a significantly greater chance that President Obama will lead the United States into a war with Iran than many observers think — and that chance is growing rather than shrinking as the confrontation wears on.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addresses the general debate of the sixty-fourth session of the General Assembly (UN).

The failure to grasp the real possibility that Obama may confront the mullahs reflects the difficulty that many foreign policy experts have in understanding the way that President Obama’s world view differs from a conventional realist perspective.

Most analysts are looking at the US-Iranian confrontation from the standpoint of realpolitik.  Issues like the regional balance of power, US relations with key regional allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia, and economic factors (the price of oil) are being taken into account.  Those are important issues, and they are the kind of issues that under the right circumstances might have led other US presidents (like George H. W. Bush) towards confrontation with Iran.

But those are not the issues that move President Obama.  Under extreme conditions this president might respond to a realist threat to vital American interests with force, but the core of his global agenda isn’t about the balance of power or the Straits of Hormuz. Threats of that kind call forth Obama’s patience and summon him to diplomacy rather than war.

The conventional wisdom that Obama will end up learning to live with an Iranian bomb rather than risking a military confrontation to stop it rests on the perception, accurate as far as it goes, that the strictly realist case for confronting Iran is unlikely to move this president.  (Additionally, his perceived lack of love for the Jewish state means that the ‘solidarity with Israel’ argument might, some feel, carry  little conviction in the Oval Office.)

This relative indifference to realist concerns does not make President Obama indifferent to global affairs.  Far from it.  As laid out in the 2010 National Security Strategy and as President Obama has made clear on many occasions, the United States has a president with a vision for the kind of world he wants to build, and as he made plain in his Oslo Nobel speech, there are things for which he is willing to fight.  As columnist Phillip Stevens writes in that excellent newspaper the Financial Times, Strobe Talbott recently gave a speech in the UK that described President Obama’s Wilsonian vision very well.  As Talbott says, “it is hard to imagine an American president more committed … to the need for effective global governance.”  This is a theme I’ve written about myself in Foreign Policy.

To understand the way this President’s relations with Iran are likely to unfold, we have to look at the impact of Iranian policy on the issues that matter most deeply to President Obama. In my view, Iran and this President are headed toward a confrontation in which President Obama will either have to give up all hope on the issues he cares most about, or risk the use of force to stop Iran.

Ideas and ideals move this president more than the regional balance of power or the price of crude.  In many ways a classic example of the Wilsonian school of American foreign policy, President Obama believes that American security can best be safeguarded by the construction of a liberal and orderly world.

The present international system, often (though to my mind somewhat crudely) identified with the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, starts from the idea that each government is completely sovereign to police and rule its people as it thinks best, and to defend itself and advance its power and interests internationally in whatever ways seem good to it. Wilsonians hate Westphalia, which seems to make governments independent of both moral and legal restraints.  The essence of the Wilsonian project is to turn the system of Westphalian, sovereign states into a society of states under the rule of some basic laws and principles governing how they behave internationally and at home.

Think of the European Union blown up to a global scale; in the Global Union nations would have their own governments and their own laws, but an increasingly dense framework of commonly agreed-upon laws and norms, and an increasingly complex and effective web of global institutions would supplement and in many cases replace the authority of national governments.

President Obama is not a naif: he does not plan to build the GU tomorrow.  He knows that the construction of this order, if it happens at all, will likely take place over many years and through many small steps rather than a handful of big ones.  He is not dogmatic about the final form it will take; perhaps it will be a looser global association without the kind of political and legal identity of the EU.

President Obama discusses Iran with Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy (White House).

President Obama doesn’t think that creating the GU is going to be accomplished under his leadership, nor is he, I think, entirely certain that the world can ultimately reach even a modest version of this goal.  But he does believe that there is no other way to make the United States (and the other nations of the earth) secure, and he believes that the core strategic challenge facing American foreign policy is to gradually move the world in the direction of a post-Westphalian peace.

What does this have to do with the potential for a deadly clash between the ambitions of the Iranian mullahs and the ambitions of the American president?

Everything.

The consequences of the Iranian nuclear drive for the President’s Wilsonian project are deadly; the Iranian nuclear program can fairly be called an existential threat to the Wilsonian ideal.  In particular a nuclear Iran will kill the two dreams at the heart of President Obama’s foreign policy and indeed of his view of the world: the dream that the genie of nuclear weapons can be forced back into the bottle and the dream that the nations of the world can build a post-Westphalian international order in which the world’s governments are bound by deepening networks of laws.

There are a lot of people in the foreign policy world who consider both of President Obama’s dreams to be hopelessly naive.  The idea that the world’s nuclear powers would ever agree to give up these expensive and powerful weapons strikes many realists as laughable.  There is a realist case (which I personally buy) for the President of the United States to advocate the abolition of nuclear weapons; the United States, with its overwhelming superiority in conventional weapons, would be safer and more powerful in a world without the big bomb.  Conceivably, the UK could go along as that county might welcome a chance to save money while looking idealistic.  Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea and France won’t buy.  Those countries have good reasons for their nuclear arsenals and they won’t give them up.

The dream that the great powers of the world will ever form a kind of universal European Union also strikes many observers of world politics as naive.

The cynics may be right (and in fact I fear they are) but that isn’t the point just now.  Henry Kissinger may not believe in the creation of a post-Westphalian order, but President Obama does — at least he believes that without these noble hopes as guiding lights we will lose our way amidst the countless pitfalls of the world’s long night.  And he believes this deeply enough to continue to do his best to set American foreign policy in the service of these two transcendent goals. The President of the United States is a serious and strong-willed man; these values are the rocks on which he stands.

The problem is that Iran’s success means the complete, utter and historic destruction of everything President Obama wants to build.

Make no mistake about it.  If Iran gets nuclear weapons on his watch, the dream of non-proliferation comes to an end and Barack Obama will go down in history as the president who lost the fight to stop nukes.

It won’t just be Iran: if Iran defies western pressure to get nukes, every self-respecting country in the Middle East will want and need nukes.  Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and even some of the smaller fry will have to make their moves.  They won’t all get the bomb but enough of them will.  This will have a disastrous impact on America’s ability to carry out one of its principle global tasks and ensure the steady and uninterrupted flow of oil to the great industrial and commercial centers of the world — but that isn’t all.  The decisive failure of the nonproliferation agenda in the Middle East undermine nonproliferation everywhere, not only because the Bomb will become even more of a coveted symbol of first class international status than it already is, but because with all those proliferating states buying and selling the technology, it will be harder to stop countries from moving ahead.  The global black market in nuclear tech will spread like kudzu; there will be so many sources and so many destinations that the traffic will be harder than ever to stop.

At the same time, nobody will pay attention to UN sanctions and other huffings and puffings of an equally vain kind.  The birds will have figured out that the scarecrow can’t move; they will perch on its broomstick and poop on its head. 

It gets worse.  The collapse of nonproliferation will mark the definitive death of the post-World War Two legal regime, just as the League of Nation’s failure to protect Ethiopia from Italy brought an end to the interwar fling with a law-based world.

If solemn treaties, sacred oaths and decades of patient diplomatic effort can’t stop the spread of nuclear weapons, what can international law really accomplish?  What is the Security Council except an exalted talking shop if it can’t summon the unity and the resolve to act effectively in the face of a naked challenge to one of the foundations of international order?  If global institutions can’t solve this problem, how can such weak and unpredictable organizations be trusted with any urgent and vital problem?  If the treaty on non-proliferation is essentially a dead letter, what treaties still command respect? If countries only obey treaties as long as they want to, and the international system can take no effective action against those who break its most important laws, what becomes of the Wilsonian dream?  

If Iran gets the bomb, the world will change in ways that are deeply destructive of everything President Obama cares about.  A world in which nuclear weapons are widespread isn’t just a world in which the collapse of the non-proliferation movement has brought discredit on the concept of international law and binding treaties on security issues.  It won’t just be a world in which the bad guys have learned that the good guys will blink if you stand up to them.  It won’t just be a world in which emboldened Iranian adventurism will work more rashly and unscrupulously than ever to destroy our alliances and friends in the Middle East.

That brave new world that appears when Iran gets its nukes is an ultra-Westphalian world, a world of sovereign nation states forever emancipated from the dream of true international law.  Nuclear weapons give every state — and every dictator — the ability to veto troublesome interventions in their affairs by treaty-citing busybodies and international lawyers waving documents and babbling about binding accords.  If you have your finger on the button, nobody can make you do anything you truly don’t want to do: this is state sovereignty on steroids, and it is the what Barack Obama will leave as a legacy if he doesn’t stop Iran’s nuclear march. 

President Obama is probably hoping that luck or fate will spare him the horrible fate of presiding over the death of his dearest ideals and of being the American president who destroyed the credibility of the international system and let the nuclear genie loose in the most dangerous part of the world.  Maybe sanctions will work; maybe the Iranians will change their minds.  Maybe new technical problems will crop up and slow the Iranians down enough so that he can pass the problem on to his successor — as, indeed, his predecessors handed it down to him.

I hope he is spared this choice, as indeed I hope we are all spared it. And after George W. Bush’s failures on Iraq’s WMDs, we need to be extra careful that we don’t let our policies get too far ahead of the facts.

But those who think that President Obama’s interest in basing his foreign policy on values make it unlikely that he would go to war haven’t been paying attention.  For Iran to get nukes it will have to destroy the world Obama wants to build.

Will he, can he allow that to happen?

There’s a possibility that he will flinch — or, to put it another way, that his Jeffersonian instincts for restraint will triumph over his Wilsonian ambition to build a better world.  But Iran is not just on a collision course with America’s core interests from a realist perspective.  It is trying to destroy the world that American idealists want to build.  That makes a conflict hard to avoid.

Posted in Essays, History, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Middle East, Obama, Pakistan & Afghanistan, U.S. Foreign Policy
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  • Mrs. Davis

    Let’s hope he considers how his friends in China, Pakistan and Russia will react. Given his Wilsonian inclinations and the very difficult domestic pressure he will be under from Jacksonian Democrats, I am not optimistic. But it will be a glorious crusade effort to establish world peace.

