Finally, a voice of reason?
The recent warning by the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen that diplomacy, not the use of force, should guide the United States’ handling of the Iran crisis holds out some hope that per chance, the Bush administration will not be given another blank check to attack another country in these last days of the administration’s tenure.
Upon his return from a visit to Israel and Europe, admiral Mullen warned that a military strike on Iran would be a very bad idea.
“This is a very unstable part of the world, and I don’t need it to be more unstable,”. In the good general’s words, “we haven’t had much of a dialogue with the Iranians for a long time,”. This, once again confirms the head-scratching policy of the Bush administration that they would rather bomb Iran than talk to the Iranian government.
It has always seem counter-intuitive that the U.S. government, especially under the Bush administration has insisted that before talks can begin, Iran must cease its nuclear enrichment – which they see as a step toward building nuclear weapons.
This fool-hardy policy seems to be one that Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain has embraced and he has actually described Senator Barack Obama’s willingness to hold direct talks as a revelation of “the depth of Sen. Obama’s inexperience and reckless judgment.”
While it may be unusual for military officers, especially those holding some of the highest ranks in the administration, to warn in such explicit terms of potential military action and to so emphatically call for diplomacy, we have to hope that this will encourage others to be brave enough to question the logic of our policy makers and enforcers sometimes.
Admiral Mullen’s argument that, “…a solution still lies in using other elements of national power to change Iranian behavior, including diplomatic, financial and international pressure. There is a need for better clarity, even dialogue at some level.” is a sign that some within the administration still have some idea of where their commitments lie – with the American people.
Military action, either by Israel or the United States, or both, would be catastrophic for the Middle East at this time. As a matter of fact, this recent saber-rattling has the potential of exacerbating the situation and forcing Iran to actually divert its nuclear program from a peaceful one to a military one claiming the need for national self-defence. A country that has hostile armies around it should not be blamed for getting nervous. Dialogue has worked even for the Bush administration, although they resisted for a long time. It yielded results with North Korea and Libya. There is no compelling reason to start another war that will deprive thousands of young American men and women (who will have to fight such a war) of their dreams, whatever those dreams may be.
The United States, at this time, would be hard pressed to conduct operations against Iran, given the commitment of tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. As Admiral Mullen put it, “From the United States’ perspective, the United States’ military perspective, in particular, opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful on us,”. “That doesn’t mean we don’t have capacity or reserve, but that would really be very challenging.”
For the very fact that the consequences of military actions are sometimes are very difficult to predict as we found out very quickly in Iraq, the Middle East is a particularly peculiar case. To quote the Admiral, “Just about every move in that part of the world is a high-risk move. And that’s why I think it’s so important that the international piece, the financial piece, the diplomatic piece, the economic piece be brought to bear with a level of intensity that resolves this.”
An attack on Iranian nuclear sites could cause the Iranian regime to attack shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s total daily oil demand is carried. Then there is the expected flare up around the world from groups who do not understand the argument the U.S. is making about the dangers of allowing Iran to become a nuclear power – an argumrnt many find spurious given the fact that Israel in a nuclear power. India and Pakistan are nuclear powers and they have not lobbed a couple across their borders despite the fact that they have been in conflict for years.
In the U.S. Congress, some members have expressed their fear that the Bush administration might launch a unilateral attack on Iran. But last year the House rejected, by a vote of 288 to 136, an amendment that would have prohibited funds being used to take military action against Iran without specific authorization from Congress — unless Iran had first attacked the United States. This is why this position by Admiral Mullen is encouraging.