Attacking Iran Would Be Insane

If Trump keeps listening to the Iran hawks, things will only get worse.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump is considering military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities:

President-elect Donald Trump is weighing options for stopping Iran from being able to build a nuclear weapon, including the possibility of preventive airstrikes, a move that would break with the longstanding policy of containing Tehran with diplomacy and sanctions.

The surest way to convince the Iranian government to build nuclear weapons is to attack their nuclear facilities. In addition to being reckless and wrong, “preventive” military action would practically guarantee the outcome that hawks say they want to prevent. The only thing stupider than using force to eliminate a non-existent threat is using force to create a threat that wouldn’t have existed otherwise.

An attack on Iran’s facilities would also likely trigger a larger conflict, as the Iranian government would feel compelled to retaliate against U.S. forces and U.S. clients in the region. A direct conflict between the U.S. and Iran would almost certainly be costlier and last longer than anyone expects right now.

Attacking Iran would be foolish and dangerous, but above all it is unnecessary. Trump and his advisers are “weighing options” for stopping Iran from doing something that it isn’t doing. Iran hasn’t had a nuclear weapons program for 21 years. In spite of everything that the U.S. and Israel have done to goad them into pursuing a bomb, the Iranian government has not decided to build these weapons.

Iran’s allies have been significantly weakened or deposed in the last year, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that the people that always have wanted war with Iran see an opportunity to attack. That doesn’t make the idea of attacking Iran any less insane than it has been for the last twenty years. No American interests are served by such an attack. No Americans should be put in harm’s way for this bad cause.

Launching “preventive airstrikes” would be illegal and unjustifiable. No state can legally attack another in the name of preventing some possible future threat. That isn’t self-defense, no matter how much the lawyers try to stretch the definition. The Iraq war was just such a preventive war to eliminate a non-existent threat, and it was a criminal war of aggression. Attacking Iran would be similarly criminal.

It’s important to remember that the nuclear issue was under control when Trump took office almost eight years ago. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was a major diplomatic success for the U.S. and its partners. It ensured that Iran’s nuclear program remained peaceful, and in exchange Iran was supposed to be able to resume normal trade with the rest of the world. Far more was achieved through a negotiated compromise than could ever be achieved through military action. Trump threw all that away out of stupidity and pique.

Don’t forget that Iran hawks hated the nuclear deal because it worked. It resolved the problem peacefully and made war with Iran much less likely. Iran hawks have never cared much about nonproliferation, but they have been eager to use the nuclear issue as a pretext for conflict. As long as they can use the nuclear issue to scare people into supporting aggressive policies against Iran, the hawks had no problem undermining and destroying a nonproliferation agreement that had already removed the potential threat.

Had the agreement been respected by all parties, Iran would have accepted the IAEA’s Additional Protocol by now and the path to building a nuclear weapon would have been effectively closed. Instead Trump blew up the agreement and launched a completely unjustified economic war on Iran despite their government’s full compliance with the requirements of the deal. His brain-dead pressure campaign spurred Iran to expand their nuclear program, and they have continued expanding it in response to continued sanctions and sabotage attacks. Iran’s nuclear program is as advanced as it is today because Trump did what Iran hawks wanted and because Biden foolishly kept Trump’s policies in place. If Trump keeps listening to the Iran hawks, things will only get worse.