  • Littleton Dave

    I just began my annual vacation in Maine and this years book is the history of the Peloponnesian war by Donald Kagan.

    How appropriate that Kagan stated that no matter how hard the Athenians tried to avoid war everything they did made is more likely.

    And in the end we all know that conflict didn’t turn out too well for the founders of democracy.

  • Gene

    Well, I’ll give you credit for originality but if you’re right I’ll be shocked. Even more shocked than me, however, will be all those “progressives” who form Obama’s strongest supporters (and I’m not just talking about the American ones). I have a hard time believing they will support what will in effect be another attempt at a “war to end all wars.” And among other governments, who exactly will be his allies?

  • Jacksonian Libertarian

    I don’t buy it. This guy is Jimmy Carter on steroids, there is no way this guy goes to war with Iran without a “bloody shirt” on the order of Pearl Harbor, or 9/11. He would have a very difficult time gaining Jacksonian support without such an incentive. I personally don’t trust him, and as a Commander in Chief he is the most incompetent in my life time. He is despised by the military, even by his own hand chosen General (for the good war in Afghanistan), felt free to express the common military contempt for him.

  • Glen

    Great analysis, but wrong conclusions.

    American and European commentators without some background in science or engineering tend to think about nuclear weapons in absolute terms. Those terms are often inaccurate and not universally held outside of a narrow domain.

    And while Obama would indeed be personally devastated by a nuclear Iran, he will not be able to commit the U.S. (and himself) to military action that is sufficiently harsh enough to effect Iran’s determination to obtain nuclear weapons. And he know this…

  • K2K

    Interesting thesis with compelling logic. Regardless of what one thinks of President Obama’s competence or naivete or leadership skills, I do believe nuclear non-proliferation and a general forward momentum to global ‘rules of the road’ are indeed deeply held positions.
    As to the questions raised so far by comments? Name one true ally of Iran.
    The schism between Sunni and Shi’a delivers a host of allies to a coalition, if not willing, at least co-operative. Russia and China want a client state, not a nuclear threat. Is it worth the risk to find out if the theocracy is pragmatic or true believers in Twelver millenialism?

    Step one is Hezbollah in Lebanon, supported by Syria. Look to the offshore natural gas fields to change their outlook. Will they go to war with Israel over gas fields they can not develop without Western technology?

    A perfect storm is still possible. Perhaps the merchants of the Iranian bazaar, and insurgencies by Iran’s minorities (Baluchis, Kurds, even the Azeris who like their Alevi form of Shi’a) will derail the grand plan, perhaps aided by the massive earthquake that is Teheran’s geological destiny. Iran’s earthquake risk-index is so high it begs the question why they are pursuing nuclear power generation instead of geothermal.

    In the event that it comes to military strike, it will NOT be a ground invasion. It will be Iranian provocation that starts the fireworks.

  • nadine

    You are too logical, Mr. Mead. Certainly, Iranian nukes would destroy Obama’s neo-Wilsonian vision — but then so does current reality; the vision is naive in the extreme. Recognizing inconvenient facts is not Obama’s strong suit.

    Obama won’t deliberately go to war with Iran. But he may well blunder us into war with Iran, if his provocative displays of American weakness tempt Iran into some action that we just can’t afford to ignore, for example, if Iran closes the Straights of Hormuz.

  • Lea Luke

    “Nuclear weapons give every state — and every dictator — the ability to veto troublesome interventions in their affairs by treaty-citing busybodies and international lawyers waving documents and babbling about binding accords. If you have your finger on the button, nobody can make you do anything you truly don’t want to do . . .”

    Are you sure a determined, well-coordinated attempt on the part of the world’s leading industrial democracies to deny rogue states access to the international monetary system and to their ports and airports for purposes trade and travel abroad, would not bring these countries to heal? Who exactly are they going to nuke?

    In fact, why can’t we use these policy tools right now to bring Iran to heal? And if China and/or Russia threaten not to cooperate, then they could be subjected to the same set of restrictions, at least in theory, could they not?

    Of course I have no idea what the diplomatic obstacles are to getting this kind of cooperation among all our major allies. No doubt they are formidable. Still, leveraging our collective economic strength is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the world’s democracies. It would be a shame to waste it.

  • http://slouchingcolumbia.wordpress.com DPT

    An excellent perspective here. And it is this idealist tendency in Obama and many American presidents that worries me…

    Littleton Dave, you mention the Peloponnesian war, which interests me because I too thought of it when I read the Klein article. To me, the insistence of states like Israel and the UAE that the US should attack Iran even though its interests, though not its ‘honor,’ are less directly at stake, remind me of the blustering Melians. In the face of Athenian conquest, they asserted that the Spartans would, for reasons of honor, immediately break the Peace of Nicias and vanquish the Athenians, and that Athens’s ruthless and hypocritical exercise of power would be too much for the laws of the gods to permit to go unpunished.

    The idea of launching another war of choice over weapons that are far more threatening to today’s Melians and the castle-in-the-sky of international law and order seems to me a recipe for disaster. And Israel and the UAE do not face such a terrible fate, living with the promise of American deterrence is not so bad. But of course, international law and order would still be upset, the goal of non-proliferation would still be upset (a principle now so hollow that it prompts war and proliferation, rather than preventing it as its first idealistic founders hoped), and so despite the plethora of strategic options the US has to cope, war would become more ‘necessary.’

    The reality is that the ability of the Westphalian system has declined along with American hegemony, and it has been in decline since the ’50s. I do not mean this in an overly pessimistic sense – America is still the sole superpower, but to be able to construct an international order or preserve one so grand, you need more than just primacy, you need hegemony – and that is something that new constraints on American capabilities and the rise of alternative powers and ideals will not permit. There was a good paper on the idea of maintaining the Westphalian system, “Deconstructing our Dark Age Future,” (in Parameters or a different military journal) which critiqued the American interpretation of Westphalianism as an ex post facto historical narrative imposed upon the past by an increasingly strong and globally active concert of liberal powers. With their relative decline, we should expect to see the decline of this order.

    Israel, Iran and Pakistan made a mockery of nuclear laws long ago – the prime difference with Iran is that it is a small enough power the US could stop it, were it not so engaged with other conflicts and beset with domestic concerns. But if Obama’s dreams of international order under reason and law did not die here, they would surely die elsewhere, for the ability to implement the order itself died long ago.

  • http://slouchingcolumbia.wordpress.com DPT

    A correction – in the last line, I meant to say Israeal, India and Pakistan.

  • Peter

    B. Hussein Obama commiting a western nation to war against a Muslim one? I doubt it.

    But wait!

    Iran is Shia and isn’t (or wasn’t) Obama a Sunni?

    You may be on to sonmething, Mr. Mead, albeit for the wrong reasons.

  • http://Www.chicagoboyz.net Lexington Green

    Didn’t all this already happen when Pakistan got nukes?

  • VAdept

    I wish this story were true. I hope it is. I fear it is not. Bush’s war in Iraq was essentially Wilsonian as well, and Obama criticized it. I think you miss the essential nuance of his belief in multi-culturalism: Non-western cultural “differences,” including dictatorship, are to be respected. I think Obama only accepts your Wilsonian vision as it applies to Western nations. Thus, he will quietly talk at Iran until Iran has the bomb, and only then will Obama realize his mistake (If he realizes it at all).

  • Saul Relative

    Man, look at the expression on Sarkozy’s face.

  • D. Cohen

    I think you (and a lot of others) are overlooking the logic of numbers. One atom bomb — put together through long years of operating thousands of centrifuges — is not as powerful and threatening as ten atom bombs, which is not as powerful and threatening as several thousand. The problem with having just one or two atom bombs is that it’s impossible to both have your bomb and use it …

  • Inge

    The analysis of the writer is ‘wishful’ thinking, although I won’t overlook the possibility that if his re-election in 2012 is in doubt, he’ll would order an attack on Iran.
    He is not a leader of principle, but rather one of convenience; he’s powerhungry, and is more conserned with the -statism implementation here in the US then anything else.

  • Justin

    This is a rambling and moronic piece Not even a sniff of reality. This guy has no guts and no respect within the military leadership — as if by dismissing McCrystal made the perception that Obama and his administration were fools suddenly disappeared within the US military leadership. Does anyone really think the families of servicemen are going to support a weak president who is simultaneously losing one war, was completely 100% wrong about and in opposition to the strategy of the another that we did win — purely for political purposes, and last year referred to the systematic murder off opposition in Iran as “a robust debate,” has a chance in hell of leading this country into a 3rd war? This guy will crap his pants and run as hard as he can from the White House long before he ever makes that decision. Once this guy realized his teen-idol status wasn’t going to carry him through his first term, and he didn’t have a Plan B — he began wishing he never started this charade to begin with. The guy’s crumbling before our eyes. Any perception that he has the stomach or credibility to so much as mount a boy scout troop’s excursion on an ant hill is purely delusional.

  • ThomasD

    So, just what type of military efforts would eliminate the Persian will to build the bomb? How much of a committment would we have to make, and how much devastation would we need to inflict? Are we talking de-capitation type strikes? Decimating national infrastructure? Full-on regime change?

    Barack Obama has not done anything that would indicate he has the stomach for such a commitment, nor willingness to face the backlash, particularly the international opprobium. It will be far easier for him to cite Pakistan, or India, or Israel as proof that non-proliferation failed long before his watch.

  • Pingback: Bomb Iran? « The Tiger on Politics

  • andy From DC

    If Mr Obama attacks Iran I will vote for him again in spite of his spending.
    Better a war with the Mullahs than an Iran with the Bomb. Iran has no navy , no air force, and no allies.
    There is even the possibility that humiliating the Mullahs will result in the fall of the Iranian theocracy , as occurred in the Falklands war. Not saying it will happen, but it might.

  • Jeff R

    Jacksonian Libertarian: Speaking as a Jacksonian who was alive and aware during 1979, I will be up for forcible regime change in Iran until the day I or the regime dies, and I doubt that I’m anywhere near alone in that category. Even if it’s for “the wrong reasons”…

  • Halichoeres bivittatus

    Obama’s neo-Wilsonian vision is secondary to his ideological messianic belief that he and he alone must remain in power for a second term.

