The “Military Option”
By now everyone has taken sides on the Iranian “nuclear deal.” Some democrats, like Charles Schumer the
ranking congressional democrat—and as Republicans like to point out, the top
Jewish Democrat--oppose it. Twenty nine top nuclear and arms control scientists
wrote a letter to Obama endorsing it.
Two Jewish New York Times columnists rendered a split decision—Roger Cohen:
For--David Brooks: Against. But let’s just drop the obvious religious/political
quibbling for the moment.
What I found interesting is the argument over the “military
option.”
Some of the deal’s opponents hammered Obama because he “showed
weakness” by taking the military option off the table. I don’t buy that. If you
look at our history—going all the way back to the Revolution—with Americans, the
military option is NEVER off the table. It may not be visible sitting on
the table but if you peek underneath it is still there. And I think the Iranians know that.
I have no pretenses about being a skilled negotiator,
however, opening negotiations with, “Agree to everything I want or I will bomb
you off the face of the earth,” is not a productive technique. That logic was applied in Iraq. “Show us your WMDs or we invade you.” Bam! We know how that turned out.
The United States will never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear
bomb. That is a given. Opposition to the
deal is mainly political posturing. The
Republicans and Netanyahu are using it, once again, to attack Obama, score
political points with their base supporters and woo the Jewish voters in
America. Their scenario is that Iran
will absolutely break all the terms of the agreement, secretly acquire nuclear
weapons and the United States and the other five nations involved in the negotiations
will just sit back and say, “Aw shucks, shit happens.”
Does anyone really think that America, Russia, China,
France, England and Germany are so stupid that they will allow Iran to break
all its promises and do nothing? Do
you really think they have not considered how to deal with Iranian skullduggery? Do you really think the Iranians feel they
can get away with breaking the agreement without consequences?
It’s probably just a coincidence but during the talks I happened
to notice several items in those annoying “news” items that pop up on your
screen talking about our super-destructive MOAB (Mother Of All Bombs). I am not into conspiracy theories so I’m not
suggesting these were planted to remind Iran that we have such devices since I
assume Iran’s military intelligence is well aware of what weapons we possess.
Considering our past history of using military force, if Iran
blatantly reneges on the deal it would bring down the wrath of whoever happens
to be president at the time (Republican or Democrat). The Republicans are the rock stars of wanting
to use the military force to solve all the world’s problems but when the chips
are down I think a Democrat president would not hesitate to act. Remember Harry Truman, a Democrat, dropped
the bomb on Japan just 70 years ago this week. Hopefully we will never get to
anything that horrible and drastic with Iran.
So you may not have seen it on the table, but it was
there. It’s our traditional American ace
in the hole called the military option.
These are pertinent links:
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