Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Iran or Bust (The defining test of Bush's war presidency)
The Weekly Standard ^ | February 6, 2006 | Jeffrey Bell

Posted on 01/29/2006 4:13:58 AM PST by RWR8189

 EVENTS ARE CONVERGING TO ELEVATE the nuclear crisis with Iran into the central crisis of the Bush presidency. War presidents are graded not by circumstances they inherit, including those that lead to war. They are judged by how they react to those circumstances.

Franklin Roosevelt as a war president is defined not by the attack on Pearl Harbor, but by the radical war aim he laid out against Japan and Germany in the wake of Pearl Harbor--unconditional surrender--and by his relentless and successful pursuit of that war aim until the day he died.

When Lyndon Johnson became president in November 1963, he inherited a chaotic situation in South Vietnam due to an ill-advised military coup against the civilian-led Saigon government countenanced by his predecessor, John F. Kennedy. As vice president, LBJ had fought to prevent the anti-Diem coup, which proved to be a ghastly mistake. Yet Johnson as a war president receives a failing grade for one reason only: When he left office in January 1969 the United States was in a far weaker geopolitical position, in Vietnam and globally, than it had been when Johnson took office.

In the same way, long after the present wartime president leaves office, his success or failure will be judged not by the enemy attacks of 9/11 but by how he responded to those attacks--and by whether his responses prove right or wrong.

In response to 9/11, Bush and his administration put down clear markers and bright lines. The days of treating terrorism as a criminal activity, to be solved primarily by the work of policemen, prosecutors, judges, and juries, were over. The president served notice that foreign governments providing safe haven for terrorist enemies of the United States would be treated as if those governments were mounting terrorist operations themselves--that is, as enemies of the United States in a world war. And he announced that rogue states would not be allowed to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

To achieve these war aims, Bush proclaimed two new doctrines. The new military doctrine, a marked departure from the Cold War doctrine of deterrence, was that of preemption: We would no longer wait for military mobilizations or attacks before striking against a growing terrorist threat. Preemption comprised a series of military options up to and including invasion, occupation, and regime change.

The new geopolitical doctrine was the promotion of democracy as a central U.S. policy goal around the world but with particular focus on the Arab and Islamic cultures. Without political reform in the Islamic world, Bush argued, eliminating one set of terrorists would achieve no more than a respite before terrorism's next wave.

By the time of the January 2002 State of the Union speech that singled out an "axis of evil"--Iraq, Iran, and North Korea--as the most dangerous of the world's surviving rogue states, Bush had successfully defined his response to 9/11. He had also laid out a coherent U.S. military and political strategy to deal with the protracted world war he believed us to be in. You could disagree with the strategy, and many did. But no one could deny that such a strategy had been laid out.

In the years since 9/11, the Bush war strategy has yielded some undeniable successes: the turning of Pakistan from a fomenter of terrorism and of nuclear proliferation into a semicollaborator of the United States; the ousting of the Taliban government and its al Qaeda mentors in Afghanistan; and the renunciation by Libya of its nuclear program, to name three. Claims can be made as well for the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon followed by free elections and for the advance of democratic reforms in a number of other Islamic countries.

Beginning with the March 2003 invasion, the war in Iraq has taken center stage as the toughest, best-defined test of the Bush war strategies: in a nutshell, military preemption and regime change, followed by democratic reform in the wake of terrorist challenges from Sunni revanchists and Islamist terrorists swearing allegiance to al Qaeda. Iraq has tested every element of the Bush war strategy. Until fairly recently, it seemed plausible that the success or failure of Bush's global strategies, and thus of the Bush presidency itself, would hinge on U.S. success or failure in Iraq.

With the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of Iran last June, this began to change. There may or may not be elements in the Iranian government willing to accommodate the emerging Shiite-majority government in Iraq. There may even be factions in Iran that would hesitate before providing a direct challenge to Bush's preemption doctrine. If such factions exist, however, they are irrelevant today. Ahmadinejad, for whatever reasons, appears determined to force Bush to live up to his post-9/11 strategy or tacitly admit that he has abandoned it in the face of difficulties in Iraq.

One by one, Iran's radical president is removing the pretexts for U.S. inaction or delay. Could we live with a nuclear Iran? Not one led by a man who says the Jewish Holocaust never happened and muses about the possibility of correcting that Nazi failure by dropping a nuclear bomb on Israel. Is there a way to take advantage of the fact that the Shiite wing of Islamism has not taken part, so far, in a shooting war with the United States or its allies? Not with an Iranian president who convenes a terror summit in Damascus with Bashar Assad, the all-but-proven murderer of the former premier of Lebanon, and with Hamas, the avatar of Sunni terrorism in the Palestinian territories. Given these events, it would no longer be shocking to see Ahmadinejad at a summit with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq and an advocate of the mass murder of Shiites as a tactic in the war against U.S. forces and the Shiite-led Iraqi government.

Reports out of Iran suggest Ahmadinejad may see himself as a central actor in an Islamic apocalypse. A man with this mindset might see provoking the United States as forwarding the end game of Allah. And he might not fear provoking Israel into an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities that could trigger convulsions throughout the Middle East and beyond.