    His decision to confront Iran militarily will rest on the fact that most American citizens will support the Commander in Chief (at least initially) in war.

    The timing will prove or disprove this and all of the rest of the cogitation about this issue is smoke.

  • Kevin

    And worse, a world with many nuclear powers is a world in which nuclear weapons are occasionally used. I’d rate the odds of nuclear use as N log N or worse, where N is the number of nuclear powers.

    Once there was one main threat, now there are at least 3 (North Korea v SK & USA, India v Pakistan, and Israel v its neighbors). Add a dozen more players and there is little hope that something breaks down, as it nearly did with India/Pakistan several times, and in Israel in 1973.

    It is enough of a threat that the only reasonable use of existing weapons is to enforce the NPT.

  • Dracovert

    WRM –

    In attributing knowledge of Jeffersonian or Wilsonian principles to Barack Hussein Obama, you are cutting a wide peel off a small potato.

    Obama’s parents and grandparents were radicals and Marxists on both sides, his early mentors were Marxists (Davis, Alinsky, Ayers), and his political milieu and associates were criminals (Rezko), racists (Williams, Farrakhan), and Chicago thugs (Daley, Blagojevich, Emanuel, et al.).

    There is no indication that Obama has any great exposure to or interest in American history or Constitutional principles. On the contrary, Obama has proposed changing the Constitution to a Marxist “share the wealth” (Obama’s words) orientation

    ” … President Obama believes that American security can best be safeguarded by the construction of a liberal and orderly world.”

    Wilsonian maybe, but Marxist definitely.

    There is no need and no point in attributing values to Obama when there is absolutely no indication that he shares, or is even aware of, those values. Everthing Obama said to get elected was for the purpose of getting elected. Everything Obama has done as president is consistent with his Marxist, criminal, racist, thuggish background.

    Besides, Israel will take care of Hezbollah and the Irani nukes while Obama dithers.

  • ChangeItAllBack

    This is a guy who sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for twenty years. No good or decent person could ever do such a thing. No person who loved or valued the ideals America stands for (or even just understood the basics of history and economics) could do such a thing. Therefore any decisions he makes will not be based on what is best for the US or any rational analysis. What he will substitute for such a calculation is anyone’s guess but it won’t be anything so sophisticated as what is implied in this article.

    Obama has had to backtrack on every single thing he promised in regards to foreign policy during the election because only a fool would have thought such things possible or even desirable. The few he tried to implement, such as talking to Iran in expectation that they would yield to his personal charisma have failed in grand and predictable fashion. That he sold out the democratic opposition in that country to do so is not surprising in the least. In Afghanistan Obama put his keen intellect to work and after agonizing over it for months while American blood continued to be spilled our modern day Solomon came up with the worst possible of all solutions… commit more resources while at the same time telling the enemy we are not committed to winning. In short we are lead by an ill-prepared idiot who does not even have our best interests at heart.

    If Obama attacks Iran it will most likely be because of personal pique that they had the audacity to expose his naivety so thoroughly. The only thing we can count on is that whatever he does will be foolish, ill conceived and poorly executed just like everything else he has ever done. Then he will go play golf and lecture us on making sacrifices while the press corp praises his wisdom and wonders why the American public does not appreciate this great, great man.

  • MEP

    There is no evidence that Obama is interested in a global system “in which the world’s governments are bound by deepening networks of laws”. Nor is it likely that Obama cares whether the “dream of nuclear non-proliferation comes to an end”.

    President Obama was raised and educated in an environment of profound hostility to the American Democratic ideal. He is following that training to the present day. Obama may well be an idealist, but it is not Liberal Democracy that he is striving for.

    From a Chinese and Russian perspective, the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East is a desirable goal, as it will reduce American influence there and everywhere else in the world. That is what Obama cares about – and that is what many of his backers want. Of course this goal must be concealed from the public by lofty rhetoric about “International Law”, and the use of ineffective opposition (e.g. “sanctions”) to keep up appearances.

    The tragedy of the Wilsonian idealists is that they will excuse the unsatisfactory outcomes of the leadership policies as due to “error” or “naïveté” when they are deliberate and intentional. Long after it should be obvious that they have been betrayed, the idealists will still be supporting the Obama administration.

    Meanwhile, the unilateral disarmament of American nuclear forces is already underway through an explicit policy of attrition and diversion of funding. Nuclear weapons have a limited operational life and our most of our forces are already past due for replacement.

    The destruction of American military credibility in Afghanistan is simply a matter of time, given the present rules of engagement. Weakness invites aggression.

    It is likely that Iran will “unexpectedly” display their arsenal of recently manufactured nuclear weapons within a very short time frame, along with a credible number of intermediate range missiles that can deliver warheads as far as central Europe – or Saudi Arabia. Iran already has plentiful stocks of Chinese-made anti-ship missiles which can be used to block the straits of Hormuz, and Russian air defense systems to protect the launch sites. We are looking at the prospect of interesting times ahead.

    It would require unrelenting political will and effective methods to stop Iran from their final grab for hegemony in the Middle East. President Obama shows absolutely no such intention. Once again – many of his backers want a reduction of American power world-wide.

    There will be no war with Iran under the Obama administration, regardless of provocations from Iran.

    The Very Big War will follow under the subsequent administration.

  • Jack

    What sanctions has Obama imposed on Iran?

    Obama is more likely to go to war against Arizona or Israel,than Iran….oh, wait! He kind of already has.

    No, the crushing of Obama’s Wilsonian dream won’t lead to war with Iran, but his being terminally embarrassed by Amedinijhad will lead to an American attack. It’s more personal with Obama.

  • Loyola

    You lost me at, “President Obama is not a naif.”

  • marek

    DPT,

    Israel has not signed NPT so in principle she can develop as many nuclear bombs as it wishes without making mockery of any “nuclear laws”. Care to quote those “nuclear laws” you are talking about?

  • http://paxety.com Juan Paxety

    Then there’s the argument that Obama will not allow Iran to have nukes because the Iranians are Shia and he is Sunni. Not my argument, but it’s been made.

  • http://booksinq.blogspot.com/ Frank Wilson

    I think your mistake is to presume that this President has a view of world affairs even remotely as sophisticated as the Wilsonian one (which itself was quite naive and wrong).

  • Will J. Richardson

    The only problem with this analysis is that it proceeds from what Obama has said in the past. As we have discovered over the last year, Obama’s words and promises are a poor predictor of his future behavior.

    Regards,

    WJR

  • Mike

    As usual, Mr. Mead’s work is informed and thought-provoking. But more is at work here than Pres. Obama’s idealism. Iran has been hostile for many years and has yet to be seriously confronted by anyone. Indeed, not long ago (2007 to be exact) the US intelligence establishment published its infamous estimate downplaying the extent of the Iranin nuclear progam. The intent of this document was to immobilize the Bush administration on Iran and it succeeded. Pres Obama has continued this tradition by projecting an image of weakness and indecisiveness. That he is not really weak and indecisive on this issue makes the situation much more dangerous, not less. Pres Obama seems to share the assumption common among intellectuals that to make a compelling argument is the same as to have accomplished the act. What we need right now is not a starry-eyed idealist willing to go to war for his principles but a grubby pragmatist willing to twist arms and crack heads so that the nuclear annihilation of millions is not needed.

  • Andrew Guenthner

    I do not find the author’s arguments convincing. A few years ago, many articles along the same lines were written about North Korea. Contrary to much assertion then, the U. S. was not forced to take military action. Nor was non-proliferation abandoned completely; nor did South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan rush to get their own nuclear weapons. Rather than becoming invincible, the North Korean regime appears to be in much greater danger of collapsing now. The “Wilsonian dream” didn’t die in 2006.

    Sure, the situation in the Mideast is different, and, unlike North Korea, the Iranians might manage more than a “fizzle”, but for a President who campaigned on negotiating a peaceful outcome with Iran, and for a political party that made such an issue out of the war in Iraq, to go to war because not doing so might invalidate his long-term vision of how world affairs should operate, seems very unlikely to me. I am not saying that an eventual military confrontation with Iran is very unlikely, just that I don’t think anyone in the White House will be using this particular line of reasoning as their primary argument, even in private.

  • MarkJ

    In my view, Obama is utterly and, as he loves to put things, “comprehensively” [messed up --ed] if he orders military action against Iran. The GOP, for its part, will simultaneously applaud him and then mercilessly flog him with the proverbial bloody shirt. “They said if I voted for McCain in 2008, we’d get into a shooting war with Iran. Well, I voted for McCain anyway….and they were right!” ;)

    The Left, on the other hand, will never trust Obama again. Humiliated and discredited progressives will either pull their support for His Majesty and sullenly head into their personal Fuehrerbunkers or, even more likely, they’ll viciously turn on him.

    Hell hath no fury like a progressive scorned, n’est-ce pas?

  • http://www.examgroup.com keith

    Mr Obama’s Wilsonian visions apart, there is a real risk that if the US and this President do not effectively congtrol Iran’s nuclear objectives through diplomacy, then their neighbors, particularly Israel will have no choice but to take action. This failure by Mr Obama could well solidify relations between mid-east nations well beyond that achieved so far by US diplomacy. Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, none of these nations wish to see a nuclear Iran. And only Israel has the ability to stop it. Obama’s evident dislike of Israel could be his achilles heel.

  • Katherine

    Alas, I think the internationalist project failed in the run-up to the Iraq war. It was a dream; a good dream, but it has failed. I don’t know if your assessment of Mr. Obama’s thinking is accurate. I think it’s too late. This means that if Mr Obama decides to attack Iran to eliminate the nuclear weapons, I may very well agree with his decision — but this rationale is way past its “good before” date.

  • Doc99

    Jefferson? Restraint? He showed no restraint nor should he have with the Barbary Pirates, our first brush with Islamic provocateurs.

  • Xiaoding

    A good article, but wrong headed.

    Iran getting nuclear weapons…yawn. The world will not even notice.

    Iran will find that the sun continues to rise, and that they still have the same old problems. Should they threaten to actually use the nuclear option, they will find 10,000 enemies on their doorstep, with a smiling United States behind them all. Nuclear weapons are a boat anchor for countries like Iran.

