Bush's Top 10 Reasons for Bombing Iran

I may be the last person to know Bush's current thinking on bombing Iran. But with the topic increasingly making news, I'll share some observations from my perch in the Middle East. I'm prompted to blog on this after seeing Steven Clemons's Salon piece "Why Bush won't attack Iran," which conforms to some of my thinking. I was intrigued to read that at a recent high-powered Washington dinner party (Scowcroft, Brzezinski, Bhutto, etc), a show of hands included 16 people who felt Bush was headed to military action and only two (including Scowcroft, a vocal, pre-war critic of the Iraq invasion) who thought he would hold his fire. This is contrary to the straw poll I've been taking among American friends over the past few months, the overwhelming majority of whom have dismissed a strike as crazy and therefore improbable.

I'll leave the reasons why Bush won't bomb Iran to Clemons for the time being. He makes many good points, citing the reporting of, among others, TIME's Joe Klein. Clemons seems primarily concerned about the possibility of Cheney--or Ahmadinejad--triggering an "accidental war" through an "engineered provocation" that sees hawks making an "end run" past Bush's diplomatic, intelligence and military decision-making apparatus.

As it looks from here, these are the top 10 reasons Bush might take America to war with Iran.

1. Bush's destiny is to defeat terrorism.

Because of 9/11, fighting terrorism and preventing terrorists or rogue states from using weapons of mass destruction is the mission of Bush's presidency. Applying to Iran is Bush's principal reason for invading Iraq under the Bush Doctrine of preventive war: to interdict a country known to have used WMD, maintained connections with terrorist groups and proved its recklessness by invading its neighbors. Questions about whether Saddam actually had nukes or had proven ties with Al Qaeda per se are details that for Bush do not change the basic truths about the threat Saddam posed. In preparing Americans for the invasion in March 2003, Bush argued: "We are now acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater. In one year, or five years, the power of Iraq to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied many times over. With these capabilities, Saddam Hussein and his terrorist allies could choose the moment of deadly conflict when they are strongest. We choose to meet that threat now, where it arises, before it can appear suddenly in our skies and cities." Bush has consistently raised the same set of concerns in describing the threat that Iran poses--that Iran may use nukes, that Iran backs terrorist groups and that Iran actively undermines security of other countries.

2. Bush feels an intense obligation to do all he can before he exits office in 2009, using force if necessary, to eliminate threats to American security.

Any president would, but he is the Commander-in-Chief who was confronted by the worst attack on U.S. soil in American history. In preparing the U.S. public for the attack on Iraq in 2003, he stated: "The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security. That duty falls to me, as Commander-in-Chief, by the oath I have sworn, by the oath I will keep." Bush may be disinclined to leave the threat posed by Iran to a successor, who may be less wise or experienced in appreciating the Iranian threat or his/her responsibility to deal with it.

3. Bush sees the Tehran regime as a threat to global security and American interests, arguably more so than Saddam was.

Bush's narrative of the Iranian threat goes beyond the narrow issue of Iran's nuclear ambitions. In his recent speeches, he has noted that it includes Iran's determination to "dominate the region" through the promotion of "violent Islamic radicalism" by leaders who "threaten the security of nations everywhere." Bush puts the U.S. in an epic struggle with what he calls a member of the "axis of evil" in which he implies that the only acceptable outcome is an Iranian defeat. Bush's body of evidence against Iran is clear cut. Iran is openly developing a uranium-enrichment program that could be diverted into a weapons program and defies the United Nations in proceeding with it. Iran is openly supporting and encouraging groups on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations, including the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and the Lebanese Hizballah. The U.S. accuses the latter of involvement in the bombing of the U.S. Marines base in Beirut in 1983, which killed 241 Americans, prior to 9/11 the single deadliest terrorist attack against the U.S. Iran openly harbors and refuses to hand over Al Qaeda operatives, although it claims to have them in detention. Finally, accusing Iran of "sending arms to extremists in Iraq that are used against Coalition and Iraqi troops, and Iraqi civilians," Bush has argued that an American defeat in Iraq would leave Iran "encouraged in its efforts to gain nuclear weapons and dominate the region." By contrast, much of Bush's case that Saddam posed a continuing threat rested on comparatively weak evidence that turned out to be questionable or false. It alleged that Saddam's government tried to purchase uranium in Niger. It highlighted Saddam's financial support for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, and alleged that an Iraqi agent held a meeting with a 9/11 hijacker in Prague.

