As the impasse over Iran’s nuclear-weapons program grows inexorably into a crisis, a kind of consensus has taken root in the minds of America’s foreign-policy elite. This is that military action against Iran is a sure formula for disaster. The essence of the position was expressed in a cover story in Time magazine this past September. Entitled “What War with Iran Would Look Like (And How to Avoid It),” the essay focused on what the editors saw as the certain consequences of armed American intervention in that country: wildly spiking oil prices, increased terrorist attacks, economic panic around the world,...