    The US, meanwhile, can get into the business of selling national security to the neighbors of Iran, and form loose alliances with interested parties. It is not the end of the world.

  • Don

    My guess is somebody like Saudi Arabia or Egypt will covertly “create” some sort of incident that causes Israel to lash out at Iran.
    No One in the Mid East wants an Iranian bomb and the Israelis are the likely actors to stop it.
    Once the shooting starts, however, all bets are off.
    We could get dragged in, the Russians, Chinese and so on and on…
    Dangerous times indeed.
    The entire world will bear responsibility as everyone..
    EVERYONE has turned a blind eye and sold the mullahs weapons and equipment as they have pursued their ‘bomb”.
    The ‘world” has been restrained with their nukes..
    I fear the mullahs will not. After awhile, you have to believe they mean what they say. I am sure the Israelis do, as they have “seen the movie” and they know how it could end.

  • Herman Richard Matern

    And here those of us praying fervently for the people of Iran to succeed in their long struggle vs their tyrannic mullahs have been hoping for someone besides Michael Ledeen all alone to raise the cry. Is that In Obama’s guts or not to move ahead with the efforts to overthrow the dictators? The people have shown ever more serious efforts to overthrow them. But Obama so far seems to care less. Or? Without such an effort on his part I don’t see where such thinking as yours ever even enters his head.

  • Rob Mandel

    Sir, you give Obama far too much credit. He’s turned his back on our friends, Columbia, India, Israel, et al., and cozied up to thugs like Chavez and Ahmadinejad. He would NEVER launch a war against another nation, especially Iran, given our previous “imperialistic” actions there. No, as he’s already stated often, the problem in the world is the US, and how it dictates to others how they ought to live. He would much rather live with whatever Iran becomes than risk being the one who got the US into a ground war in Persia. And I don’t believe he’s read Xenophon!!

    Look at his roots: where he spent his childhood, his schooling, his Chicago connections (i.e. Ayers), his Alinsky indoctrination, etc. That’s who he is. He’s not deep, he’s not a thinker. And foreign affairs distract him from his real agenda, turning the US into a euro-socialist nation.

  • wes george

    Thanks, Prof. Mead. You just wrote Obama’s apologia for instigating a war with Iran! Lovely. Kind of like a wannabe Richard Pearle for Obama?

    The realpolitik reason behind a possible Obama-generated war with Iran is not that Obama is a high-minded philosopher-king in the Wilsonian school, but that he has almost zero hope of getting re-elected in 2012, bar some massive change in the political landscape. You emphasized Obama’s intellectual proclivities over his apprenticeship in the Machiavellian Chicago School of politics. His tenure in office shows the emphasis should be reversed.

    The corollary to “never let a good crisis go to waste” is to be deviously cynical enough “to create a good crisis when it is most needed.” Obama will no doubt employ “intellectual” arguments similar to yours to justify war with Iran.

    Israel faces a historic existential threat from an Iranian nuke – the Israelis must consider a pre-emptive war as almost is inevitable. Obama could offer a US military role in such a war, but the deal will be that it must begin during the summer of 2012 or the offer comes off the table. The Israeli’s would have to take the offer.

    If Obama starts a war with Iran it will be because he believes that the American people will rally behind their commander-in-chief in times of war thus securing his re-election.

    If the war goes badly — and it might well become a little war world III with many states involved and fronts opening in various parts of central Asia. Perhaps around the world. (Chavez might decide to move on Columbia, Russia take back a few former republics, Lebanon, Turkey and Syria will definitely see combat. Iran will strike out at Kuwait.) And there will be threats to the American homeland as well. Hormuz closed, oil at $400 a barrel, possible isolated civil unrest… Would Obama use these as reason to suspend civil liberties or even habeas corpus?

    If the war goes poorly, Obama will have an endless supply of useful crises – his own version of war with Oceania – as an excuse to implement his policies with or without the usual due process. The man, who wrote three autobiographies before he actual did anything at all, is not likely to go easily.

    Heck, if Prof Mead keeps the great intellectual apologies coming we might be able to justify Obama as a President-for-life!

  • DaMav

    Provocative but not very insightful. Your attempt to elevate this pathetic President into some kind of a far seeing idealistic statesman fly in the face of the reality of the past 18 months.

    Obama is good at two things. Making promises and blaming others when they are broken. There is a long list of examples of this from closing Gitmo to attacking, then strengthening, the Patriot Act. He promised prompt withdrawal from Iraq but has basically ignored it and followed the cookbook Bush left him. He sat on the request for reinforcements for the Afghan for months, then approved half measures. His frequent apologies to the world for America, effusive praise of other nations, and repeated unilateral concessions do not support your conclusion that Obama is strongly driven by anything, let alone principle.

    That said I hope I am wrong and he destroys the nuclear capacity of Iran the way Bush destroyed the capacity of Iraq. We don’t need the UN to do this. What you appear to have missed is that the UN is already discredited and exposed as an expensive bureaucracy of no redeeming value. It doesn’t require Iran to achieve this status.

  • Tom Paine

    Walter Russell Mead has given a completely plausible scenario under which Obama might go to war with Iran. Most of the objections in the comments above are unpersuasive.

    We may question whether Obama’s commitment to an “ever-closer post-Westphalian world order” without nuclear weapons, is deep enough to send him to war against the formidable political resistances he would face.

    We may also question whether he has either the courage or competence to carry it through, long term (I’m not optimistic about either). But I don’t think that we can question that the possibility is completely in line with the intellectual idealism of Obama’s particular subset of the left-wing ruling class.

    It is interesting that Sarah Palin brought up this issue of Obama possibly attacking Iran back on February 7th in the FNS interview with Chris Wallace. She was discussing it in its domestic political context, but her comments clearly showed that she has an intuitive sense that such a thing is not necessarily “off the table” for Obama.

  • KBK

    Mr. Mead –

    Another gratuitous shot at GWB regarding WMD? If there is any fault, it lies with the global intelligence community. The world was convinced Saddam had them.

    If you were paying attention at the time of the Coalition’s drive to Baghdad, you would have been aware of all the peculiar activity at the sensitive sites in Iraq and at the Syrian border. Saddam may not have had deliverable weapons yet, but he definitely had programs, and I think most of the useful assets ended up in Syria. All sorts of interesting things appeared in the Mideast scrapyards at the time. Whole high tech facilities were being cut up to hide the evidence.

    Our inspectors were obtuse, just as are the experts inspecting Iran. Read the book “The Bomb in my Garden” by the Iraqi nuclear physicist Mahdi Obeidi. Read this CNN article where David Kay discusses it. He finds Obeidi convincing.

  • Truth Teller

    Thanks for a good laugh, Walter.

    But maybe you’re just playing bad cop to Obama’s good cop. I’m sure the mullahs are reading your blog and shaking in their boots.

  • M. Report

    Truth is where you find it, even in fiction:

    ‘I am not afraid of the man who wants
    a hundred nuclear weapons; I am terrified
    of the man who only wants one.’

    One bomb, even the fissile material needed
    to build one bomb, can be used to do damage
    that the developed world cannot endure;
    Sabotage the world economy, keep it down
    for as little as a year, and it may never
    recover.

  • John Barker

    I hope you have an inspiring sermon for us on Sunday after these dreadful tidings.

  • R.C.

    No, sorry.

    Obama does not have the maturity to face the fact that his position often requires the kinds of decisions which:

    - Are between two nearly equally horrific alternatives;
    - Must be made without prior access to sufficient information to know which choice is right; and,
    - Will result, in the near term, in the decision-maker looking like he did the wrong thing even if he actually did the right thing.

    Obama is not grown-up enough to face that kind of thing.

    He is a college professor, trained to believe that the world tailors itself to his idealistic worldview and does not behave unexpectedly. When it does behave unexpectedly, his tendency is to blame it, and his inability to constructively respond to events, on the ill-will of political opponents. It must be their fault; they cheated somehow to bring about this unexpected problem. They MUST have cheated; certainly HIS WORLDVIEW could not possibly have been mistaken!

    What, then, will he do about Iran?

    It is easy to predict. He does, indeed, have Wilsonian dreams. Iran’s nukes do, indeed, drive a stake into the heart of those dreams. But Obama will not attack Iran, because…

    (a.) He lacks the strength to choose between two such horrible alternatives, and will opt instead to keep on not-choosing until the opportunity to choose is gone;

    (b.) There’s no way to know in advance what will happen in an attack on Iran, so he will opt to delay and keep requesting additional information until it’s too late;

    (c.) Even if attacking Iran to prevent them from getting the bomb is the right thing, and even if Obama can be convinced that it is the right thing, he still will not do it, because he knows that if he does it, he will be made to look like the bad guy. It won’t be just the right-wing folk (whom he despises anyway) who’ll hate him; it’ll be the left-wing folk who used to worship him. Obama doesn’t have the strength of character to sacrifice their good opinion of him, not even in order to do what he knows is right.

    Therefore Obama will not attack Iran.

    That is why the whole world is hoping Israel will do it, so that they can condemn Israel’s evil aggression publicly, and privately be grateful for Israel saving them getting their hands dirty.

    That’s the deal.

  • http://www.theironscroll.blogspot.com Towering Barbarian

    Mr. Obama is a Chicago Democrat. No better or worse than any other Chicago Democrat. He will not do anything immediately self-destructive to himself or the community that he regards as his possession but neither will he do anything that would involve inconvenience to himself to preserve and he will always compromise a priniciple or a longterm advantage for the sake of the shortterm moment. If he really has the spine to confront the mullahs I will be pleasently surprised. And even should he do so I would expect him to be as inept at it as Kennedy was with the Bay of Pigs. ^^;

    That said, I would be happy to be completely wrong and I’ll join you in hoping that he surprises me! ^_~

  • http://slouchingcolumbia.wordpress.com DPT

    Marek – I mean it makes a mockery of nuclear weapons laws in the sense that unlike a law passed by a sovereign entity such as a government which has binding force over its opposition, an international law only has binding force among the states that choose to follow it. I am not implying Israel is violating the law, simply that programs such as its, India’s, and Pakistan’s expose the farcical nature of the NPT’s pretension to carrying the force of “law.”

