Preemption: war with Iran next?

So while regime change may not be entirely off the table, so far it looks unlikely that it will be brought about by military means. And while the army may figure prominently in various contingency plans, preferences in the White House and Congress alike still seem to go towards a mix of diplomacy, containment, and propaganda.

Despite statements to the contrary, despite congressional checks on the presidential authority to launch a limited strike, let alone an all-out war, there are those who maintain that some sort of Osirak scenario will be played out soon.

Iran's obnoxious attitude towards Israel and the Holocaust is contributing rather handsomly to galvanize the hardliners in Israel and the Israeli lobby in the States. Such an attack would be a tragic mistake. Not only would it undermine any legitimacy the Americans have left in the region, it would also strengthen the Iranian regime because of the perceived injustice against the country.

Most certainly it would arouse support for the Islamic Republic across the muslim world, and shatter the authority of the few remaining friends America has in the region.

Furthermore, an attack against Iran's installations will speed things up, rather than slow them down, because in the eyes of Iran having the bomb would clearly be the only remaining deterrent.

Things in Iraq would get worse than they are today, and Israel's security would be even more porous than it already is. Worst of all, an attack will kill America's standing with Iran's youth and general population instantly (for example see here). Prospects of regime change will have been pushed back a couple of decades at least. None of that paints a bright future for the region.

As if to even things out, at the other end of the spectrum fatalists have resigned themselves to an Iran in possession of the bomb. Some accept that fate reluctantly, others defend the idea with lustre. Surprisingly, they are not always to be found among the intellectual left wing.

Thomas P.M.Barnett for instance, a professor at the US Naval War College, sees a nuclear Iran as the only way to a secure Middle East. Permitting Iran to have nuclear capabilities creates the platform we need to strike a “grand bargain” with that country, he says. His arguments are convincing to a point, but predicated on the determinist conviction that Iran will get the bomb, one way or another.

And we are not quite there yet. Even if estimates vary widely, most observers agree that Iran is years away from actually having the bomb.

Interestingly too, this race for the rocket ties in with another, demographic race that will turn power over in the hands of people one step removed from the Khomeini revolution but savvy to a more comfortable life. Iran's economic condition will weigh ever more impressively on the regime. And its credentials in that arena are far from shining.

So before we resign ourselves to a nuclear Iran, variables aplenty remain to be valued against each other. And let's not forget: predictions serve mainly to underscore that outcomes will often be different.