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Go Home The Bomb Squad

POLITICS APRIL 21, 2010

The Bomb Squad

BY MICHAEL CROWLEY

Imagine for a moment that it is late 2010, perhaps a few weeks after the midterm elections. Barack Obama has scheduled a surprise prime-time televised statement from the Oval Office. Looking grave, even shaken, behind the presidential desk, Obama fixes his gaze into the camera and speaks:

When I said that it would be unacceptable for Iran to produce a nuclear weapon, I meant it. Over the past several months, it has become clear that neither engagement nor isolation and sanctions have slowed Iran’s determination to build a bomb. And recent, solid intelligence has confirmed that Iran may now be much closer to nuclear weapons capability than anyone believed possible. So tonight, I have authorized air strikes against several facilities integral to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. This is a decision I make with a heavy heart and a clear-eyed understanding of the risks involved.

It’s not an easy scenario to envision. Senior military officials are said to have warned Obama about the risks of military action against Iran, and last week, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen warned of the likely “destabilizing consequences” of an attack on Iran. The Brookings Institution’s Michael O’Hanlon and Bruce Reidel recently wrote that it’s “simply not credible that we would use force [against Iran] in the foreseeable future.” But in Washington of late, it’s been possible to detect a slight uptick in talk of the last resort. At an April 14 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Iran, the committee’s normally dovish chairman, Carl Levin, pressed the Pentagon’s under secretary for policy, Michele Flournoy, to assure him that the military option remains, as they say, “on the table.” She assured him that it does. At the same hearing, Joe Lieberman warned that “if sanctions do not work then we have to be prepared to use military force to stop the unacceptable from happening.” Sure, Lieberman’s a notorious hawk. But less-noted than Mullen’s warning about the effects of attacking Iran was his simultaneous argument that “Iran getting a nuclear weapon would [also] be incredibly destabilizing.” And sure enough, CNN recently reported that Mullen has told the military to update contingency plans for such an attack.

If there is a renewed conversation in Washington about a possible military strike on Iran, it may be fueled by a leaked secret memo by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to the White House, which warned that the Obama team lacks clear plans for preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power if sanctions don’t work, and for dealing with Iran if it does achieve a “breakout” capability just short of building an actual bomb.

Only the most zealous of hawks openly advocate bombing Iran right now, before sanctions and sabotage have had ample time to work. That said, virtually no one welcomes seeing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his master, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with the power to make a mushroom cloud. Perhaps as a result of this cognitive dissonance, there is a sentiment sometimes expressed that we might not need to consider bombing Iran—because, should diplomacy and sanctions fail, Israel will do the job for us. The Israelis bombed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program at Osirak in 1981, after all, and also flattened a nascent Syrian nuclear project in late 2007. Maybe they can do it again—and in a way that allows Obama to claim that America played no role. (That’s exactly what some people thought Joe Biden was hinting at last summer when the vice president answered a question about an Israeli attack by saying that the United States “cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do.”) As the Wall Street Journal’s Gerald Seib reported last week, citing “informed sources,” the United States has been pressuring China to support sanctions with the following appeal: "Look, you'd better cooperate on sanctions, because if we don't do something, Netanyahu is just crazy enough to attack Iran."

Unfortunately, such an outcome would be the worst of all worlds. Obviously, a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear march would be vastly preferable to a military one. And even if, as seems likely, tough international sanctions are either unattainable or fail to change Iran’s course, it may well be that air strikes aren’t worth the potentially terrible consequences. Yet if someone is going to bomb Iran, it shouldn’t be Israel. It should be America.

 

The main reason is simple: America is in a far better position to cripple Iran’s nuclear program. Consider the analysis of a possible Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities published last year by Abdullah Toukan and Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The authors imagined a scenario where Israeli jets flew through southern Turkish airspace and then cut across Iraq’s northern tip to strike several facilities within Iran. Toukan and Cordesman were not optimistic about the results. “[I]t would be complex and high risk in the operational level and would lack any assurances of a high mission success rate,” they concluded. Israel would face an array of problems, they argue, from the limited range of its aircraft—requiring multiple refuelings—to the limited ability of its warheads to penetrate Iran’s deeply buried nuclear facilities.