    The NPT primarily prevents proliferation among states that have already made the choice not to develop nuclear arms, it does not prevent states that really want to develop them from doing so, because they can merely abstain from signing the treaty or withdraw from it.

    A law that exists only by voluntary choice is not really a law, it’s a contract or a guideline at best.

  • Llywelyn

    Mr. Guenthner is right in bringing Mr. Mead’s attention back to Korea, but not because it belied his arguments: it simply already fulfilled them.

    Just like Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea made due with living under America’s nuclear umbrella, so too will Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Despite public resistance the world over, elites will continue their level best to force post-Westphalian politics upon them.

    But for monomaniacal states the world over, UN blustering is already a dead letter and nuclear proliferation the one sure way to keep Americans and others from interfering in their failing states. The failure to bring North Korea to heel is precisely the reason Iran continues its program and others have or will renew their own.

  • http://Www.chicagoboyz.net Lexington Green

    Are you orcare you not advocating a US war against Iran? This is the second post I’ve seen from you that skirted the edge of doing so and stopped short. If you are, make your case forthrightly, and set out the costs/risks/benefits as you see them.

  • Walter Russell Mead

    To argue, as I do, that the gap between the vital interests of the US and those of Iran as understood by key political actors in both countries is wide, and that the chance of war between the two countries is large and growing, is not the same thing as calling for war. I think we need to prepare for war with Iran, to strengthen our regional and global alliances against this contingency and to leave Iran with no illusions about the dangers of the course it is on, but my hope would be that by doing so we would be making war less likely, not more. The less we look to Iran like we mean business, the more likely they are to miscalculate.

  • Grumpy Old Man

    Those who want war with Iran are mostly slavish supporters of that strategic albatross, Israel.

    If BHO attacks Iran, it will be for electoral purposes. The US national interest lies in a comprehensive settlement with Iran. Nixon got that with China. I doubt the Zionists will let that happen with Obama.

  • http://n/a aperiozar

    I agree wholeheartedly with Grumpy Old Man.

    The most vocal proponents of war with Iran are those who consider Israel to be untouchable.

    Mr. Mead’s argument doesn’t hold much water. He divides the world into ‘them’ and ‘us’ – good guys and bad guys.

    And in this world Israel (with nuclear weapons!) is obviously a good guy, while Iran is a bad guy.

    That distinction only exists when you look at the world from a Euro/Ameri-centric point of view.

  • http://r-mew.blogspot.com/ FinanceDoc

    The problem with Wilsonian foreign policy is that it completely ignores game theory. There will always be those who choose to game the system by aggrandizing power while others are busy policing themselves.

    Obama has simply run into that brick wall called reality.

  • Kermit Roosevelt

    Walter,

    When you say “war” with Iran do you mean he’ll launch a regime change a la Iraq or more that he’d launch an Osirak-style raid on their nuclear facilities? There’s a big difference between the two.

    I doubt he’ll go for the former. If even Bush didn’t go anywhere near going after Iran, I don’t Obama being more hawkish than he was.

    Moreover no US President in history has ever launched a full scale war or even a minor raid to prevent a country from going nuclear. We didn’t stop the USSR, the PRC, Pakistan, the DPRK, etc… The Iraq War doesn’t really count as it was more to deal with WMD they already had and remnants of the Gulf War in 1991. Also, it was a direct response to 9/11. No 9/11, no Iraq War. It’s more than 10 yrs since 9/11 and the politics are totally different.

    Obama is likely to lose significant dem support in Congress in the fall, possibly majorities in one or both chambers. So you think with a re-election campaign starting up, a struggling economy and him in the minority in Congress or barely in the majority he’s going to launch another war, on top of what we’re already engaged in?

    He didn’t even lift a finger when hundreds of thousands of Iranians were in the streets.

    Now, would he launch some sort of Osirak-style air raid? Maybe. Even that I’d highly doubt.

    Fortunately for Obama, Iran seems to be incredibly incredibly incompetent when it comes to developing nukes. In 1995 we heard they a few yrs away. In 2000 they were a few yrs away. In 2003 they were a few yrs away. Same in 2007. Now it’s 2010 and reports have them at the same 5-10 yrs from developing a nuke. They’re no closer today than they were a decade ago. Even the most pessimistic reports don’t have them going nuclear during Obama’s 1st term. So he’ll be able to put it off and not have to deal with it. He’ll be able to say “Our strategy is working, Iran has not gone nuclear on my watch”.

    But I was wondering what type of war you had in mind?

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  • Acute_Observer

    He’s Joe Klein, not Joel, by the way.

  • http://Www.chicagoboyz.net Lexington Green

    OK. That makes sense. Hard deterrence and a credible ability to deliver on the threat if it comes to it. What do you think of the idea of pushing a “non-kinetic kill” in Iraq, to push regime change in Iran, which Tom Barnett (and in my own humble venue, I) have advocated? If we are not going to attack, which
    I hope we won’t, what is the Kennanesque game plan to bring about the internal crumbling of the current regime? Your thoughts along those lines would be good to have.

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  • Anthony

    What a load of neocon/Israeli nonsense.

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  • Marcus Brody

    I enjoyed this post enough, but you offer no explanation of why President Obama prefers diplomacy, specifically, using international means. If there is a ‘Wilsonian tradition’, why does this president believe in it?

    I think that Obama is, more than anything else, a man of his social set. He has always striven to be the epitome of whatever social set he affiliates with. In college, it was Marxists; in law school and after, internationalists. Obama’s motive is not some ‘Wilsonian tradition’: it is whatever policy will make his friends say, ‘He’s one of us’.

    I don’t know that group well enough to answer that, so I don’t know what his considerations are with regard to stopping the Iranians. You, however, know that set well. So tell us.

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  • Rich Rostrom

    Obama is a “tranzi” (transnational progressive). The tranzi dream is the replacement of nation-states by organs like the EU and the UN. Tranzis are deeply and profoundly hostile to military action by existing nation states, especially the U.S. and other Western nations.

    Yes, the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran would be fatal to the tranzi dream. But they can close their eyes to Iran, which is a minor power. What if Iran, or North Korea, or Cuba won’t submit to the Global Union? The important thing is binding the major Western countries, _especially_ the U.S.

    Actual decisive military action by a Western great-power nation-state would be an intolerable affront to tranzi sensibilities.

    The tranzi program has proceeded with nukes in Mao’s China. South Africa, Pakistan, and India; with dozens of vicious Third World regimes inflicting horrors on their subjects and inciting wars in neighboring countries. Every suggestion of military action to end this horror show meets with outraged protests.

    Why should iran be different?

    And why would Obama’s tranzi convictions drive him to act massively against the sentiments of all his tranzi cronies?

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  • wes george

    It’s fascinating that no one here sees one blindingly obvious scenario.

    The Iranians are ruled by a messianic sect who believe their great mission is to herald in the coming Islamic saviour. As such they have calculated a nuclear exchange with Israel will end in their favour, since Israel is small and they are large. As in the Iraq/Iran war, human suffering is of little concern to them. Furthermore, the Iranian polity needs a “crisis” to reconsolidate their power since their never-ending “war with the Great Satan” has become stale with the Iranian people who are in an increasingly insurrectionary mood.

    Israel understands war with Iran is inevitable sooner or later – hoping for much later – maybe the mullahs won’t last long enough to see completion of their “Islamic bomb.”

    Obama, like the Iranian mullahs, is also a messianic leader who believes his ascent to power is the single best opportunity to bury the old exceptionalist America for a new collectivist one – at whatever the cost. After all, Obama doesn’t really believe the American constitutional system is flawless or fair. God Damn America could use a few fundamental alterations. “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” Prof. Mead is correct in thinking that Obama is an intellectual, he just kind of fudges on the particular brand of intellectualism Obama really represents.

    Obama doesn’t have much time to wait. If there is a war with Iran under Obama it will be because Obama sees an opportunity to be exploited pushing forward the Iranian “crisis” to coincide with his own schedule. Obama could instigate war with Iran as an excuse to hold on to power past 2012 – either by uniting the American people behind their commander-in-chief for re-election in November, or barring that, by creating such a dire global state of instability and contagious war that he can rationalise suspending elections and habeas corpus. It’s a measure of how far we have fallen that such is even a possibility.

    Prof. Mead’s apologia for war with Iran is the kind of academic narrative one might manufacture in order to rationalize pre-emptive action, and, as a bonus rhetorical effect, it entirely obscures the poisonous realpolitik circumstances of the moment.

    No war has ever been fought for primarily idealistic reasons.

  • http://denis.fodor@t-online.de Denis Fodor

    Excellent speculation–but here’s another way it could go: Obama flinches; finds himself switched by historical precedent to the track
    leading to America-First, isolation, neutrality,
    autarky , non-involvement, non-belligerence–in a weordwordword, to a position of least risk in bigtime affairs of state. This way the United States will end up in snug and safely cocooned
    from the horrendous conflagration outside. Like
    Switzerland and Sweden during WW II. To survive they only had to assign their economies to the sustenance of the Axis (or tTripartite) war effort. Should this be the course
    Obama is persuaded to follow,here’s hoping he’s still around to handle the ensuing situation. Or maybe au contraire?

  • Tim Brynteson

    Interesting speculation. I find little support that Obama is the Wilsonian idealist Mr. Meade and many others postulate. Circumstances sometimes require certain actions, and yes, Obama may be forced into war with Iran, but it will not be for purely Wilsonian objectives of a new world order. Don’t confuse the rationale our leaders give for certain actions with actual motives.

  • Earl of Sandwich

    You spend a lot of time explaining what you think Obama ought to believe, and very little time actually looking into Obama’s actual stated beliefs. Remember, this is the man who said “whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower” and its pretty clear Obama meant for worse. I’m sure Obama is at best indifferent to a nuclear Iran. Or perhaps even secretly supportive, what better way to avert “American adventurism”.

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  • bryan

    I don’t believe a word of this. Surely Obama realizes that both Wilsonian ideals and Westphalia are purely Western constructs which are not shared too far outside of the Western world. China, India, the Arab countries and other non-Western states would reject both concepts as forms of Western ideological imperialism and a sacrifice of their sovereignty. The closest the world will ever come to such a thing is close cooperation between the EU and North America. Scholars and policy-makers are wasting their time if they hope for anything more.

