We're not going to "bomb, bomb, bomb" Iran
Charles Krauthammer calls for a “Holocaust Declaration,” to wit:
“It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear attack upon Israel by Iran, or originating in Iran, as an attack by Iran on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon Iran.”
This should be followed with a simple explanation: “As a beacon of tolerance and as leader of the free world, the United States will not permit a second Holocaust to be perpetrated upon the Jewish people.”
This policy — the Holocaust Declaration — would not be tested during the current administration, because Iran is not going to go nuclear before January 2009. But it would establish a firm benchmark that would outlive this administration.
• Krauthammer is correct when he says that the “Bush administration’s attempt to halt Iran’s nuclear program has failed.” Barring a preemptive military strike, which the U.S. is unlikely to take, and which Israel is probably unable to take, Iran will not be stopped from getting the bomb, or from developing the ballistic missiles capable of delivering it.
• But if Iran launches a nuclear attack against Israel, how believable is it that the United States would kill millions, or even hundreds of thousands, of innocent Iranians in retaliation, as Krauthammer urges? John McCain or Barack Obama will be our next president. Both of these men are averse even to the waterboarding of terrorists. Is it plausible that either man would unleash nuclear hell on the many to punish the few?
• Since we would not act on a “Holocaust Declaration,” we should not issue one. Empty threats damage our credibility, and in turn undermine our security interests.
• Even if credible, would the threat of nuclear retaliation deter Iran’s mullahs, some of whom are, as Kruthammer puts it, “apocalyptic and messianic”? By their nature, aren’t the apocalyptic and messianic undeterrable?
• “It is, of course, hardly certain that deterrence would work on the likes of Ahmadinejad and other jihadists,” Krauthammer writes. “But deterrence would concentrate the minds of rational Iranian actors, of whom there are many, to restrain or even depose leaders such as Ahmadinejad …” Perhaps. But if Ahmadinejad and his ilk remain in power and it comes to pass that our bluff is called, then what? We should not play chicken when our credibility is at stake.
• Finally, even though most of Israel’s nuclear arsenal is land-based, as Krauthammer notes, and therefore vulnerable to a first strike, it’s not all land-based. And it is the Israelis, and not us, to whom the vengeance would belong.