For nearly two decades, Israel and the U.S. have warned about Iran’s nuclear capabilities and the need to “do something” preemptively. With Ahmadinejad at the U.N., Gary Sick argues for a safer response.
President Eisenhower once remarked to his peripatetic Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, “Don’t do something, Foster, just stand there.” From all evidence, Dulles paid not the slightest attention to his boss’ injunction. And that is no surprise. The job description of a Washington policy adviser is never to “just stand there.” It is not in their DNA. Their job is solving problems. It is somehow slightly un-American to suppose that problems may at times have no solution or might best be alleviated by keeping hands off.
We would be better served by adopting the physicians creed: “First, do no harm.”
Iran has been a critical issue for the United States and Israel for a very long time. Seventeen years ago, in January 1992, the U.S. Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the House Republican Research Committee, asserted that there was a "98 percent certainty that Iran already had all (or virtually all) of the components required for two to three operational nuclear weapons.” That same month, Binyamin Netanyahu told the Knesset that "Within three to five years, we can assume that Iran will become autonomous in its ability to develop and produce a nuclear bomb… (The nuclear threat) must be uprooted by an international front headed by the U.S.” In that same year, Robert Gates, then director of the CIA, asked, "Is [Iran’s nuclear program] a problem today?" He answered, "Probably not. But three, four, five years from now it could be a serious problem." Three years later, a senior Israeli official declared: "If Iran is not interrupted in this program by some foreign power, it will have the device in more or less five years."
Officially, both the United States and Israel now agree that Iran is unlikely to be able to produce a bomb until about 2013 or 2014—the same five-year window that was being predicted seventeen years ago in 1992.
For the better part of two decades, there have been cries of alarm that the United States must “do something” or else Iran would have an operational nuclear weapon within a few years. If these warnings of a “ticking clock” had been heeded, there would have been ample reason for the United States or Israel to go to war with Iran at almost any time. In fact, there have been as many serious predictions that a war was imminent and unavoidable as there have been false predictions about the timing of an Iranian bomb. Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker beginning in 2006, quoted many sources inside and outside the U.S. government who claimed that the Bush administration was preparing to attack Iran because of its nuclear policies. It now appears that Vice President Cheney, based on his own words in retirement, was in fact pressing for such an attack, but President Bush vetoed it.
In June 2008, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton predicted that Israel “will attack Iran” before January 2009 when the new U.S. president was sworn in, but apparently the Israeli leadership decided otherwise. Just a few weeks ago, retired Air Force general Chuck Wald on National Public Radio outlined a sustained bombing campaign against Iran that would last “weeks or months,” then added, “Now, does anybody in their right mind want to attack Iran? No, not a bit. But sometimes you've got to do things you don't like to do.” From the tone of his voice, the prospect of an attack did not seem to dismay him, and he has gone on to write a series of op-eds pushing the military option.
These statements are admirably clear in recognizing that the end game in any concerted pressure campaign against Iran is war. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton threatened “crippling sanctions” to be imposed on Iran if it failed to cooperate with U.S. diplomatic efforts. That phrase was later echoed by Israeli prime minister Netanyahu during his visit to Germany, and it is expected to be a major focus of the U.S. Congress starting in September. Iran does not have sufficient refinery capacity to meet all its gasoline needs, and the Congress is expected to press for actions that would attempt to curtail or block such imports into Iran. A prohibition of Iranian petroleum imports—most likely restricted to the United States and perhaps some of its European allies since Russia, China and even many of Iran’s allies (think Venezuela) and immediate neighbors (think Iraq) are unwilling to cooperate—can only be truly enforced by a blockade, which is an act of war.
The perpetual plea for U.S. foreign policy to “do something” needs to be changed; we would be better served by adopting the physicians creed: “First, do no harm.”
View as Single Page 123 Back to Top September 23, 2009 | 12:51pm Facebook | Twitter | | | Emails | print Israel, Iran, Politics, International, Nuclear Weapons, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iran Nukes (–) Show Replies Collapse Replies Sort Up Sort Down sort by date: didimagnin
I am far more worried that Israel has nuclear arms and is prepared to use them on Iran....The Ayatollah has said that nuclear weapons are agsinst the beliefs of Islam. Believe him.
Flag It | Permalink | Reply 3:45 pm, Sep 23, 2009 mcmchugh99
I don't believe anything that No Count Ahmadinejad and his Supreme Fuehrer say--not a single word. It is a fascist regime that I hope will be overthrown by its own people, and then maybe we can have improved relations afterwards. On the other hand, I do not want war with Iran. We could not afford it anyway, and would not know how to deal with the mess afterwards even if we did "win". Nation building is not exactly our thing, especially in that part of the world. Nor have I believed that Iran would actually use nuclear weapons even if they had any, simply out of fear of massive retaliation. Nuclear weapons are only useful in deterring an attack, not in actual war fighting. Sanctions would just be one part of a containment strategy, although that won't work as long as Russia and the other countries to the north are part of it. I would hope for sanctions designed to do damage to the regime itself rather than the Iranian democratic movement.
Flag It | Permalink | Reply 7:39 pm, Sep 23, 2009 gak001
I still believe that democratic reform is inevitable in Iran. It really just becomes a waiting game.
Flag It | Permalink | Reply 7:49 pm, Sep 23, 2009 $('#c_total span').html('3'); $('#c_total').show();
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I don't believe anything that No Count Ahmadinejad and his Supreme Fuehrer say--not a single word. It is a fascist regime that I hope will be overthrown by its own people, and then maybe we can have improved relations afterwards. On the other hand, I do not want war with Iran. We could not afford it anyway, and would not know how to deal with the mess afterwards even if we did "win". Nation building is not exactly our thing, especially in that part of the world. Nor have I believed that Iran would actually use nuclear weapons even if they had any, simply out of fear of massive retaliation. Nuclear weapons are only useful in deterring an attack, not in actual war fighting. Sanctions would just be one part of a containment strategy, although that won't work as long as Russia and the other countries to the north are part of it. I would hope for sanctions designed to do damage to the regime itself rather than the Iranian democratic movement.
I still believe that democratic reform is inevitable in Iran. It really just becomes a waiting game.
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How Safe Is Your College?
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
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Lloyd Grove is Editor at Large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Lee Siegel has written about culture and politics and is the author of three books: Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination; Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television; and, most recently, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. In 2002, he received a National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism.
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