By contrast, last month Toukan and Cordesman released a similar report, this one examining a possible American attack on Iran. Their assessment was far more bullish. Such an attack would involve U.S. B-2 stealth bombers based in Diego Garcia. The B-2 has exponentially longer range than Israel’s F-15 and F-16 fighter-bombers. Conveniently, last summer the B-2 completed an upgrade allowing it to carry the GPS-guided 5,300-pound Massive Ordinance Penetrator bomb. And the bomber’s stealth nature will make it far less vulnerable to Iran’s air-defense system than the Israeli Air Force’s traditional jets. As Cordesman and Toukan conclude, the U.S. is “the only country that can launch a successful Military Solution."

Chuck Wald, a retired four-star U.S. Air Force General who worked on a Bipartisan Policy Center task force on Iran, argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last summer that the U.S. military option is “a technically feasible and credible option.” Perhaps most significantly, even Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen, who has often warned of the possible grave consequences of hitting Iran, conceded last weekend that a U.S. attack would “go a long way” toward setting back (though not eliminating) Iran’s nuclear program.

Let’s pause here to reiterate the obvious fact that a U.S. attack on Iran might well be an epic disaster. Iran could incite its Shiite allies in Iraq to sow violence and chaos even as tens of thousands of American troops remain in the country. Tehran could also step up support for the Afghan Taliban; in a nightmare scenario, Iran might supply the Taliban with surface-to-air Stinger missiles, the weapon that drove out the Soviets. “The regional security consequences,” Cordesman and Toukan concluded in their latest report, “would be catastrophic.” What’s more, while some Arab regimes might quietly celebrate a blow against their Persian rival, it’s not clear how many ordinary Muslims will see things that way. And any attack might shore up Ahmadinejad’s grip on power, in a rally-round-the-flag effect. The potential effects on the oil market and a recovering world economy are hard to predict. Awful as the effects of a military strike by the U.S. may be, however, there’s plenty of reason to think the fallout from an Israeli attack would be just as treacherous for America. The U.S. can always deny a role in or even knowledge of a strike by Israel. But Iran’s leaders are almost sure to assume the nefarious American-Zionist machine at work anyway. Moreover, the Council on Foreign Relations’s Steven Simon wrote in November, “[R]egardless of perceptions of U.S. complicity in the attack, the United States would probably become embroiled militarily in any Iranian retaliation against Israel or other countries in the region.”

Unintended consequences might also drag America into a fight that someone else started. Consider an Iran war game conducted in December by the Brookings Institution which imagined a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran. Things got nasty fast. Iran unleashed a slew of attacks against Israel, including launching ballistic missiles at Israel’s air bases and its Dimona nuclear facility. Hezbollah and Hamas began new rocket campaigns, drawing Israel back into Lebanon. And Iran began a campaign of international terrorism in Europe designed to undermine Western support for Israel. The game’s American team hoped to stay on the sidelines. But because Iran understood this, Tehran overreached, launching attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, whom Iran’s leaders perceived as having supported the strike. (The game’s Israeli jets had crossed Saudi airspace.) When Iran began to mine the Strait of Hormuz, a key choke point for the global oil trade, it crossed a U.S. “red line.” The game ended with the United States “massively” reinforcing its forces in the region and the prospect of a substantial conventional war between the United States and Iran.

That may be a nearly worst-case scenario, and it is possible that the United States could avoid clashing with Iran in the wake of an Israeli strike. (Tehran might tread more carefully than imagined in this war game, understanding that a fight with Israel alone would bring more international support and less military risk.) At a minimum, however, since we can’t just walk away from the Middle East—our stake in Iraq’s future, alliance with Israel, and dependence on Gulf oil, among other things, simply won’t allow us —any new problems there will be our problems as well.

None of this means that America should attack Iran. After all, virtually no one thinks that even an American strike can end Tehran’s nuclear program. (Among other things, as Cordesman concedes, we may not have good enough intelligence to know where still-hidden facilities may lie.) Instead we could set back the Iranians and buy a few years’ time—time in which a more moderate government might assume power, or in which the West might convince Iran and other watchful nuclear aspirants that the benefits of going nuclear are outweighed by the diplomatic (and military) punishment it entails. That would be a massive gamble, however. And everyone knows how America’s last big gamble in the region turned out.

But if Barack Obama really believes that an Iranian bomb is unacceptable, and that only the use of force can prevent it, then he needs to face the grim truth that this is a burden for America to shoulder—and resist the temptation to let someone else handle the grim job for us.

Michael Crowley is a senior editor of The New Republic.

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42 comments

"...more moderate government might assume power" Hopefully but unlikely after an attack, unless the attack triggers an internal government change. However even if this occurs, why would we expect the successor government to be more amenable to the country that had recently bombed them? That Iraq's invasion was likely the catalyst that solidified the Mullah's then-tenuous grip on power, despite the appalling demands they made on the civilian population, is worth considering. Also, since the last moderate (by Iranian standards) government was completely spurned by the US administration at the time, what attractions can we offer to entice the Iranians? If we wouldn't give them security guarantees before, why should they believe us now?

- Nari224

April 22, 2010 at 9:58am

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Forget the weapons. Just go after the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij. Then, when the regime dispatches its goons against the people, we'll bomb the convoys. Before long, the Iranian people will be rid of their regime, and we will too.

- sighthnd

April 22, 2010 at 4:48pm

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Iran has no real friends, although historic ties with Afghanistan continue. Iran certainly does not trust Russia. My bet is with China and Mother Nature. The prospect of any military scenario against Iran fails to include what the Saudis and China appear to be working on. Increased exports of Saudi oil to China, whose blue water navy is now back in the Persian Gulf after a six hundred year absence. China offering Iran supply of refined petroleum products. In essence, China is turning Iran into an economic dependent. Meanwhile, inside Iran, earthquake mania is the main preoccupation. Teheran is overdue for a massive earthquake. The clerics blame immodest women, the opposition believe the Revolutionary Guard will trigger it to prevent any military attack. The seismologists despair: "Half of the population will die, there will be a complete breakdown of all infrastructure, nearby dams will break, large fires will erupt. Tehran will become completely uninhabitable," he said. "There is no way of really avoiding this. We can't save this city." quote from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/21/AR2010042102998.html What will happen will not have Israeli or American fingerprints.

- K2K

April 26, 2010 at 12:40am

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Why should the US be afraid of the scumbags who rule Iran? Blockade the bastards, cut off their gasoline supply. Make a necktie party for Ahmedinejad a goal of US policy. It worked for Saddam Insane, why not for this POS? The Arabs would protest in public but they would give us a big wink in private.

- bulbman1066

April 26, 2010 at 1:13am

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"But if Barack Obama really believes that an Iranian bomb is unacceptable, and that only the use of force can prevent it, then he needs to face the grim truth that this is a burden for America to shoulder—and resist the temptation to let someone else handle the grim job for us." This has been obvious to me from the start. Good article!

- jdyer

April 26, 2010 at 1:21am

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jdyer is right as usual.. The sad fact is that Obama is first anti-American president. His mixture of vulgar Marxism and anti-white racism is, sadly, what passes for ideology among the interest groups that make up the Democratic Party. today. Impeach the bastard and save western civilization.

- bulbman1066

April 26, 2010 at 2:19am

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This nation can ill afford the military involvement we already have in the region. Bombing Iran to "set back" it's nuclear program will, as the article points out, most likely make the overall political and military situation in the region far worse. Starting a third military confrontation smack between Iraq and Afghanistan is not in our interests, whether Israel does the dirty work, or the US does. We need to lean hard on the Tehran government, and make it clear that it is the government, not the country with whom we have disagreement, and that testing a nuclear weapon will result in comprehensive blockade of Iran's economy, to the degree we are capable. But we also need to be realistic - we don't hold a strong hand in this matter. There is no sure route to what we want. And we need to lean equally hard on the Israeli government not to throw a match on this particular pool of gasoline. It's highly unlikely Israel can prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, and they have nothing to gain and a lot to lose from the chaos in the region that could result from bombing Iran. If Israel drags us into this with a high-risk strike, I's have to seriously question their value as an ally any more. I also doubt that Crowley's main thesis - that it is somehow less risky for either the US or Israel if the US does the bombing - holds water. You really think Iran is going to NOT blame Israel and increase it's confrontation with them just because it was bombed by the "Great Satan" rather than the "Zionist Devils?" That's putting a lot faith in what seems to me to be a very fine distinction as viewed by lenses worn by the folks in Tehran.