Much depends on how far Iran is from putting together its first nuclear warhead. Some reports, particularly those traced to Israeli intelligence, point to the very near future. Even if the ominous date turns out to be much further away, Ahmadinejad shows little sign of pausing for breath. Indeed, the Hamas sweep of the Palestinian parliamentary elections is no doubt being seen in Tehran as a vindication of Ahmadinejad's Damascus terror summit days earlier.

If the Bush administration is developing a military option to deal with Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons--a form of preemption--it is doing so very quietly. On the pure military level, this is, of course, appropriate. If you had to pick one flaw in the superbly organized U.S. invasion of Iraq, as Jed Babbin recently pointed out, it would be the lack of an element of surprise.

But what is starting to become clear is that Ahmadinejad's seemingly reckless challenge will extract, and is meant to extract, a cost in U.S. standing among our friends and allies, in Iraq and across the globe. A war president who can be portrayed as having given up on the core of his own war strategy will be seen as a leader considerably less capable of deterring our terrorist enemies, wherever they are and whatever it is they are plotting.

 

Jeffrey Bell is a principal of Capital City Partners, a Washington consulting firm.


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: ahmadinejad; bush43; bushdoctrine; gwot; iran; iranukes; iranwar; nucleariran; proliferation; terrorism; waronterror; warpresidency; warpresident
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-58 next last
To: arthurus

"Nuclear destruction in the US is pretty big fallout for Conservatives, too. What do you suppose Republican election chances will be if we lose Chicago and Boston Harbor or Tel Aviv?"

Through in LA/San Fran and NYC in those nuke hits and it would be Conservative landslide. ;o)


21 posted on 01/29/2006 5:35:48 AM PST by MaDeuce (Do it to them, before they do it to you!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: i_am_right_of_center
Good post iaroc. What would be your theoretical course of action? I'm beginning to think an overwhelming sucker punch to take out the administration and top nuke facilities is in order. Doesn't matter who does it but timing is critical.

mc
22 posted on 01/29/2006 5:36:32 AM PST by mcshot (Rusty but trusty or vice versa.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: A. Pole

The war with Iran very likely will weaken USA. As a result it will weaken Israel and Israel will be forced to modify its basic policies in the direction of radical compromise with Muslim neighbors and to established closer relations with the European countries.

_________________________

You seem to be fearing current conditions. America was not made weaker by war with Japan and Germany. It was made the most powerful nation in the world.
In this current climate the people of America have not sacrificed their comfortable life styles. They have not struggled with shortages that radicallly change their daily lives. They have not suffered the loss of hundreds of thousand of young people. These were the burdens of the war with the Axis. Are we capable of less than our grandparents? Is less demanded of us?
If Bush has failed to rally us to sacrifice it is because the demand for sacrifice is not yet required. The day will come when we will know that we are at war....


23 posted on 01/29/2006 5:37:24 AM PST by Louis Foxwell (Here come I, gravitas in tow.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: AmericanDave
I hope they know their window of opportunity is growing smaller by day.

mc
24 posted on 01/29/2006 5:40:51 AM PST by mcshot (Rusty but trusty or vice versa.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: A. Pole; hershey

<< The war with Iran very likely will weaken USA. >>

Not so.

America was a hundred times stronger in 1950 than in 1940 - and it wasn't ONLY that Roosevelt was dead and the Roosevelt Depression finally over.

Iran will be as easy as was Iraq.

And Syria even easier.


25 posted on 01/29/2006 5:42:09 AM PST by Brian Allen (How arrogant are we to believe our career political-power-lusting lumpen somehow superior to theirs?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: RWR8189
Sadly the Bush administration and Republican's tendency to "play nice" all the time will hurt us in dealing with Iran.

The perception is that the Iraq war is troublesome but our cause over there has not been defended vigorously enough.

I doubt we could present even a remote possibility of another conflict with another Muslim terrorist country in the middle east without the 'Rats, MSM and the public in general going nuts.

26 posted on 01/29/2006 5:49:56 AM PST by manwiththehands (Good news for America = bad news for democRats.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Amos the Prophet
America was not made weaker by war with Japan and Germany.

Some wars makes countries stronger, some make weaker.

27 posted on 01/29/2006 5:54:25 AM PST by A. Pole (Dr. Michael Savage is in and the diagnosis is clear: "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: i_am_right_of_center
but not too sure we have many options though.

Three months ago we didn't have options. We had to wait for their next move. Now we are very close to having casus belli to go in and slay the beast. Then everything will be ok. We can't take out the weapons. But we can take out the regime.

28 posted on 01/29/2006 6:02:47 AM PST by Flavius Josephus (Enemy Idealogies: Pacifism, Liberalism, and Feminism, Islamic Supremacism)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: G.Mason

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat...


29 posted on 01/29/2006 6:04:09 AM PST by Flavius Josephus (Enemy Idealogies: Pacifism, Liberalism, and Feminism, Islamic Supremacism)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: i_am_right_of_center

Americans support military action by almost 60% already. If we are to have the oil cut off, perhaps it's better that it is done via war... then we will band together and unite for a while. I don't fear the election consequences. Not when it is a national security situation.