  • http://www.martinbermangorvine.com Martin Berman-Gorvine

    Very well argued, but I think Professor Mead takes Obama’s stated foreign policy goals entirely too seriously–much more seriously than the preisdent himself does. I completely agree that if Iran gets the Bomb the consequences will be cataclysmic, but Obama’s true interests are in pursuing his domestic agenda, he is determined to wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he certainly doesn’t intend to commit American forces for any other cause, period. Nuclear proliferation? Genocide? Not as important as health care, carbon trading, or anything else. The Cold War, guns-and-butter Democrats were decisively defeated and destroyed by the Vietnam War, and they’re never coming back. Between the Party of George McGovern and the Party of Sarah Palin, how can any sane person choose?

  • Historyshowsus

    Interesting that this article would make a comparison between President Obama and a former president that raped the Constitution’s first amendment. In Wilson’s world candidate Kagan would be in jail for speaking out against the military and blocking them from recruiting at Harvard. I think the comparison is pretty reasonable tho. Obama is an idealist with progressive leanings, big government sympathies and world order tendencies. More information on Wilson has become available in the last few years and he is way less the hero than we were taught by our left leaning public education system.

  • SamAdams25

    I agree that Obama is a Wilsonian idealist. He idolizes the far left progressivism of the most evil president in US history, and is certainly a NWO proponent.

    However, the only reason Obama would start a war against Iran is to boost his chances of re-election, or to manufacture another “crisis” as an excuse to excercise “emergency powers”.

    Obama’s highest priority is always Obama.

  • http://vwt.d2g.com:8081 epaminondas

    Too generous on ‘Wilsonian’ Obama.

    There is only one reason a man like Obama might consider war with Iran …

    IT
    MIGHT
    KEEP
    HIM
    IN
    OFFICE

  • Matthew

    Israel will beat us to the job.

  • Gordon Monsen

    While I realized early on that Obama had delusional intentions of creating some form of Global Union, I find it somewhat odd that someone would be discussing Obama’s looming crisis with Iran in Wilsonian terms. I never thought his foreign policies had much more to them than a sense that if we are nice to everyone and don’t threaten military intervention, all will go well for everyone. Rather than Wilsonian ideals, I would describe his actions and policies as sophomoric and only connected by default to his desire to be first president of some Global Union.

    The naivete and hubris of the administration has always nearly guaranteed that there would be a middle east crisis this summer and that it would likely be a confrontation with Iran. Whether Iran’s actions might ultimately be forcing the hand of a hopeful new-age world ruler, who’s passionate vision of that future One World would be forever stymied by Iranian nuclear capabilities, or if its just the military telling Obama that he has to act or the middle east becomes a complete disaster, it is likely true that Obama will be doing something in the middle east this summer.

    Whatever Obama is forced to do, it is likely to hurt Obama, his agenda, and that of the Democratic Party. If he preemptively strikes, he is labeled for starting a new war and increasing American military commitments and actions to a much higher level than under President Bush. The left and right will excoriate him. The GOP warned the administration not to give Ahmadinejad an inch and Obama has let him take the full mile. They warned him that he should have supported the citizens protesting and he ignored them.

    If Obama waits until someone else does something, whether its Iran or Israel, Obama faces similar conundrums and possibly an even bigger mess. Being forced to do something that so many had warned should have been dealt with so much earlier begs the “ineptness” label first suggested in the gulf oil spill crisis.

    Many of us have thought this coming middle east crisis would be the final event that would seal the fate of the Democrats in Congress and would be another lasting negative story for Obama to deal with as the 2012 elections draw closer. If the economy doesn’t have a miracle, no amount of Wilsonian world view nonsense will save this president from a one term engagement.

  • Adam Garfinkle

    Two comments, Walter. First, as I wrote in the March-April issue of The American Interest:

    “Those who disparage the Obama Administration
    and do not wish it well are sure that the
    President is at heart a pacifist and an appeaser.
    The President’s brilliant Nobel Prize acceptance
    speech has not persuaded many of them otherwise.
    They believe the Administration will
    never use force against Iran, despite its declaratory
    policy of “prevention”, whether we are still
    fighting in Afghanistan or not. I am not so sure.
    The closer Iran comes to a nuclear breakout, the
    more the strategic implications will concentrate
    minds in Washington, even those not temperamentally
    disposed toward the use of force.”

    So I, like you, but like so few others, agree that force is possible.

    Second comment: “poop on its head”? Now that is art. How DO you do it?

  • http://none tom kinney

    You lost me at, “President Obama is not a naif.”

    Comment by Loyola – July 17, 2010 @ 3:36 pm

    Amen. Obama is the personification of a naif while the nature of true realpolitik remains a mysterious stranger to him.

    And when did Joe Klein become mainstream, other than in the derogatory (lamestream) sense? He’s a member in good standing of a secret leftist journalist blog (Krugman too) that was revealed a while back, and one of those elite “pundits for hire” (like E.J. Dionne) who seem to get daily WH memos for help in bailing out this WH to which they respond dutifully in their columns. Who needs conspiracy theories when you have a confederacy of willing dunces at your fingertips? Check this link out for leftist Journolist reporters concocting a scam.
    http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/20/documents-show-media-plotting-to-kill-stories-about-rev-jeremiah-wright/

    Comments by readers above express a higher level of understanding about the wretched excesses of Obamageddon than does this particular writing by the otherwise dependable and fair-minded Mr. Mead who is too flattering to this “naif” of a president by half.

    Far more likely this self-obsessed president will get us into a military jam–anywhere, it doesn’t matter–as he sees his reelection chances circling the drain, in which case he’ll rush unthinking into any convenient conflagration that he feels may restore his tarnished sheen. Nothing threatens a sociopath more than his own disintegration.

    [unflattering comments about a prominent global religion removed --ed.]

    “Recognizing inconvenient facts is not Obama’s strong suit.”

    Comment by nadine – July 17, 2010 @ 1:15 am

    No truer words…However, Obama’s skills in “ducking inconvenient facts” is a strong suit, so let’s give him that.

    As for Wilsonian, just add a little “bernays sauce” and Omabageddon is ready to roll.

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  • http://www.daylightresearch.com Steve

    Kudos to Gordon Monson, above, for summing it up nicely.

  • Plain

    All you Obama haters: He clearly immediately pulled out of both wars and shut down all US military operations and he is disbanding our entire military, clearly. Surely he is attempting to destroy the US by elevating all our enemies….[inappropriate invocation of religious figure removed -- ed] you sound like a bunch of idiots. Obama’s problem is he has been crafting law and doing his job, instead of fighting the public relations war against his domestic opportunistic political enemies..whereas Bush’s political arm ruled everything, Obama thinks he can stop campaigning while he governs. Which allows well coiffed and cossetted, rich Fox News hosts to rile up resentful white people from the country club to Safeway.

  • http://none tom kinney

    [unflattering comments about a prominent global religion removed --ed.]

    This appeared in a post I made above. Allow me the courtesy of disputing it. I’m assuming Mr. Mead took exception to a phrase I used, “congenital suicidality,” in regards to the Islamic religion. Thomas Friedman has referred to terror groups in Pakistan as having so many willing suicide bombers ready to do their dirty deeds that he said it was like ordering take-out (or some such Friedmanian metaphor). Elsewhere, the figure of 1500 suicide bombers in wait in the tribal regions of Pakistan has been mentioned. Without a doubt, this is true as we hear of multiple suicide bombings every day of the week in multiple locations that have one thing in common, Islam. These–i.e., terrorists–are the people who say “we love death more than you love life.”

    This is not an indictment of Islam as a whole, but where are the leaders of the faith when it comes to calling terrorists on this? Almost nonexistent. The myth of the moderate Muslim who lives in the Middle East is obvious: even if there are a few, they dare not speak their name. That leaves it up to those in the west who would like to see Islam sit up and take notice of its massive problems.

    Let’s add here that a recent study indicated that the vast majority of global conflagrations occur between Muslims and non-Muslims, and a form of ethnic cleansing is taking place by attrition and by threat throughout much of the Islamic world.

    The horrific easily becomes mundane if it’s not countenanced in equal measure by an appropriate sense of reciprocal horror. Western media has trod many steps too far on this count already, such as the Yale book published on the Danish cartoons that refused to show the cartoons themselves. Let’s not take another step in that direction.

    I’m not saying Islam is evil, I’m saying Islam needs a reformation. What is a reformation? Among other things, it’s a peeling off from the body politic the stranglehold of a religion so the state can catch its breath. If those of us in the west who have grave concerns about Islam can’t express them in open forum, the terrorists will indeed have already won.

    This is personally embarrassing to me and it’s unfair and borders on the cowardly, I’m very sorry to say, since by and large I’ve greatly admired Mr. Mead’s writings.

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  • Walter Russell Mead

    The Via Meadia staff will continue to edit comments that in our (admittedly fallible) judgment are likely to give undue and unnecessary offense to religious sensibilities of many different faiths. We may not always get this right, but it is important to try.

  • http://none tom kinney

    Dear Mr. Mead: I appreciate your prompt response and agree with your ideals as expressed here, but do feel that I just gave (and did earlier give) the context that belies your allegation of ‘undue and unnecessary offense.’ That certainly wasn’t my intent.

    And again, if we continue to hear not at all or at the very least way too little, from moderate Muslims in addressing these ever-increasing attrocities that could well end in a nuclear incident, what are we to think about their stance on these things much less to believe that they are indeed moderate?

    AND, doesn’t this absence of commentary on their part beg for an increase in clamor from us in calling for their participation in this “dialog?”

