More good arguments against bombing Iran

POST: Iran and the Goldilocks Principle: Why Kuperman is Completely Wrong and the Leveretts are Only Partly Right and There are no Tunnel Bombs, By Juan Cole, Informed Comment, January 07, 2010

Very intelligent piece by Cole that's worth reading from top to (way below) bottom. Good points throughout, but I liked this one best:

The logical problem is, how can you both acknowledge the depth and legitimacy of the Green Reform movement and at the same time urge President Obama to pursue engagement with Ahmadinejad's government? Me, I don't see the problem here. We didn't close the Polish embassy during the Solidarity movement. You deal with the government in power on bilateral issues as long as it is there. If it falls, then you deal with the new government. It is not as if we are offering the regime weapons or materiel that could be used against the protesters. We're just jawboning them.

It has such a sensible, duh-like logic to it ("Big deal! So we talk to them!"), and yet Cole is but one voice among so many experts arguing otherwise that it seems remarkable and daring for him to make his case so starkly. There are, of course, others who speak such common sense, eschewing all manner of hyperbole, and they are like strange islands of quietude in this rancorous debate. Hard-liners seem to be saying that any interaction somehow spits in the face of the opposition. I just see such efforts doing much to deny the regime the excuse of the external enemy at a time when it needs it most.

Cole's take on the NYT tunneling piece was different from mine: he worries that a case is being made for strikes with such breathless reporting. Me? I just spot more logic against the notion that bombs will get us some definitive outcome, whether they're actually operating equipment under ground or simply stockpiling them to protect them from airstrikes (Cole's argument).

I am especially glad that Cole found the Kuperman piece as supremely bad as I did. I almost didn't blog it I felt it was such a bad piece of analysis, but then I felt compelled--on that basis--to say something. Cole really nails it nicely.

Comments

[Petrer]

For a guy with such sense, I wasn't surprised that the first blog comment was a typical moral equivalent, "oh we can't call Iran on its repression because we are an empire!...blah it's all our fault...."imperialism" started in 1942 etc...." very irritating to me because it is so disingenuous. Admission to reality is a very underrated quality in the political sphere.

[Gilbert Garza]

Kuperman says:

“It is not as if we are offering the regime weapons or materiel that could be used against the protesters. We're just jawboning them.”

My Comment:

1. Consider the message that breaking with a policy of behaviors’ having consequences: harboring and supporting terrorists with imposed non-communication as the consequence.2. Jawboning is “win win” for Iran: reinforces their legitimacy and/or places us in a bad light as non-serious negotiators –especially if there is no change in their continued bad behavior.3. Provides theatre and distraction from conditions which are seen to be leading to increasing the Iranian people’s dissatisfaction with the policies of Iran’s leaders and their personal nationalistic ideological and geopolitical ambitions and oppressive rogue behaviors.4. Distracts the US from a stance of patient watchful peaceful strategic preparedness and opportunism with all options openly on the table for strategic response to good behavior (preferably and certainly) but also in response to increased bad behavior (possibly, as necessary and appropriate).5. Impedes/slows the working of the economics that precedes the working of the politics.