So says Roger Cohen of the New York Times. I don't know if it is unthinkable, but I certainly do know that it is unattractive. The number one reason being the probable retaliation by Iran--likely through Hezbollah--against American and Israeli targets worldwide (including the U.S. mainland). On the other hand, when I asked a Rebublican advisor on intelligence issues recently whether he thought anything other than military action would dissuade Iran from its nuclear program, he immediately answered "no." In the next breath, of course, he added that such action was an absolutle last option. It seems that everyone knows what probably needs to be done but no nation wants to a) acknowledge it publicly b) be the one to do it. Here's Cohen's take:
I’ve read think-tank scenarios that have the United States bombing Iran’s nuclear installations at Natanz, hitting Iranian military bases to limit the response, imposing a naval blockade and infiltrating special forces from Iraq or Afghanistan. After eight Bush-Cheney years, such plans exist at the Pentagon.
To which my response is: Hang on a second.
The United States’ role in the 1953 coup here that deposed the Middle East’s first democratically elected government lives in memory. Any U.S. attack would propel 56-year-old Iranian demons into overdrive and lock in an America-hating Islamic Republic for the next half-century.
From Basra through Kabul to the Paris suburbs, Muslim rage would erupt. The Iranian Army is not the Israeli Army, but its stubborn effectiveness is in no doubt. Rockets from Hezbollah and Hamas, and newly tested Iranian long-range missiles, would hit Israel.
Chaos would threaten Persian Gulf states, oil markets and the grinding U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. war front, in the first decade of the 21st century, at a time of national economic disaster, would stretch thousands of miles across the Muslim world, from western Iraq to eastern Afghanistan.
It is doubtful that a bombing campaign would end Iran’s nuclear ambitions, so all the above might be the price paid for putting off an Iranian bomb — or mastery of the production of fissile material — by a year or so.
In short, the U.S. military option is not an option. It is unthinkable.
Okay, so what are we supposed to do?
...only Obama can overcome the gridlock. He must break with the Bush years in more than words. That requires a solemn declaration that the United States recognizes and no longer seeks to destabilize the Islamic Republic — an implicit renunciation of force.
A threat, in Iranian eyes, can only come from a domineering power, the very U.S. attitude this country cannot abide.
I think the tightened sanctions being contemplated by Obama are a bad idea.
The sanctions don’t work; they enrich the regime cronies who circumvent them. Plunging oil prices are a cheaper weapon. They will concentrate Iranian minds as the economy nose-dives.
Decisiveness is foreign to the many-faceted Iranian system. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader and ultimate arbiter, will not easily be swayed from a course that would shred the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, of which Iran is a signatory, among other disasters. But reason can still prevail.
Sorry, Roger, but I highly doubt it. Basically, Cohen seems to be suggesting that the West and Israel trust solely in President Obama's personal charisma, charm and persuasiveness--Cohen even opposes economic sanctions, mind you--as the only way to deter the Iranians. The President is a charismatic guy for sure, but this is completely unrealistic. Thankfully, the President himself seems to realize that any carrots for the Iranians require a healthy dose of sticks as well, even if Cohen doesn't.