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  • Walter Russell Mead

    Much of the discussion you seek takes place in non-English language publications and discussions in countries like Indonesia and Turkey — both places where i personally know moderate Muslims who denounce terrorism and violence in very strong terms — and do so in public. In my experience, just as secular Americans often label evangelicals and trivialize the debates that take place among conservative American Christians, Americans generally are often less than closely in touch with the many currents of thought and opinion across the Islamic world. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel widely in the Islamic world — and I have to say that this experience has left me feeling that many of the conventional American criticisms of Islam can be one sided and we sometimes unwittingly confirm Islamic stereotypes about American arrogance and ignorance when we air stereotypes of our own. However, when it comes to comment policy, my goal is not to police the discussion of substantive points or to squelch opinions I think are misguided or even damaging. But sometimes even acting in good faith people can express themselves in ways that give much more offense to others than they understand or intend. That’s a subjective judgment — but that’s the only kind I can make.

  • Walter Sobchak

    “the two dreams at the heart of President Obama’s foreign policy and indeed of his view of the world: the dream that the genie of nuclear weapons can be forced back into the bottle and the dream that the nations of the world can build a post-Westphalian international order in which the world’s governments are bound by deepening networks of laws.”

    And you say that he is not a naif? You are kidding of course. You couldn’t find a more naive set of goals than that.

    The second is so stunningly naive that comment is unnecessary.

    The first is even worse. To achieve that goal would require the suppression of all knowledge of physics, mathematics, and history everywhere in the world, forever. I am sure that liberals would like to do that. But I think it is beyond even their social engineering skills.

  • http://none tom kinney

    Response to Mr. Mead:

    I’m glad to hear that these discussions between moderate Muslims are happening, if only out of earshot, but then that issue of sharing their concerns with us should be addressed since it feeds into these stereotypes. The west and the rest of the first world need to hear more about these conversations between moderate Muslims as it would greatly alleviate misunderstandings on the most crucial of levels.

    I do appreciate your response and I have to admit I am a wee bit snarky at times, but do feel that snarking is a lesser crime than stereotyping and has some redeeming qualities, such as humor, which is what it is for me, not hostility or anger. We do, these days, all swim in dangerously snark-infested waters and snarking along with the crowd kind of fits into that post-ironic mood we all seem to be in.

    As an atheist, I am nonetheless very sympathetic to fundamentalist Christians and though I cannot and will not discuss religion with them, I admire many of their virtues. And I’m glad to hear your sympathy for them, rare in the liberal media, since few groups in America are more demonized than evangelicals.

    I do have to wonder if my snark, which isn’t criticized when I apply it to, say Obama, isn’t here seen in a different light because of what has become our institutional over-sensitivities to Muslims. We are here in your blog writing and commenting from the first world, not the Mideast and we can’t continue to treat Muslims as if they’re made of grandma’s china. I hitched throughout the Mideast in 1965 and over to Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopa, etc., and then was for several years a Mideast history major–and bottom line, loved the Muslim people whose hospitality to travelers is legendary, but I have to add that I was often shocked to my boots when these otherwise lovely people started to talk about Jews and Israel. And in my six months in 10 consecutive Muslim countries, I never heard an exception to that particular hatred. There may be moderate Muslims, but at least in my experience, not when it comes to Jews and the existence of Israel…so how moderate are they? Or is it really just moderation as seen when compared to rampant extremism?

    Keep up the excellent work, no hard feelings here, and sorry for the ‘cowardly’ comment, that was out of school and not accurate. You do important work with great consistency.

  • http://none tom kinney

    Apologize ahead of time for going on like this, but looking back at Mr. Mead’s response, he mentions Turkey and Indonesia as countries where moderate Muslims have a voice.

    It must be pointed out that neither are Arab nor Mideastern countries and have very different histories than in the Mideast proper. Perhaps more significantly, nor has either of these Muslim nations so far been the seat of violent antagonisms expressed toward the west. With Turkey that may be changing, but in the long run I rather doubt it.

    I notice also that Pakistan and Afghanistan, neither Arab, weren’t mentioned. And while Pakistan has its moments of moderation, they are fleeting and not of great substance. Not yet anyway as witnessed by ongoing events in the tribal areas and elsewhere.

    We still need to hear from moderate Arab Muslims, Mideastern and North African, should they exist, as they have been the main source of animus towards us.

  • http://none Russell Water West

    22 July 2010
    Mr. Mead:
    You are to be complimented on your very salient, incisive and comprehensive observations of the consequences which will result if Iran gets the Bomb —- by far the best I have seen. And further, how those problems will threaten to ruin what you assume to be Obama’s Wilsonian world view and intentions to move the world in that direction.
    You have been clear and definite that you believe that Iran getting the bomb would have hugely negative consequences and why. And I entirely agree. So that makes two of us. But you provide essentially nothing to support the unstated assumption which is essential to your fundamental thesis that Obama would resort to force to prevent Iran from obtaining the Bomb. And that essential unstated assumption is that Obama makes three —- that he shares our views. So given that entire lack of basis for the critical and essential belief that he does, clearly that should be considered very much an open and unresolved question which needs further consideration and analysis.
    And towards that end, I would point to a number of things which strongly suggest that in fact Obama does not share our views, but rather actually views Iran obtaining the Bomb as something, although no doubt undesirable, ultimately tolerable. For example, on those many occasions when he has addressed the issue of Iran’s drive to development the Bomb, he has always done so by framing the issue as Iran having a “choice” — his word. Of the two alternative choices he has specified, one is that Iran can give up its nuclear ambitions and thereby “join the peaceful community of nation” — his phrase. Tellingly, the second choice which he grants to Iran is merely, “to become increasingly isolated.” — again, his phrase. It is essential to note that there is nothing in the nature of that second “choice” which excludes nor in any way precludes Iran from having the Bomb. And it would be naïve and entirely baseless to presume that lack of exclusion and its necessary consequence does not exactly convey the essential import of Obama’s meaning: If Iran wants to have the Bomb, then it is its “choice” to do so. To fully understand this meaning, it is essential to appreciate that logically if Iran is prevented from obtaining the Bomb, then that would effectively precludes it from having that “choice”. So then necessarily and critically, if it is Iran’s “choice” to have the Bomb that is because it will not be prevented from doing so — otherwise, that “choice” would not exist.
    The second thing strongly suggesting that Obama does not share our views is what he has said and done towards the end of, he says, accomplishing world wide nuclear disarmament. And that is for the U.S. itself to initiate steps to disarm. As he has made clear it is his view of how the real world works that U.S. initiating disarming will compel others to also do so thereby accomplishing that ultimate goal. That view is clearly grossly estranged from the painfully obvious objective reality of what other nations are actually doing, to wit: Iran and North Korea. And if that is the nature and quality of the man’s understanding and view of the way the real world works, then it is highly dubious to assume his views would allow for the meaningful comprehension of all those various factors and considerations —- and their consequences —– which you have so well and accurately set forth.
    But that does not necessarily mean Obama would not become involved in a military strike against Iran —- even if he would never do so if left to his own devises. And that is simply because he might not be left to his own devises. Why? Start by realizing, first, the high probability that if Iran is attacked — whether or not America was involved —- it would retaliate, and do so in ways to maximize damage to American interests especially killing Americas. Second, the most effective way to prevent that is for America to preemptively strike and eliminate Iran’s military capacity to retaliate. So, if it became known to the American public that Obama knew that the Israelis were going to attack Iran on a certain date —- because they had informed him and asked for his help —– but he did nothing, and specifically took no action to prevent Iran’s retaliation, and as a result many American were killed, one other thing is highly probable. Namely, that Axelrod will be assuring Obama in the most vigorous tone and tenor possible that such a scenario will insure he is a one term president, and maybe not even that.
    Russ West Phuket, Thailand

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  • Mike Hollins

    If Israel attacks Iran, the U.S. will almost certainly be involved anyway. We have to keep a large naval force in or near the Gulf, because otherwise, Iran could respond to an Israeli attack by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, And that would cut off so much of the world’s oil supply no U.S. government could allow it.

    Also, U.S. ships in the Gulf would be an important part of the defense against Iranian missiles launched at Israel. Anti-missile defenses based in Israel or on U.S. ships in the Mediterranean could only hit these missiles on their way down. Much better to start trying to hit them closer to their launch points.

    It would be easier to let Israel give us a good excuse to destroy the most important site, and the one it would have the most trouble with–Natanz. There, too far underground for Israel to be sure of destroying them with its 5,000-lb. bombs, several thousand centrifuges are gradually making bomb-grade uranium. But several U.S. B-2′s carrying 30,000-lb. bombs would make short work of the whole site.

  • Soljerblue

    Given the way the Putin government has cozied up to Iran all these years, it’s worth asking whether — ideals or no ideals — Obama would be willing to take on both. Somehow, after giving away our Eastern European missile shield to placate the Russian Bear, I don’t think he’d go there. I think when push comes to shove Obama will throw his ideals under the bus along with most of his “promises”, many of his buddies, and his ‘white grandmother’.

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  • Ryan

    What is currently happening with Saudi Arabian oil reserves? I would speculate that an attack on Iran would not occur without a complicit Saudi Arabia…

    One of the main concerns about attacking Iran is the potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Excess Saudi capacity and a release or oil reserves by the same could temper the potential spike in oil prices a strike would cause… I would watch Saudi Arabia for an indication of what is going to happen. I imagine that if something were to happen that Obama approves of, he will have set in place precautions to protect against what would be most devastating to the United States… a spike in energy prices.

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  • Norman Birnbaum

    It is a tribute to the quality of Walter Russell Mead’s work that it attracts a sober public, with a relatively low proportion of respondents pf unremitting vulgarity and with many having interesting things to say. WRM may be right, but by the time more time passes, the situation may have changed the setting he envisages. Changes in Israel and in the US Jewish community, alterations of a profound kind in Egypt, Pakistan or even Saudi Arabia, events in Afghanistan and Iraq, internal changes in Iran itself, are possible. The President by then may have decided that he cannot count on the advice he will have from his intelligence and military advisors. The decision he takes will no doubt he shaped by the sort of large conviction WRM describes, but it will be conditioned by immediate circumstances—and these may evoke
    hesitation above and beyond the usual ambiguities. Some of the commentators appear to regret the end of the former President;s term, but were Obama to follow his course, he would pass on the problem to his successor.

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  • K2K

    Mike Hollins: tracking naval assets in proximity to the Straits of Hormuz is challenging because one has to include the coalition of the willing (U.S. led Coalition Task Force 151) engaged in anti-piracy. The EU has Operation Atalanta. China, Japan, and Iran have independent anti-piracy naval operations as well.