- IowaBeauty

April 26, 2010 at 7:38am

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Iowa is basically correct, but there are three large differences between the US and Israel in this: The first is that, if the Iranians have taken steps to protect their nuclear assets, as they surely have, Israel doesn't have the ordinance to deliver even a major blow to the Iranian program. Advocates of air warfare are forever imagining that it is more precise and devastating than it is. This delusion began with WWII, when the air marshals claimed they could win the war, and continued right down to "shock and awe." Osirak was a single, highly visible, high value target of an extremely technical nature that was not recoverable. It is a bad precedent. The second difference is that the US is considerably less vulnerable to retaliation of all kinds. The third difference is that the US has plenty of power in reserve with which to restrain any Iranian response. We have stand-off weapons of many kinds that would allow us to continue to visit destruction on Iran for a very long time if it decided to engage us in a war. Withal, if we are going to use force, we would be better off interdicting Iran's oil exports and gasoline imports, even if everyone in the world suffers as a result. One can un-interdict. It is not possible to un-bomb. The results of a bombing campaign have the potential to get very out of control very fast. If we not only embargoed Iran's oil exports (and gasoline imports), but imposed rationing on our own use of gasoline in order to tell each other and the world that we are deadly serious and not posturing, there would be a decent chance that we could get the rest of the world to support us in order to move the Iranians and get oil flowing. A temporary tariff on imports to reduce our trade deficit in the face of sky-rocketing oil prices would probably scare the crap out of the Chinese and induce some cooperation. If we are in fact deadly serious, we can spread enough pain around, without bombing, to command the world's attention. If we are not at least that serious, starting what might turn into a large conflagration with unforeseeable consequences is a truly terrible idea.

- roidubouloi

April 26, 2010 at 7:59am

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The diplomatic Kabuki has failed. Obama has to act more forcefully to prevent the situation from spinning out of control.

- amidut

April 26, 2010 at 8:56am

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The diplomatic kabuki has barely begun, because you cannot consider what Bush did for eight years to be diplomacy, the exercise of power, or indeed anything other than a delusion, "faith-based reality." Eight years wasted. Now the very people who exhausted that time and opportunity are in a frightful hurry to rush to disaster, as they did in Iraq. That figures. They know nothing, they learn nothing.

- roidubouloi

April 26, 2010 at 9:11am

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"The second difference is that the US is considerably less vulnerable to retaliation of all kinds." I agree. But I also doubt that Tehran will necessarily make this distinction. It would hardly be out of character for the Iranians in this situation to retaliate against Israel for something the US did. Sure, that would cost them more in eyes of world opinion, but do you really think they'd care at that point? Relying in those in charge to reason that "well the US did this, and I can't really strike the US effectively or without risking even worse retaliation, so I'm going to just sit tight" rather than "Satan and Jews are the same Axis, so let me hit the Jews in retaliation for Satan's evil" sounds like a damned poor bet to me.

- IowaBeauty

April 26, 2010 at 9:32am

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I agree with you, Iowa. But I would still expect Iran to be less aggressive in response, towards both Israel and the US, if the US were the attacker. If it starts attacking Israel without having been attacked by Israel, Israel would have a lot greater latitude to act, particularly because the nuclear targets are, by hypothesis, either destroyed or as destroyed as they are going to get. If Israel doesn't have to focus on those difficult to attack assets, it can do a lot more damage at a lot less cost and risk to itself. That would have to worry Iran and restrain it from being too provocative. For the reasons you cite and others, embargo seems like by far the better course. Certainly a better first move. One can always escalate to war. Ending a war once started can be very difficult. See, e.g., Iraq.

- roidubouloi

April 26, 2010 at 10:00am

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No determined nation with significant resources has ever been blocked from developing nuclear capacity if it wants to. If North Korea can, certainly Iran will be able to. Iran probably will not build actual weapons and store them, just have the components ready to assemble and maintain ambiguity. An American attack by air could set the process back a few years, but would have major negative effects on the US in the long run that are not worth the cost of simply delaying the Iranian project, and also making it more certain to eventually be pushed through. Once the US bombs, no Iranian government will be satisfied till it has developed nuclear capacity. Iran sees nuclear weapons as key defensive items. Two of its major neighbors have been occupied by the US, and India, Pakistan and Israel all are nuclear states in the region. Bush had 8 years to try the tough guy approach, it is hypocritical to attack Obama for not going to war against Iran when Bush declined to do so.

- nayyer_ali

April 26, 2010 at 10:13am

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I disagree that the US is somehow less exposed to retaliation than Israel. We have tens of thousands of troops in the region. An attack on Iran would leave those troops vulnerable, forcing them to abandon their missions in Afghanistan and Iraq and do a complete 180 to engaging Iranian forces.

