[neverdem]

VDH ping

[Bob J]

Hanson may have it right on this one.

[joseph20]

VDH defending Euro-style “soft power”...

[Caipirabob]

No one knows quite what is going on in Iraq. Yet news that the surge is working and that violence is declining is also bad news for Tehran. Its worst nightmare is that Sunni tribes are no longer aping al Qaeda, but helping Americans. That will only turn attention back to Iranian-back killers. Meanwhile Sunni masters in the region — arming themselves to the teeth — are reminding their kindred Iraqi tribesmen that Iran, not America, is the real enemy of the Arab world.

It would be wonderful to avoid another all out military intervention. If Iraq can pacify itself with our aid, the attention will be focused on Tehran. There will be far more pressure on it's government for their abysmal failures. There will be no outlet for their fanatic's violence and their secularists have just about had it with the current government's oppression. I mean, imagine a gas producing nation where you can't buy gas? Way to go, ahmadinejad...loser.

The author nails the point on the problem with foreign fighters. If Iranian soldiers can't infiltrate into Iraqi society to cause terror because the locals are no longer hostile, those locals are going to have time to remember who their tribal enemies are. they are going to look over the border. Iran will have "an insurgency" of it's own to deal with.

A weakened Tehran will be ill equipped to resist it's secularists. They may last a while, but not too long. The potential to topple Tehran with it's own secularist population grows with each success in Iraq.

Then it would fall to those who reside in the 21st century in Iran to bring the rest of the country with them.

The possibility of undoing all of Democrat Jimmy Carter's damage after all these years is too great to resist.

[Cindy]

http://www.truthusa.com/IRAN.html
http://memritv.org/subject/en/121.htm

[Terabitten]

We desperately need a “night of fire.”

Nuke Mecca, Damascus, Teheran, and Pyongyang simultaneously.

Nuke them. It’s the only way to be sure.

[PreciousLiberty]

“So we should continue with the present path — and not bomb or have surrogates bomb Iran. That option is still down the road. For as long as it is possible, the best-case scenario is not a smoking Iran, but a humiliated theocracy that slowly implodes before the world, displaying in their disgrace what the mullahs did to themselves — and perhaps a small reminder of those helpful shoves from us.”

Well...this is the optimistic view of developments. Revolution didn’t happen in Iraq despite far worse pressure.

The pessimistic view is that the pressure will result in further crackdowns in Iran, and the need for an enemy, and then a war. You see, a an enemy and a war unites the populace like nothing else (well, except here in the States, where the propaganda machine is running counter to policy). If all of Iran’s nuclear enrichment is known (not clear) and Iran isn’t obtaining material or bombs elsewhere (not clear), Iran might not have a nuke for a year or more. Once Iran does have the bomb, all bets are off.

Plan for the worst, hope for the best. I personally still expect bombs to drop in Iran within a year or so. Airstrikes could cripple Iran, and especially its military, to the point where it’d be years recovering. How many billions in damage can the US armed forces inflict in a day? I hope it can be done with minimal loss of life, or that the Iranian people have a revolution first.

[RoadTest]

” a strike now on Iran would be a grave mistake”

Yes. Ahmadinajad is far less than 100% approved of by Iranians, but that percentage would increase if the United States made itself a common enemy of the diverse forces in Iran.

[mad_as_he$$]

If it was anyone else but VDH I would call it peace mongering but he has clearly thought this out - -as usual.

[Wings-n-Wind]

Ummmmmm.... errrrr.. a couple of viable alternatives?!?

1. UAV's over the Iraqi/Iranian frontier....

2. Checkpoints on the major ingress roads...

3. "Hellfire" for all Irianian jihadis and IED smugglers...

My personal favorite...

Enough fleet air activity and flying near Iranian airspace to provoke their air FARCE into the air...
-- A little AMRAAM action....
With their Tomcats burning on the desert floor -- thank you for TV coverage...

And this is over in one afternoon!

If they don't want to play ball with their nuclear gamesmanship after these strong signals and incited actions...

Conventional strikes on their facilities will be a fairly easy acocmplishment...

[do the dhue]

Amadjihad wants nukes? We should air deliver them. Hit them before they hit us. Anyone ever play football before? Isn't it better to hit them before they hit you? Walter Peyton was one of the greatest running backs in the league. Defenders will tell you that when necessary, Walter would hit them before they hit him. He had power in his legs to drive through a defender. We have the power to drive through our enemy and we should do it before they have the power to do it to us.