    The US no longer has the alleged USN armada that generated a flurry of reports a few weeks ago due to very recent naval group movements out of CENTCOM command. That could, of course, change again in the next few weeks.

    China’s blue-water naval presence is one reason I think Iran will not try to close the Straits of Hormuz. Iran is increasingly dependent on China’s trade, and knows the Saudis are willing to supply China with however much oil China wants. Never underestimate China’s pragmatic quest for stability.

    Obama’s real test (and that of the EU) may be what he does in reaction to the Kurdish dilemma, which in turn, somewhat depends on events in Iraq. The Kurds are the only nation without a state.

    Tom Kinney – you should go to The New Republic to find un-moderated discourse on Islam versus Islamism. Noting that TNR could benefit from some of WRM-style moderation :)

    Three-Dimensional Chess is easy by comparison to Connect-the-Dots-on-Iran.

  • http://sasfor.com vivi

    Too much to digest at the geopolitical level ? I think not . Having said that, an approaching failure in Afghanistan , a discredited Iraq War after George W. Bush’s failures on Iraq’s WMDs and a recent escalation by the Chinese on their eastern sea board do not bode well for the American establishment nor for American superiority for that matter.

    President Obama has to stem the tide and stemming this tide is all about tough choices. Diplomacy with Iran or sanctions have hardly let a mark on the Iranian hardliners.

    I guess that proper “World Order” would take a back seat when it comes to national pride and the American Establishments pride.

    However, an American military solution to Iran’s nukes would be ludicrous adventurer ism at this stage. The Americans missed the boat when George Bush attacked Iraq in the early ’90s . We all know the target should have been Iran and not Iraq but why cry over spilt milk ?

    The US is on the brink of an economic meltdown and the conventional military and its equipment has been run down to the state that it is delusional to believe that the US has conventional military superiority. The American Military has proven to the world that it is not in a position the understand the basics of Asymmetrical war and has further demonstrated that it can not “Win The Hearts and Minds” of the people. Gates and Mullen know this better than anyone else.

    So what are options ?

    I believe to retain the Old World Order and not to go rushing into “That brave new world” with our eyes wide shut and to maintain the integrity of global treaties and institutions ; Obama would do well to get the Russian’s, Chinese and Indian’s on board and befriend the Iranians and welcome them on board on an equal footing.

    Every nation has its pride and the US has been dumping on Iran since the “Ayatollahs” came to power. The US establishment seems to have forgotten “Every time I embrace my enemy , I make a friend”

    Posturing by the US only strengthens the hand of the Iranian hardliners. An aside ; there are no terrorists in Iran! Why ? because the state itself is a terrorist and there are not two kings in a state like Iran.

    The Pros:

    1) Iran may become less of a hard line state, thus less of a headache for the US. (Doesn’t help Israel though).
    2) Get Iran to participate in the Afghanistan madness.Considering that the Iranian Hardliners are probably more radical than the Taliban and Al- Quaida put together, they will probably not have much of a problem understanding the mood and the minds of the Taliban and Quaida.
    3) Iran’s excellent Military and superb intelligence agencies would infuse fresh blood, equipment and brains into this operation.

    The Cons:
    1) Israel: would probably wiped off the surface of the earth. Anyway, the concept of an Israeli “Nation” has outlived its time / usefulness, for the Western Powers to be (and the Russians for that matter) . Please do not misunderstand,I personally am a great admirer of the Israeli nation and the Israeli peoples. But unfortunately the above is the hard reality . I am surprised the Israelis, do not see it coming!

    2) Hardly helps the US in dealing with Pakistan – Which the beleaguered US establishment has not understood AS YET , that Pakistan is a threat to US National Suzerainty and Security !! Or with not so small problem of Afghan Opium, which is arriving on Western shores by the ship load. I would hate to see what would happen to the poor wretched Columbian Drug Lords, once their market share is being eaten into by the Afghan Poppy !!

    All the above is NOT easy but doable .

    Oh, I forgot to mention , the above course of action would free the poor Gass Guzzling Americans Consumer from the shackles of the Wahhabi and the US could not satisfy its thirst with Iranian Oil !!

    At the end of the day, Oil is what this whole shooting match is about ?

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  • http://www.huffingtonpost.com/giles-slade giles slade

    This is clear and thoughtful analysis of the stakes involved in the nuclear development of Iran, but (even if President Obama were willing) I don’t think intervention is an American choice any longer. I think Israel and Saudi Arabia will act jointly long before America steels itself to destroying the burgeoning nuclear capabilities of this unstable and ambitious regime. If Bush’s two-front war is seen as an attempt to project power into Iran, it is by now clearly a failed attempt. But there are other interests in the region that will not permit Iran to wield decisive influence through the threat of nuclear attack. As odious as they find each other’s company, the respective holy lands of Judaism and Islam have too much at stake to allow a radically destabilized region. Israeli missiles will pass over Saudi airspace en route to Iranian weapons sites. This will buy some breathing room. Perhaps America’s role now is to encourage the political divisions that threaten to tear Iran apart internally. Iran will not stop trying to obtain a nuclear trump-card until the Revolutionary Guard stops being the pre-eminent force inside the country. This is point at which to apply pressure.

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  • Joe

    @ Justin – July 17, 2010
    What war did you win? I think that your perception of victory in Iraq is as misguided as the leader that declared it. I think you severley under-rate your president’s capabilities and are yourself delusional to what means can be achieved by launching head on into war.

  • Tech

    Sun Tzu over 2,500 years ago wrote the “Art of War” and he knew more about war and policy than Hillary Clinton or Obama. It’s a business and business is a war and humans and mostly programmed sheep leaders use. Now all Henry Kissengers and David Rockefellers on earth can sit around and run their schemes and you have Rand, the CIA, DIA, NSA, NCS, etc. etc. and for what? It’s business and China is winning! Just about over too! Who get the best Iraqi oil pool? The new gas pipeline? All manufacturing? all the money???? Iran?????? Goodness, couldn’t even deal with Chavez or Morales and it’s a good thing! Nelson Rockefeller played with Latin America too long and Sept. 11th 1973-Pinochet? Why is it Americans are kept do dumb and think they can dictate to everyone else??? Maybe it’s time to step back and think, visit others and handle things in a better way than bombing and threats. Anyway America is being busted, the dollar trashed and the country imploded. America is the target, not Iran! Detroit! Take a good look at it or any of the other cities that were the heart of the real economy and wake up. China seeks to dominate the global economy and Iran is a non-issue to sell arms to Arabs etc. and distract people. America was sold out from within by the real rulers(not the government) and will be so weak and broken maybe then it can be morphed into the New World Order-written in latin on the dollar bill! Not America, the world, America is seen as dangerous and has to be broken.

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  • Kees Klinker

    The only thing Obama has to do, is sell a couple of F22´s and maybe one or two B2s to Israel…. They will take care of the rest !

  • Frank Truth

    If Iran gets the bomb, that will pretty much be the end of human civilization. No, I don’t think Iran would ever use the bomb. They won’t have to. Once they get the bomb several possiblities be come very likely. Nuclear proliferation. With so many nations have nuclear bombs, it only become a matter of time before they are used. First countries will use tactical nuclear weapons to defend themselves. If that doesn’t work they will go all out. A delivery system is not needed to make use of an atom bomb. One can be contained in the hull of any small sailing vessel, which can in turn be sailed into any port. The components can be smuggled into the US country, and nuclear bombs could be planted in every major US city. In one fell swoop the entire US could be ***ANONYMOUSLY*** destroyed. Say, hello to a nuclear winter. Or Iran could simply blackmail the US by threatening to nuke every oil well in the Middle-East. Once Iran gets the atom bomb, their power will expand exponentially. We will have to endure another 30 years of cold war. There will be no peace dividend. The world will descend into world-wide depression. Once Iran gets the bomb they will feel emboldened to attack Israel using conventional bombs, know Israel will not attack them back, since Israel would be totally obliterated if even one small atom bomb were detonated near it. Most people don’t know that Stalin was ready to nuke the US, just before he died. Some people say he would never have done that since the US had a stronger military and many more nukes than the Soviet Union had at the time. Those closest to Stalin said he didn’t care how many Russians died. Stalin believed in the end there can only be one, and he was planning on being that one. Stalin murdered his wife, his children, his closest friends, and 30 million Russians himself. He clearly suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Hitler was a megalomaniac, but Hitler was not insane the way Stalin was insane. Hitler killed those close to him who turned against him. Stalin routinely killed all those who were close to him and loyal to him out of paranoia. Finally, what precautions would Iran take to prevent Islamic extremists from stealing their nuclear weapons? Iran would appoint the most extreme, Islamic extremists to guard them bomb. The chances of Iranian nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists and anti-American Jihadists would be better than 50-50. Look at human history. The past 50 years have been an aberration. The only reason there was not a major world war the past 50 years is the US was a benevolent superpower. That was the first time in human history pacifists had the strongest military on Earth. Few people consider the US to be pacifist country, but if you look back on human history, you would see any other country that had the kind of power the US had ruthlessly exploited their power to the hilt. Once the US becomes just another nation with nuclear weapons, nuclear wars will become common place. Most people don’t believe this is true, because they suffer from what is called the normalacy bias. People are always shocked with something happens that is different than their past experiences. Many people were shocked and surprised on 9/11. Others were expecting it. For the past 20 years, all terrorist experts have said, the question is not if, but when terrorists will acquire and use nuclear weapons against the US. If Iran gets the bomb, those chance go up dramtically. The notion that every country has the right have a their own arsenal nuclear bombs is ridiculous. Maybe, every human should have the right to their own atom bomb. Forget global warming. Homo Sapiens will be wipped by a nuclear winter. Humans are just too stupid to get it.

  • Frank Truth

    When you cross the event horizon of a black hole, you don’t notice thing. Everything seems just like it did a minute ago, even though you are now doomed. The same is true if Iran aquires the atom bomb. At first it will seem like nothing has changed. But that will set in motion, the ineluctable desruction of human civilization as we know it.