- ruyehara88

April 26, 2010 at 10:25am

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Less exposed to retaliation is not the same as not exposed to retaliation. The continental US is not within range of Iran. There are thousands of missiles in Lebanon that can reach Israel, effectively under Iranian control. "No determined nation with significant resources has ever been blocked from developing nuclear capacity if it wants to." Such generalities are a useful guide, but then one has to take account of differences. Iran is far more vulnerable than North Korea or Pakistan because of the nature of its economy, its near total dependence on international trade. That commerce can be disrupted with or without actual war. India was and is simply too large to be deterred by threats of any kind. It is unable to project power, but it is a Great Power none-the-less. More than a billion people say so. North Korea had what was tantamount to the sanction of China and the history of the Korean War that meant we were not going to attempt any violent means near China over its objections. Plus Seoul is held hostage even to conventional weapons. The United States had no interest in threatening Pakistan as it was its patron. In contrast, Iran and the US have had a hostile relationship for 30 years. Iran has no very ardent Great Power protector. It is vulnerable in ways that North Korea, Pakistan, and India were not. If the US is willing to disrupt Iran's commerce to impose an inspection regime, it can and neither China nor Russia would stop it. But the price will be steep, just not as steep as going to war.

- roidubouloi

April 26, 2010 at 10:38am

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This is a very good article. As for the comments from the usual (and not-so-usual) suspects, my BS-meter goes to 11 every time I read something about bombing Iran's nuclear installations that includes the words "simply", "just" or "all we need to do is".

- wildboy

April 26, 2010 at 11:02am

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ruyehara: Of course Iran can retaliate against the US. Just creating chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan would be considerable retaliation. But putting out troops at risk is very different than attacking Israel and Israeli civilians in particular directly. Iran can't do much to get at the US homeland. They can raise hell in Israel.

- IowaBeauty

April 26, 2010 at 11:48am

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I'm glad that IowaBeauty feels safe, but here in the NYC area (part of the US homeland) we have Islamist cells aplenty. Also, Iran has troops and military installations in Venezuela, courtesy of its maximo lider, Hugo Chavez.

- amidut

April 26, 2010 at 1:19pm

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amidut wrties: -- I'm glad that IowaBeauty feels safe, but here in the NYC area (part of the US homeland) we have Islamist cells aplenty. It does not matter where in the US homeland you reside the biggest terrorist threat you face is NRA-sponsored gun terrorism. Every year far more Americans are shot to death than have ever been killed by Muslim terrorists.

- ndmackenzie

April 26, 2010 at 1:28pm

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nayyer_ali: "No determined nation with significant resources has ever been blocked from developing nuclear capacity if it wants to." Is that so? What about Iraq? What about Syria?

- JPKatz

April 26, 2010 at 1:34pm

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amidut, I didn't say they can't do anything, I said they can't do much. And unless you believe Iran could build a bomb sufficiently robust and compact to smuggle it into NY Harbor, and that they'd be stupid enough to do so, the most Iran can likely do in the US before we roll them up is some small scale terror attacks. If we're going to determine our foreign policy on the basis of that kind of risk, we're in a world of hurt.

- IowaBeauty

April 26, 2010 at 1:39pm

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Germany killed 6,000,000 European Jews, the UN "resolved" to take land from Palestinians, put Palestinian residents in camps, and create the State of Israel. The UN made this problem. Germany donated Mercedes Benz taxis and small arms to the new state of Israel--but no land. The UN needs to revisit all this and somehow treat Palestinians like human beings--not animals. A GREAT WRONG was enacted against these people and now it's as if large groups of angry and half crazed people are confined in a bus with factions threatening each other with hand grenades. As presently formulated, the situation is a perpetual explosive situation on the edge of unimaginable disaster. The fundamental problem is not who pulls the first pin and tosses the first pineapple--it is 1.) accepting that the UN had no business assigning Palestinian land to Hitler's victims. 2. Putting the land issues right. 3. getting rid of all the world's nuclear weapons & WMDs. Are we in North America better than others because we liberated the lands from the First Peoples who lived here and fattened our purses? We can only justify bombing Iran if we enshrine bits and pieces of bias and fabrication in "our" facile and convenient historical record, ignore the big picture and complete story, and adopt a devil-may-care attitude to advancing superiority with casino style risk-taking while. In reality, we are all crammed into the aforementioned bus w/ all these very explosive toys. Obama is probably right--the nukes need to disappear and the U.N. needs serious housecleaning to become respectful of all interests and respectable.... And when clean-up of some Augean Stable may be required, this body needs to be able to authorize pressure, sanctions, or force as may be required. It is possible to identify evolved wisdom traditions that can generate disinterested analysis capable of trumping self interest, bluster and swagger. The fundamental problem is believing that "While everyone is special, some people are more special than others."

