Tag Archives: United States foreign policy

The Argument Against War with Iran.

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            Let’s leave aside the reflexive “If Donald Trump does it, then it must be the wrong thing,” response of many people.[1]  What are real arguments against attacking Iran?   

            War with Iran might be smacking a hornet’s nest with a stick.  Iran isn’t much of a threat to the United States at the moment.  Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons; Iran’s vast stock of ballistic missiles only have the range to hit our regional allies or the US Navy in the northern Indian Ocean, not the heartland.  Iran made no significant response to the Israeli and American killing of its head terrorist, General Qassim Suleimani (2020), or to their attacks on nuclear sites in Summer 2026.  Nor did they do anything to support the Hamas fight inside Gaza or Hezbollah after the Israeli “pager” attack. 

These were limited attacks.  Iran’s rulers could see a huge attack, when combined with the mass protest demonstrations of recent months, and calls for regime change, as a mortal threat to the Islamic revolution.  This combination of threats could tip the regime over the edge into a wide ranging counter-attack.  This might combine attacks on American bases in the Middle East (and on the friendly governments that host those bases), a new “tanker war” to close the Straits of Hormuz oil-shipping lanes, and terrorism abroad.[2]  In short, we should be afraid, very afraid. 

            “Regime change” is going to be hard to do and the effort would have an uncertain  outcome.  On the one hand, airpower has been oversold from when it was just a twinkle in the eyes of Billy Mitchell and Arthur “Bomber” Harris.  The Second World War offers abundant proof that strategic bombing alone, whether of the “carpet” or “precision” variant, isn’t enough to win a war against a determined opponent.  Successfully attacking key Iranian nuclear sites in Summer 2025 didn’t budge the regime.  Do we want to commit ground forces to finish the job? 

On the other hand, Iraq (2003), Egypt (2011-2012), Libya (2011).  The United States intervened in all these places to change the regime.  Each adventure ended badly.  Foreign countries are just as complex societies as our own.  They are just as full of factions, conflicts, ambitions, and hatreds.  Dictatorships tend to repress these forces, while—alas—democracy allows them full play.  What if we pitch Iran from tyranny into civil war? 

            The Iranians have said that they will agree to never pursue nuclear weapons.  Why not take the win?  Declare victory and negotiate a mutually satisfactory form of words.  That form of words would include an Iranian commitment to never pursue nuclear weapons; to close its nuclear weapons sites (Fordo, Isfahan, Natanz); and to commit to not enrich uranium beyond a low level; all of it under close international supervision.[3]   

We should not run grave risks for very uncertain outcomes. 

This isn’t to say that we should do nothing.  The regime is unpopular with many Iranians.  The US can covertly support selected dissidents in hopes that Iran will have a better revolution. 

[1] It’s an understandable response, but not entirely correct. 

[2] The threat is not to be sneezed at.  It has been credibly alleged that Iran inspired the bombing of the US Marine and French Foreign Legion barracks in Beirut, the US Air Force residence in Saudi Arabia, and Jewish sites in Argentina.  See: Anthony H. Cordesman, The Iran-Iraq war and Western Security, 1984–1987: Strategic Implications and Policy Options (1987); James Risen and Jane Perlez, “Terrorism and Iran: Washington’s Policy Performs a Delicate Balancing Act,” The New York Times, 23 June 2001; and Daniel Politi, “Argentine Court Says Iran Was Behind Israeli Embassy and Jewish Center Attacks,” The New York Times, 12 April 2024. 

[3] See: Nicholas Kristof, “The Folly of Attacking Iran,” NYT, 1 March 2026. 

ChiMerica 5.

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            For decades after the death of Mao Zedong, China’s national policies were set by Deng Xiaoping and his like-minded successors.  China opened itself to the world, carried out major reforms, and pursued rapid economic growth.  An enhanced international power would surely come as a result of these policies.  Yet, it seemed to many foreign observers, that China would progressively integrate itself into a larger world system.  These hopes have been abridged.

How should we understand Xi Jinping, leader-for-life of contemporary China?  A recent book on Xi’s political thought as revealed in his speeches and writings cast some light on the issue.[1]  Xi possesses—or is possessed by—vast ambition for China.  He aims at the “rejuvenation” of his country by a Leninist dictatorship.  He wants to return China to its one-time status as the greatest nation in the world.  On the one hand, Xi’s aims mean asserting the power of the Communist Party as the guide of the nation in all political and economic matters.  He found the Chinese Communist Party demoralized by a loss of purpose.  He found it riddled with corruption.  Xi’s anti-corruption campaigns began by purging many of his enemies or rivals, but they seem not to have stopped there.  Xi’s reassertion of party primacy gives him a powerful lever to guide and to mobilize the Chinese people.   