30 posted on 01/29/2006 6:06:15 AM PST by Flavius Josephus (Enemy Idealogies: Pacifism, Liberalism, and Feminism, Islamic Supremacism)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Flavius Josephus
Now we are very close to having casus belli to go in and slay the beast.

Fascinating. Could you describe, how you imagine this campaign, please?

31 posted on 01/29/2006 6:09:12 AM PST by A. Pole (Dr. Michael Savage is in and the diagnosis is clear: "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: Brian Allen

Not too sure I agree with you on this one Brian. War with Syria would cause "general" indifference in the US- as their standard of living would be uneffected (although the national debt- a tax on future generations- would rise yet more). So yeah might well be "easy".
But hitting Iran is in another ball park altogether. Spiralling oil prices after such an event would make the 1970's OPEC inspired oil price hikes and the recessionary impact it caused look like a walk in the park.
I don't think the vast majority of people are willing to take a massive hit to their current comfortable life styles.
I personally think that in 5 years time Iran will have nukes- as North Korea do today. Then we'll be in an even worse position- but hey the average american will still have cheap gas. I hope I'm wrong.


32 posted on 01/29/2006 6:10:07 AM PST by i_am_right_of_center
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: RWR8189
When he (Johnson) left office in January 1969 the United States was in a far weaker geopolitical position, in Vietnam and globally, than it had been when Johnson took office.

Yeah, but his buddies that ran the various defense contracting companies were pretty happy......

33 posted on 01/29/2006 6:15:58 AM PST by Thermalseeker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: A. Pole

Classical American Air War doctrine.


34 posted on 01/29/2006 6:16:29 AM PST by Flavius Josephus (Enemy Idealogies: Pacifism, Liberalism, and Feminism, Islamic Supremacism)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: i_am_right_of_center
the fallout COULD be huge for us conservatives.

The fallout from an Iranian nuke detonated on our soil by terrorists would be far worse.....

35 posted on 01/29/2006 6:22:09 AM PST by Thermalseeker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: i_am_right_of_center
I share your concerns. However, I don't believe the Shia parties (except for Mookie) are Iranian like. Many Iraqis resent Iran from the long war in which many Iraqi Shia lost their lives fighting for Iraq.
I think the Iranian pilgrims coming over to the two shrines in Iraq (Ali and Hussein) are being exposed to what is taking place in Iraq. This may cause more change in Iran. Also, it appears that the US may be becoming more active in Iran. There is another post on Drudge that Iran is complaining of our meddling in southern Iran.

I think we need to get ready for high oil prices. I have already moved a large percentage of my holding out of the stock market.
For sure, dubya will push for sanctions and perhaps a military strike. An agreement with Iran is highly unlikely.
36 posted on 01/29/2006 6:26:11 AM PST by GeorgefromGeorgia
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: IronManBike
...events are converging to ELEVATE the people of God UP...UP...and AWAYAY!

Yippee-Ki-Yee-Yi-YAAAAYYYYY!!!!

I'm with you, IronManBike, and I'm with My SAVIOR!

37 posted on 01/29/2006 6:32:23 AM PST by ExcursionGuy84 ("Jesus, Your Love takes my breath away.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: MaDuce
Say what you will, the human condition is relatively unchanged over centuries. There are good times followed by bad.

Each generation, that must face those bad times, either deals with them, in a meaingful way, or perishes.

This isn't just about the rationing of gasoline, donating aluminum pots to the war effort, or sending dad to war and mom to the factory.

As was in WWII, this is about the survival of the nation and a way of life.

Sooner, or later, the American public will wake to that fact. We better hope it is sooner.





38 posted on 01/29/2006 6:36:59 AM PST by G.Mason ("I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone" -- Bill Cosby)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Flavius Josephus
Classical American Air War doctrine.

Like 1999 bombing of Serbia? It lasted three months, accomplished very little (the compromise - ie temporary occupation of Kosovo, which was later reneged by NATO, was made possible only because of Yeltsin government), it was done from the large bases located very close and the target was 16 times smaller than Iran.

If you have the concrete idea how this air campaign is to look like, present it, please. Using the Serbian campaign as a reference you could suggest:

How much hardware will be available (compare with 1999)?

What distances will have to be covered, which airbases will be used(compare with 1999)?

How long will it last (compare with 1999)?

What will be the physical results whether military, nuclear or civilian (compare it with 1999)?

What will be the political resolution (compare it with 1999)?

What will be the political and economic cost, and what will be the gains (compare it with 1999)?

39 posted on 01/29/2006 6:51:53 AM PST by A. Pole (Dr. Michael Savage is in and the diagnosis is clear: "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: G.Mason

Bush is a great poker player. He's got both Ahemjad and Chavez ranting and raving like crazymen while he just quietly tightens the screws. He will not show his hand, but it is a lot stronger than these silkstocking pundits know.


40 posted on 01/29/2006 6:58:36 AM PST by ClaireSolt (.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-58 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson