Pressure, yes. Disrupt, carefully. Use our military to overthrow? Well, I'll have to differ with you there. Iran is not Iraq. Is it dangerous, sure, but it's population is made up of huge numbers of young people who were already making their displeasure with the current regime known. If we rattle the saber at Iran too much, that will 1) turn much of that population against liberalizing reforms and back into the arms of the dictatorial clerics, and 2) enable the clerics to justify crackdowns on anyone remaining in opposition.
The Iranians overthrew one dictator 25 years ago, much to the chagrin of the Carter administration, and could do it again if we don't do anything to blow it. We can work with our allies on the political front to pressure them on the nuclear issue and on support of terrorism, and use our military in Iraq to send a stern "keep out" message to staunch any flow of fighters or other support for the insurgency there. We must also keep up the pressure on them to assist the war on al Qaeda by denying them transit through or shelter in Iran, and turning over those al Qaeda operatives they can catch. In addition, we should make it clear that, if they don't comply with world demands on nuclear proliferation, we retain the option of surgical strikes to shut down their programs for them. Finally, we can, from a distance and carefully, encourage the reform movement there. But I do think that and thought of direct military action to overthrow the Islamic clerics that rule there is, at best, misguided.
JMO, of course. |
