Why put an attack on Iran back on the table?

There’s been a mini-boomlet of late in arguments to put a military strike against Iran back on the table. Joe Klein had a solid article in Time last week arguing that the U.S. is reconsidering a military strike on Iran. There’s a marginal poll showing 56% support for an Israeli strike on Iran (actually quite a low number, given the general enthusiasm of Americans for bombing things). There are Israeli reports that it has convinced the U.S. of the viability of a military option. There’s Reuel Gerecht’s long brief for military action in the Weekly Standard. There’s yet another Washington Post op-ed arguing for brandishing a military threat. This is odd. The argument for a military strike is no stronger now than it has been in the past — and in many ways it is considerably weaker.

Why is the argument weaker? Mainly because Iran is weaker. If you set aside the hype, it is pretty obvious that for all of the flaws in President Obama’s strategy, Iran today is considerably weaker than it was when he took office. Go back to 2005-07, when the Bush administration was supposedly taking the Iranian threat seriously, with a regional diplomacy focused upon polarizing the region against Iran. In that period, Iranian “soft power” throughout the region rose rapidly, as it seized the mantle of the leader of the “resistance” camp which the U.S. eagerly granted it. Hezbollah and Hamas, viewed in Washington at least as Iranian proxies, were riding high both in their own … >>>

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