Listen to Amandjihad's rhetoric. He is begging for it. Let's accommodate.

PS: If we are negotiating, I say nuke him to be sure. In reality, I would be happy with a successful bombing mission and/or the liberation of Iran. Don't tell anyone though.

[sauropod]

review

[RichInOC]

I’ll take the VD Hanson/Michael Ledeen tack on this...in other words, let’s hold the nukes as a last resort for now, but let’s see what we can do to make the regime’s implosion go a little faster, please.

[Ragnar54]

"That option is still down the road."

Yes, but why give the Iranians a chance to smuggle nukes into this country? If we can't control what they are carrying into Iraq, there is no reason to think that they will find our border with Mexico impenetrable. For that matter, the Canadians have created a Muslim magnet (oil fields, lax immigration) and we don't defend that border. Just to be on the safe side, we should eliminate the Iranians. That would be far more effective than any "humiliation" of the mullahs. There is nothing hypothetical about the Carthaginian solution.

[stevie_d_64]

I see some comments about what would happen if we did “fail” in Iraq...

Well we know the big obvious about that one...

But what is really behind that???

If we cut and run and Iraq and all the effort and sacrifice in lives and trying to build some stability in the region would come to a crashing and tragic halt...The new Iraqi government has proven time and time again that they are incapable, without us totally committed to getting it done for them...

So who really wins if we cut and run??? I would say a big winner would be Iran...

They would no longer be effectively stopped in expanding their influence and territorial desires...This is all a very obvious future, if the political climate over here changes that favors this outcome...

It would be safe to say that all those that opposeus taking care of the problem in the Middle East all these long years, woudl benefit, because of the vacumm of influence, both politically and economically benefit those who want to get in there aqnd sleep with the tyrant(s)...

This was true before we got into Iraq and Afganistan, and it will be true after we leave before the job is done...

And its going to take a lot more that OBL’s head on a stick, to win...

[familyop]

Herr Hanson:

You vaffle zis vay, and you vaffle zat way. You veasel round und round and avay from ze topic at hand.

S. Korea, U.S. verifying reports on test of new N.K. missile in Iran: source
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1834307/posts
(4,000 kilometer range—will reach London and the Vatican—May 16th, 2007)

Ve vait, if you like, and ve neo-cons vill get our vay even more so. Oil will go much higher for much longer after Iran has nukes. And so will the War to come.

[Tolik]

    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       Let me know if you want in or out.

Links:    FR Index of his articles:  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
                His website: http://victorhanson.com/
                NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
                Pajamasmedia:   http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/

[Last Dakotan]

We have no leverage with China and Russia, of course.

Sure we do - there is just too much money to be made selling Chinese goods.

[Billthedrill]

Of course, there is no reason yet to believe that Iran’s megalomaniac plans are stalled.

Therein lies the rub. Possession of nuclear weapons changes this equation dramatically - not necessarily to the benefit of Iran immediately inasmuch as the horror of its neighbors (including Russia and China, IMHO) will outweigh the power conferred by the possession of one or two weapons. But the ability to produce more than that shifts the equation ineluctably toward the mullahs over time.

Such programs are not always successful - the expensive failure that is the North Korean attempt should provide a warning to the Iranians who are not unaware of its details. Ahmadinejad's personal political currency is running lower by day, and he may provide a convenient scapegoat to throw to world opinion should the sanctions begin (as they already are) to bite. But the possession of nuclear weapons and credible delivery vehicles are counters in an international game that goes well beyond the megalomaniacal desires of one bearded nutcase. Their associated programs may well be slowed and opened up to limited inspection but they will continue.

There are two possible routes for remediation - first, open and complete regime change that sends the mullahs back to the mosques where they belong (and if a few of them end up dangling from lamp-posts along the way one cannot say it wasn't deserved). Second, a tactical retreat on the part of the corrupt and now fantastically wealthy theological upper class that will allow it to rot more or less quietly until the Iranian people finally pick it and toss it into the trash. That process may take years or even decades.

I am not personally inclined toward an immediate bombing because I don't think the progress of their programs is sufficient to take that drastic step - yet - and because bombing will tend to strengthen the mullahs. But it is an option that should absolutely remain open. One worry is that a possible Democratic administration will close it in an attempt at cheap posturing as "peace-loving." Cheap posturing in foreign policy is, after all, what the previous two Democratic administrations were all about. To a degree we are where be are because of that. Electing practically any Republican on the current roster will avoid that. An awful lot of eyes are going to be on the election in 2008. The stakes are very high.