Triple Bank Shot Foreign Policy Theories = Very Bad Policy: Bombing Iran Edition

Chris Dierkes

Chris Dierkes (aka CJ Smith). 29 years old, happily married, adroit purveyor and voracious student of all kinds of information, theories, methods of inquiry, and forms of practice. Studying to be a priest in the Anglican Church in Canada. Main interests: military theory, diplomacy, foreign affairs, medieval history, religion & politics (esp. Islam and Christianity), and political grand bargains of all shapes and sizes.

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8 Responses

  1. Francis says:

    you’ve forgotten your historical analogies. Don’t you remember WWII? The will of the English crumbled under the Blitz, Churchill negotiated an armistice that Hitler broke with a massive invasion, the US was forced to island-hop from Greenland to Iceland to Ireland to Britain, the Bomb was completed, the airplane carrying it was shot down on the way to Berlin (wasn’t that quite the revelation in 1973 as part of the Pentagon Papers!) and the Russians finally stopped at the old Maginot Line, facing Patton’s tanks.

    what, your version of history is different?Report

  2. Dan Miller says:

    Honestly, I don’t think dead civilians would be necessary to enrage the Iranian populace. Imagine if Iran launched an attack on a US military base and killed only enlisted soldiers. Do you honestly think that would incline us towards restraint?Report

  3. James Hanley says:

    “In other words, how is Iran in two paragraphs both a state-sponsor of terrorism AND a state that won’t retaliate to “meaningful strikes” on their country?”

    A good question. The thinking seems to be that “those people” cowardly. They support terrorism because it’s “the coward’s way,” and so they will turn tail and run like cowards when we bomb the shiite out of them. Funny how it rarely works out that way. Perhaps the only example where it did was when we bombed Libya, but in that case were were deliberately targeting Kaddahfi, so it became a personal, rather than a political choice, for him. But in general, these right-wingers have a hard time understanding that Iranians, Iraquis, Afghans, etc., are pretty much just like us–they aren’t cowards and they’ll fight back just as we would.Report

  4. North says:

    I’m especially tickled by his blasé assumption that dropping a few bombs on Iran would do something (hell anything) to set back their nuclear program. Why in reality’s name does he think that they put their facilities under entire goddamn mountains and then plopped quite capable anti air systems on top of them? Does he really think that it’s going to just be a matter of strolling a few F-22’s over Persia, dropping a heavy through a tin roof onto a centrifuge, dropping some leaflets on the population centers and then strolling out. If it was this easy doesn’t he think that Israel would have already done it?? Or is this all just “Jonny Arab will turn tail and run as soon as he gets a taste of American steel” jingoism?

    Frankly I haven’t read a plausible plan for an air based campaign that significantly sets back the Iranian nuclear program that doesn’t use a nuclear weapon(and no, we will never deploy a nuclear weapon without being engaged in total war or being hit with one first).Report