And the winner is ... Iran

[saavedra77]

Historians may conclude that the U.S. in 2003 invaded a dysfunctional, decaying, sanction-ridden Iraq over weapons of mass destruction that weren't there any more and that Hussein might never have been able to reconstitute, while helping establish the conditions for Iranian dominance of Persian Gulf:

As Juan Cole pointed out recently in Salon, Iran already exerts considerable influence in post-Baathist Iraq.

A nuclear Iran would surely wield even wider influence over its neighbors. The secrecy surrounding the country's nuclear program has long suggested that Iran aspired to nuclear-power status--an impression which has been deepened by the new hardline government's recent decision to spurn E.U. incentives and resume uranium enrichment.

Moreover, as Michael Mazarr argues in The New Republic, there may be little that the "overextended, exhausted, nearly bankrupt, internationally unpopular United States" that has come out of the Iraq War can do about it. Subjected to U.S. air strikes against its nuclear facilities, Iran could "make Iraq a hell for the United States" by activating "agents and cells it has [reportedly] been developing inside Iraq to [further] destabilize the country"; "generate a wave of terrorist attacks against U.S. embassies, military bases, companies, and allies all over the globe"; and disrupt "traffic in the Strait of Hormuz," and thus global oil supplies, via air and sea attacks.  On the other hand, a full-on U.S. invasion of Iran would "draw every available Army and Marine unit not already in Iraq, as well as many naval and air assets, into the region for an Iranian campaign; the global U.S. military presence would be essentially on hold until the conflict ended."

But wouldn’t Iran’s leaders cringe at the prospect of such a conflict? Maybe not, says Mazarr: "If we offer the hard-liners a chance to martyr themselves in the name of cultural heroism, they might just take us up on it."

Comments

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Yep, just like I've been sayin'.

We're useless now.

The power of America has been spent on a fucked up war in Iraq.

[schmallturm.livejournal.com]

The lesson I think we can all draw from the Iraq war is that none of these pundits know squat. Especially one who believes that the US is "exhausted", "overextended", and "bankrupt".

Since Iran is surrounded by hostile nuclear powers (Pakistan, Russia, and Israel), it makes sense for them to develop nukes. If we were (hypothetically) unwilling to invade Iraq, I don't see why we would have been willing to invade Iran, a much more difficult target, and without the (I now believe) valid casus belli that we were already at war with them. We didn't invade Pakistan. I will be surprised if we bomb their reactor, though not necessarily unhappy.

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

Since Iran is surrounded by hostile nuclear powers (Pakistan, Russia, and Israel), it makes sense for them to develop nukes.

I agree that Iranian leaders--particularly now that hardliners have captured the presidency--are likely to see a nuclear weapons program as furthering their national interests. Needless to say, however, this is hardly the outcome desired by Washington, nor is growing Iranian power and influence in Iraq (as witness Rumsfeld's warning the other day about evidence of Iranian weapons flowing into Iraq).

We didn't invade Pakistan.

Indeed not. But Iran occupies a different strategic situation than Pakistan. The U.S. has vastly different interests in the Mideast than in Central or South Asia, and a nuclear Iran may change the balance of power in the that region.

If we were (hypothetically) unwilling to invade Iraq, I don't see why we would have been willing to invade Iran, a much more difficult target

The U.S. had more options for dealing with Iran in 2003 than we do today. "War is a last resort," as President Bush himself often said, before the war. And the Iraq War was preceded by at least a token effort to work through the U.N. Security Council, to resume U.N. inspections, to mobilize allies, to demand concessions from Baghdad. But suppose that the Administration had chosen to focus this international attention on Iran in 2002, rather than Iraq, and to really work through these institutions? There seems to be far less doubt in the international community about Iran's capabilities and intentions than there was about Iraq's. And Iran's president at the time, Khatami, was arguably far more likely to make a deal with the West over weapons programs than is his new, hard-line replacement. If the Iranians insisted upon proceeding with uranium enrichment, you would have had a justification for further UNSC action, wider international support, and perhaps even eventually your causus belli ...

Especially one who believes that the US is "exhausted", "overextended", and "bankrupt".

Hyperbole aside, we hear repeatedly that U.S. forces are "stretched thin" by the Iraq War, and we all know that the U.S. is now deep in deficit. Polls also show a growing public fatigue with the ongoing military commitment in Iraq. All three situations bear on our ability to conduct any hypothetical new war--particularly with "a much more difficult target" like Iran.