On the other hand, Xi’s aims require displacing the United States from its long role as guardian of what might be called “American Asia”: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Vietnam.  As one of the means to this end, China has carried out a massive military build-up.  China has been asserting its claim to the South China Sea as a kind of Chinese lake, rather than an open international waterway. 

            Xi’s ambition is bad for the United States and bad for the states of “American Asia.”  Among these states, Japan serves as the linch-pin of the American position and it is a natural bete-noire for Xi.  Japan’s brutal behavior in Asia during the Second World War gives Xi’s propaganda a lot to work with in mobilizing Chinese opinion.  China’s battering of the fishing fleets and coast guards of the peripheral states around the South China Sea aims at controlling one of Japan’s main lines of trade. 

            Xi has been at this for a dozen years.  He has set his target date for the completion of China’s rejuvenation as 2050.  The end date is well after Xi will have shuffled off the scene.  He has been working hard to instill “Xi Jinping Thought” as the guiding ideology for his country. 

            The United States has been struggling to respond to the new China.  The presidential transition from the Democrat Joe Biden to the Republican Donald Trump requires a review of the essential questions.  How widely understood is the seriousness of China’s challenge?  Can anyone craft a plan for a successful response to China’s challenge?  Is it possible for the United States to mobilize the military and diplomatic resources needed to meet the challenge?   

            Countries close to China seem to profess the most confidence in the American alliance.  Perhaps they have no choice but to believe it.  Countries farther away in Southeast Asia are more skeptical.  One theory is that the evident inadequate level of American military power gives them pause.  So, is America bluffing when it claims that it will support its allies?  If so, then Asian countries will spot that like a leopard spots a limp. 

[1] Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung, The Political Thought of Xi Jinping (2025), brought to my attention by Walter Russell Mead, “Does Biden Take China’s Threat Seriously?” WSJ, 9 April 2024. 

CrISIS 6.

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The Turks want the Assad regime gone as a first order of business, and they are attacking Kurdish forces as a second order target. The Saudis want the Assad regime gone and they are attacking Houthis in Yemen as a second order target. The Russians want the Assad regime to remain in place and they are attacking non-ISIS opponents of the regime. The Iranians want the Assad regime to remain in place and they have committed both their own military advisers and client Hezbollah forces from Lebanon to that end. The Shi’ite government if Iraq isn’t making any concessions to the Sunnis of Iraq in order to win them away from ISIS. In the past year, Germany has received about a million refugees from the Syrian civil war. The Kurds are fighting ISIS, even if the rest of the Iraqis are making a half-hearted effort, but that’s because they are trying to establish the territorial basis for an independent Kurdistan. Germans are more concerned about the behavior of Muslim hicks toward European women than they are about the undoubted dangers of terrorist wolves hiding among the refugee sheep. In short, nobody—except American politicians—seems very concerned about ISIS these days.

The common assumption on the Potomac seems to be that ISIS has gigantic ambitions and will seek to wreak havoc in Western countries through terrorism. However, ISIS has little chance of expanding its territory. It made big gains in areas where the opposing forces were rotted by demoralization or were pre-occupied with other conflicts. There is little chance that it can make similar progress against the armies of Turkey, Iran, and Israel. It may not even want to make huge gains. In the words of one observer, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi “wanted to create an Islamic state in Syria—sacred land that, according to Islamic prophecy, was to be the site of the apocalypse.”[1] (See: Islamism as a Story.) That’s not quite the same as conquering the whole of the Middle East.

Heightened security in Western countries can limit the danger of ISIS terrorism, even if it cannot totally prevent it. The Israelis have lived with this danger for decades. OK, it hasn’t done their society and politics a lot of good. Still, Israel is still there. ISIS poses no existential threat to Western countries.

That isn’t the same as saying that ISIS hasn’t created problems. The European vulnerability to the flood of Syrian (and other) refugees has opened a means for other states to pressure the Europeans. Turkey started the process, but the Russians are in a position to either add to or to reduce the flood. What would the West give Russia to get it to play ball in Syria? Probably it will not be much fun to be a Ukrainian.[2] Probably it will involve a climb-down on sanctions. Probably it will involve letting the Assad regime survive or transition out on Russian and Iranian terms.

[1] Sohrab Amari, WSJ, 9 February 2016, p. A11.

[2] At the same time, Western democracies already seem to be experiencing buyer’s remorse over their support for Ukraine. Pervasive corruption and a very halting program of economic modernization are angering many people who didn’t look closely at the Ukraine or at its quarrels with Russia before the most recent revolution.