Hitchens on Iran: A Surprising Verdict
You might think, given Christopher Hitchens’ long-term antipathy towards all things religious, and his especially vehement reation towards that brand he labels ‘islamo-fascism’, that he would be a supporter of military action against Iran. You would be wrong:
All the war games and simulations that I have seen have concluded that it isn’t possible to disarm Iran by airstrikes. Learning perhaps from what happened to Saddam’s nuclear plant at Osirak, the authorities have dispersed the program widely and put a lot of it underground. Nor can the Israelis be expected to do much by proxy: They would have to fly over Iraq this time, and it would be even more obvious than usual that they were acting as an American surrogate. Professor Edward Luttwak claims, in the Wall Street Journal, that selective strikes could still retard or degrade the program, but this, if true, would only restate the problem in a different form.
This means that our options are down to three: reliance on the United Nations/European Union bargaining table, a “decapitating” military strike, or Nixon goes to China. The first being demonstrably useless and somewhat humiliating, and the second being possibly futile as well as hazardous, it might be worth giving some thought to the third of these.
I’m not sure of his conclusions, but he (need I say?) knows far more about the situation than I; food for thought, at any rate.
One thing he has absolutely right, I’m afraid: air strikes will probably not do the job – and an invasion on the ground seems a remote possibility. Special forces? Perhaps – but that would be a long shot. To be continued, to be sure…
UPDATE 8:22 a.m.: Our good friend Colin has further thoughts along this line that are well worth your time…
Mark, I actually posted about a fourth option here:
goofusandgallant.blogspot.com/2006/02/ever-closer-to-midnight.html
The only drawbacks to this plan are that it is possibly unworkable, that it would take years and years to implement, and that if it were ever discovered, it would be considered a blatant act of war. Besides that, it sounded like a great plan to me.
Iran’s former negotiator was bragging about how he deceived European leaders regarding their nuclear enrichment program over the years – he penned an article outlining their deceptions in last week’s London Telegraph. Given that the European’s faces have much egg on them, you’d think the least they could do was offer some sort of assistance that was from an origin other than a diplomatic one.
But they have next to nothing in terms of a military capability at this time, so as usual, we’re stuck with it in the end.
Hitchens is probably right about the futility of an airstrike, but I don’t see why he didn’t consider option #4: aiding and arming dissident Iranian groups. Not only would this course of action be more likely than airstrikes would be in preventing the current regime from coming into posession of nuclear weapons, it could also probably destabilize the regime in the short term enough to hinder their ability to meddle further in Iraq.