- JohnC

April 26, 2010 at 1:43pm

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I am with sighthnd, take out ahmed and the leadership, how can people rally around a leadership that is dead? These people live in luxurious compounds apart from the riff raff, the Ayatollahs son is a billionaire. It doesn't even have to be the US that does it (but we can provide all the intelligence the Israelis need)

- blackton

April 26, 2010 at 2:00pm

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In the final analysis, Obama will never attack Iran. The rest is wasted commentary.

- nhrds@earthlink.net

April 26, 2010 at 2:12pm

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JohnC, So supposing for the sake of argument that you have a point about Germans and Israelis and Palestinians, what in hell does that have to with Iran? Iran's hatred for Israel is a combination of anti-Western and anti-Jewish sentiment. Iran wouldn't give a rat's ass for the plight of Palestinians if the issue were not useful to them to hammer at the West and Israel, and it's counterproductive at best to legitimize their sponsorship of Hezbollah and Hamas as being somehow linked to a search for justice for Palestinians.

- IowaBeauty

April 26, 2010 at 3:25pm

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"Also, Iran has troops and military installations in Venezuela, courtesy of its maximo lider, Hugo Chavez." Let's stay on this planet at least, will we? Iran attacking us from Venezeula is science fiction stuff. We also have around 100,000 troops next door to Iran, come to that.

- ironyroad

April 26, 2010 at 3:52pm

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At http://www.gfip.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=257&Itemid=74, you may find NY DA Robert Morgenthau's comments about the mushrooming relationship between Iran and Venezuela.

- amidut

April 26, 2010 at 6:16pm

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"As for Venezuela, the world must no longer assume that Chavez is bluffing when he speaks. It is important that the public generally, and responsible government officials in particular, be aware of the growing presence of Iran in Latin America. And it is necessary to urge Venezuela’s neighbors to understand the sinister implications of Iran’s presence in the region. Brazil, whose constitution prohibits nuclear weapons, can play a significant role in influencing Chavez. Finally, the U.S. and the international community must strongly consider ways to monitor and sanction Venezuela’s banking system. Failure to take action in this regard will leave open a window susceptible to money laundering use by the Iranian government, the narcotics organizations with ties to the Venezuelan government, and the terrorist organizations that Iran supports openly." This is the conclusion of Morgenthau's talk, and I have no problem with his comments. However, Iran is not Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, is not a superpower in any sense of the word, and we need to keep things in proportion.

- ironyroad

April 27, 2010 at 12:02am

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It would help if there was less functional illiteracy on the subject of Islam and Iran. The Pope was shouted down when he tried to hint at a useful approach. While not Catholic, I will try to outline what he was aiming at. The crucial distinction between Christianity and Islam is the relation of faith to reason. Christianity recognizes that faith is subordinate to reason. (Some of this can be found in Rodney Stack, Victory of reason.) Plato famously asked whether God approves of good actions because they are right, or are they right because He approves of them. Christianity assumes the former, even though the Reformation had to be fought because it took so long to agree on just whose reasoning was valid. Islam opted 14 centuries ago for the moral view that it is the will of Allah which determines Right and Wrong. Mohammed as not only a prophet, he was also a cavalry general and a head of state. It was natural for him to interpret the will of Allah, and equally natural to decree that Islam is divinely inspired and infallible while all other moral systems are in error, and evil. No Reformation in Islam was ever possible given such a foundation. Christians and Muslims are, as a result, forever talking past each other. We both use evaluative language, but we don't mean the same thing. When a Israeli shell lands in Gaza, Hamas does not ask why the Israelis fired it. They do not seek to understand a context. Allah has decreed that the death of a Muslim is always an Evil, but that killing an Infidel is good if he is harming a Muslim in any way. This is why there is no distinction in Islam between politics and religion. Mr. Crowley's article has much to comment it. Its main weakness is the failure to realize that the evil retaliation which Iran would visit on the West after a U.S. and Israeli attack is already fully under way, in response to Allah's Will. American troops, fighting insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, die because of Iranian ordinance every day. Those conflicts, as well as 9/ll, mark only the beginning of the mortal threat to the very existence of the Infidel West, which the Iranian mullahs seek to lead. Trying to convince them (or countless other radical Islamic extremists) that we mean them no harm and wish an accommodation for their legitimate concerns will only convince them that we are weak and desperately trying to bribe them into compromise. That only gives them the taste of inevitable success. Mr. Crowley is right on in arguing that Israeli must not be left to do the dirty work alone, but the West has its own hands full with its Radical Left. The Michael Moore's of our world have hated our culture so long that nothing will persuade them to defend it now. Sayyid Qtub, the great terrorist philosopher, expected the victory of Islam is be inevitable because while we love life, Muslim radicals love death. Obama and the Americal Left will never cut through their dogmatic fog to grasp the real danger to the world they think they are building.