4. Bush put--and keeps--the option of attacking Iran on the table.

Standing on the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Gulf last May, Cheney was not speaking for himself alone when he warned Iran: "With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we're sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike. We'll stand with our friends in opposing extremism and strategic threats. We'll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region." These are words that have to be taken at face value, even though Bush has also publicly stated his desire for a diplomatic solution.

5. Bush has little faith in the diplomatic channels for resolving the Iran problem peacefully and may feel that talking merely allows Tehran to buy time for building weapons.

If Bush was fully committed to the diplomatic option and avoiding war at all cost, he would offer Tehran unconditional negotiations (or at least offer to directly join multilateral negotiations, as Bush did with North Korea). In the case of Iraq, another member of the "axis of evil," Bush had argued that Saddam "used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage." Bush had scant confidence in U.N. inspections as a means of of containing the Iraq threat. "We know that Saddam Hussein pursued weapons of mass murder even when inspectors were in his country," Bush told the U.N. in September 2002. "The history, the logic, and the facts lead to one conclusion: Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take." Instead of diplomacy, notwithstanding some tentative U.S.-Iran discussions focused on the Iraq issue, Bush has steadily turned up the heat on Iran, through sanctions and a de facto program of slow-motion regime change that includes support for Iranian dissidents and pro-democracy activists.

6. Bush isn't confident that sanctions will prevent Iran from getting the bomb.

Bush can argue that Iran's defiance of U.N. resolutions calling for a freeze in uranium enrichment and heightened rhetoric by Ahmadinejad indicate that sanctions will not effectively force a reversal in Iranian nuclear ambitions before it is too late, and therefore only the military option can produce guaranteed success.

7. Bush is not too constrained by opposition to a war with Iran.

Bush can circumvent troublesome opponents because an attack on Iran will not be a major mobilization as in the case of the Iraq invasion requiring a congressional vote and months of visible military preparations. It is more likely to be a quick strike by ship- and plane-fired missiles perhaps involving covert operations on the ground aimed at destroying Iran's nuclear program and maybe certain bases of the Iranian Revolution Guards Corps. Although he doesn't always speak for Bush, Cheney has publicly praised Israel's 1981 military strike that destroyed Saddam's nuclear program of the day. The real debate over the attack will start after it has happened, rather than before. Bush will not be headed off by international objections to military action, or even by a political imperative to consult with foreign allies.

8. Bush is prepared to risk and if necessary endure consequences.

Bush has repeatedly argued that the war on terrorism is a long one that requires sacrifices and patience for the greater good. As Bush said in his 2007 State of the Union speech asking for patience in achieving results in Iraq, "The war on terror we fight today is a generational struggle that will continue long after you and I have turned our duties over to others." (A problem here: this may also be read as Bush's readiness, contrary to No. 2, above, to turn the Iran file over to his successor in 16 months.)

9. Bush could discover that a U.S. attack on Iran is not so unpopular with the American public.

Bush must consider the fortunes of his Republican Party in the 2008 elections. Yet, a successful strike against Iran may trigger support even to the point of raising Bush's low poll numbers due to the Iraq war. Sympathy for Iran, given the 1979 hostage crisis, Iranian opposition to Israel and Iranian backing for groups like Hizballah and Hamas, is extremely low. Ahmadinejad's rhetoric about wiping Israel off the map and bombastic championing of Iran's nuclear rights add to a strong case for being concerned about the danger a nuclear-armed Iran could pose. In comparison with the messy way the Iraq intervention has turned out, the operation to de-fang Iran's nuclear ambitions could be quicker and easier.

10. Bush could conclude that a U.S. attack on Iran will not produce the blowback that military and political experts predict.

Notwithstanding Iran's militant rhetoric and U.S. demonization of the Tehran regime, Iran refrains from direct, overt aggression in the interests of safeguarding its security and enhancing its political prestige. Hizballah and other allies may likewise calculate that their political and military bases are too vulnerable to American attack to risk overt terrorist retaliation that invites a devastating U.S. military response.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo