Matthew Kroenig's defense of his Foreign Affairs article calling for launching a preventive war against Iran does little to strengthen his case. He provides no additional evidence to explain why war is necessary; nor does he remedy the gaps and inconsistencies in his original analysis. Given that he's now had two swings at the same pitch, one may safely conclude that there is no good case for attacking Iran.
It is clear from the beginning of Kroenig's response that he misunderstood the central point of my critique. I accused him of employing the "classic blueprint" for justifying a preventive war, whereby one exaggerates the dangers of inaction, overstates the benefits of war, and understates the costs and risks of employing force. Kroenig responds by pointing out that "any decision to use force rests on the judgment that the costs of not using force outweigh the costs of using force," and he seems to think that this was the feature of his analysis to which I objected. Not so: my objection was to the one-sided way in which he conducted his assessment.
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