- lance00002001

April 27, 2010 at 9:18pm

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Fortunately, the Moslems who life death more than life or are so devoted to the theology of Islam are a minority. There is no particular reason to believe that the ultra-devote are much more numerous amongst Moslems than amongst the other religions of the world. And the ultra-devote everywhere are a problem whenever they have weapons.

- roidubouloi

April 27, 2010 at 9:51pm

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"who love death more than life"

- roidubouloi

April 27, 2010 at 9:51pm

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roidubouloi: With all due respect, you make the usual liberal mistake of being "even-handed" on this subject. That assumes that Islamists are really much like us, and think much the same way. It follows that we can sit down and reason with them, and that they will eventually respond to our assurances that we mean them no harm. All illusion. There is a major push in North America (Europe is already almost gone) to create the right of religions (only Islam seems to be an issue) not to be offended. Any good moderate Muslim will swear up and down and sideways that violence abhors him, except that when infidels insult the Prophet (see South Park, the Danish cartoons, the Dutch film maker, the cancelling of a Mozart opera in Germany) they must understand that they are inviting violence. They are foresquare for freedom of speech, but that doesn't cover insults to their religion. We will be losers until we grasp the truth: the difference between a moderate and a radical in Islam is that the latter will kill us now, but the former is willing to wait of few decades for us to surrender. The problem is not that all or most Muslims are terrorists; the problem is that all or most terrorists are Muslim. And there is a reason why a minority (not all that tiny) of murderous radicals have festered within the greater Islamic community for centuries. By the way, why do we always fail to connect dots, whether it be 9/11, Fort Hood, Richard Reid, or the Christmas bomber? Because we fear being branded as racial profilers. There may be hope for our civilization when it can bring itself to address these questions, but that isn't likely to be any time soon.

- lance00002001

April 28, 2010 at 2:30am

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Well, lance, I'm not even trying to be "even-handed." It's just that I know some very cosmopolitan Moslems who are no more punctilious about Islam than I am in my observance of traditional Judaism. One is a an open homosexual. Another is an Iranian expat who returns to Iran regularly, is published on the subject of Iran, and is consulted by a number of governments, including that of Israel, on conditions there. His description of the bulk of Iranian society bears no resemblance to yours. That is not to say that there aren't extremists who are every bit as dark as your description. Nor is it to say that those Moslems who are not extremists have strong political convictions in some other direction. They are just ordinary people whose attitude toward their religion is not much different than the attitudes of westerners towards theirs. Somewhere between custom, tradition, and mild faith, not something that they think about most of the time. In Iran in particular, my friend suggests that the vast majority of people there are fed up with theocratic government and just want to go back to "normal" life. They hitched themselves to the ayatollahs because it was a way to get rid of the repressive shah and got a lot more than they bargained for, as happens in revolutions. As many of the right, you seem to imagine that the threat of radical Islam is only taken seriously by you. You are mistaken. But your generalizations are extreme and having not much to do with the actual nature of the threat. Wahabism, for example, is actively encouraged by the government of Saudi Arabia, as the Taliban are the creation of the government of Pakistan. These are not simply spontaneous movements, but the work of governments using them as tools for different ends. And this "connect the dots" business sounds way too much like the Black Helicopter conspiracy crowd. And Christianity has had more than its share of religious radicals, despite your claims.

- roidubouloi

April 28, 2010 at 7:46am

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"Europe is already almost gone" Well, I was in Europe a few months ago, and it seemed to be there. Plenty of drinking and flirting in bars too. In Europe generally that is, I don't mean I did all of it!

- ironyroad

April 28, 2010 at 3:17pm

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lance. I think you have some valid points. I hope to be able to inquire and mayhaps expand as my inclination allows. For now it's the expanded list of Commandments from the immediate utmost, my wife, that requires my devotion.

- jacko

April 28, 2010 at 3:41pm

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roidubouli: You need to avoid labelling things as "right wing" and "left wing", and the fallacy of enumeration. Your knowing a couple of Muslims does not prove that there is no medieval mindset in traditional Islam, but then you simply didn't bother to attend to my argument. In fact, my grandfather was a co-founder of Canada's socialist party in 1932, and I read the entire works of Marx and Engels by the time I was 20. But, unlike the Left, I eventually got beyond 1932. I still am a member (rather skeptical) of Canada's socialist party, but I have not made the mistake of faulting our culture for most of the evils of the world, and, You will learn soon enough the realities of radical Islam, and that it is not a fringe group.

