Wait our Iran

Submitted by Peter Herz (United States), Nov 12, 2010 at 11:08

With all due respect to Dr. Pipes, whom I regard as one of the most intelligent commentators on the Middle East, I'm actually a dove on Iran. It's not that I believe all the nonsense about "all of us wanting basically the same things", but that I believe that America can wait until Iran's people decide that they want something better in their government and in their relations with the USA.

In the 1930's, Japan claimed that it planned to "save" China from Communism. It invaded China, made mincemeat of the Chinese government's forces without destroying them, and got bogged down in a fourteen-year quagmire when China rallied behind a government that was deeply unpopular with many important circles in the country. In the end, the chief losers were both Japan (beaten decisively in a world war) and the anti-Communist forces in China.

Iran will probably behave like China in the 1930's if attacked, and rally behind Ahmadinejad regardless of how many Iranians hate him. Further, Iran is a large country, mountainous, and difficult to secure. the United States would have no allies to help in such a war, while Iran would probably have the support of Russia, China, Pakistan, and the new governments of Iraq and Afghanistan (both of which get periodic infusions of Iranian money). China, which does the manufacturing for America now, would use its economic position to hold our war effort hostage, and probably move to expel us from the Western Pacific (including being sure that Taiwan forgets any silly ideas about multiparty government, while Korea reunifies under Kim Jong-il's heirs). Given our leadership's squeamishness about shedding enemy blood and its anti-military tradition, our troops would be burdened with crippling rules of engagement against an enemy that loves martyrdom. This would be a recipe for a crippling quagmire and, given our domestic political commitments to dependent sections of society, we would probably run our own economy into the ground fighting such a war--just as the combination of Johnson's guns and butter policy helped ruin us in the late 1960's (with effects lasting into the 1970's).

It would be far wiser to wait for the inevitable changes that must come from inside Iran itself, and, in the meantime, maintain a credible nuclear deterrent.

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