- lance00002001

April 28, 2010 at 10:22pm

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You are hardly in a position, lance, to take me to task for over-generalizing (that things are more nuanced) on the strength of a few direct examples, one of whom at least is an acknowledged expert on conditions in Iran. You are willing to generalize about a billion people based on what appears to be no direct experience at all. Things can be right-wing and left-wing regardless of the party identification of the speaker. This is indeed the entire neo-con affectation, that, having begun as deluded leftists who have lost their delusions, they have some unique ability to see the truth, facts be damned. I see people who were deluded on the left and are now deluded on the right which proves only that they are delusional and their grand pronunciementos should be accorded the respect they deserve -- which is none. The reality of how Moslems feel and regard the world is an empirical matter, not something that you or anyone else can divine from your interpretation of their theology. There is much about the modern western world that cannot be inferred from Christian theology -- most of it in fact.

- roidubouloi

April 28, 2010 at 11:31pm

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Believers run the gamut on personality types. The interplay between reason and faith can run the gamut accordingly. I wish that I had more time to really dig in to this. Big subject. Suffice that certain types of folks regard all events as confirmation to their convictions. Be it Muslim, Christian or United Nations acolyte. These kind of folks usually have a whole lotta energy for devotion and defense/offense of said world view.

- jacko

April 29, 2010 at 7:10am

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"If you shoot at a king, you must kill him." Bombing Iran's nuclear facilities while leaving the regime intact does nothing but stir a hornet's nest. If we are considering a military solution to the possibility of a nuclear Iran, it seems counterproductive to hit the Tehran but leave it standing to destabilize the entire Middle East. Force should indeed be a last resort against Iran (that, I believe, is a given in nearly any situation), but if it comes down to force or an Iranian bomb, our target should be the pillars of the regime itself; the IRGC and the Basij.

- maxout717

April 29, 2010 at 7:15am

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No one can have read the entire works of Marx, because Capital is unreadable except here and there.

- roidubouloi

April 29, 2010 at 7:56am

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Okay. The version of Capital I read was Max Eastman's masterful one volume condensation of it. Roidubouloi: I really don't see the point of continuing this discussion. You won't address the problem I raised, which is not why all or most Muslims are terrorist or extremist (no one has ever said that) but why are most terrorists Muslim? There should be a chance for a useful exchange of ideas here, rather than responding by treating any criticism of any aspect of Islam as an attack on one billion Muslims. Instead of reading my comments, you simply scan them for buzz words. It seems to me that the Left's approach to the problem of radical Islam unaccountably ignores the fact that they are Infidels too.

- lance00002001

April 29, 2010 at 11:08am

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If that is your intent, lance, then you need to be a lot more careful about what you say. I didn't take issue with your characterization of Islamists, although I think that their behavior is better explained by what they have in common with other radical movements rather than by Islam, but said this: "Fortunately, the Moslems who love death more than life or are so devoted to the theology of Islam are a minority. There is no particular reason to believe that the ultra-devout are much more numerous amongst Moslems than amongst the other religions of the world. And the ultra-devout everywhere are a problem whenever they have weapons." and you respond with this: With all due respect, you make the usual liberal mistake of being "even-handed" on this subject. That assumes that Islamists are really much like us, and think much the same way. It follows that we can sit down and reason with them, and that they will eventually respond to our assurances that we mean them no harm. . . . We will be losers until we grasp the truth: the difference between a moderate and a radical in Islam is that the latter will kill us now, but the former is willing to wait of few decades for us to surrender." So, I point out only that radical Islamists are a small minority of Moslems -- not because Moslems in general are beatific but because most would rather have a nice dinner and watch TV like most of us -- and you both label this as a false "even-handedness" and go on to lump moderates in with radicals. Either you are talking about radical Islamists in general or Moslems in general. Which is it? As well, I don't think you can attribute to Islam the fact that political violence today is mostly a Moslem phenomenon. That makes as much sense as attributing imperialism and colonialism to Christianity. Yes, it was the practice of Christians, and, yes, they cloaked it in theology. But they did it for the power and the wealth. For complex reasons, Islamists see themselves as the vanguard of a vast dispossessed Moslem world. They are motivated by their sense of grievance and victimization, not by Islam. And there is some reality to their grievances. For example, the fact that the western world supports very repressive regimes in the Moslem world to assure our own access to their oil.

- roidubouloi

April 29, 2010 at 6:49pm

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