Some supporters of this war said they would draw a line at boots on the ground. How about economic considerations? Is there an economic red line that would make you change your mind? I the situation starts to shut down the supply chain a la covid would that dissuade you? What if we end up spending billions or trillions while we are already facing a struggling economy? Appreciate hearing your perspective.
No.
(Pasted since some of are you behind the paywall)
very past president since Bill Clinton, Republican and Democrat alike, has declared that Iran couldn’t be permitted to develop nuclear weapons. Not one acted to prevent it. Every president since Ronald Reagan has condemned Iran’s role in terrorism against American citizens, interests and allies. Not one acted to stop it. Instead each president left his successor with a more dangerous Iran and a more complicated threat to address.
Last June President Trump undertook a limited military operation designed to interrupt Iran’s development of nuclear weapons and discourage the country from continuing its nuclear program. In the face of Iran’s refusal to forswear nuclear weapons and evidence that it was rapidly increasing the number, sophistication and range of its missiles, Mr. Trump began the current military campaign.
If he hadn’t acted, his successor would have been left with an even more dangerous choice than his predecessors left him. Three or four years from now, the Iranian missiles now hitting Iran’s neighbors could be hitting Berlin or London, perhaps even New York or Washington—perhaps with a nuclear device or at least a dirty bomb.
No sensible person wants a war, a president least of all. Wars destroy lives, waste treasure and usually are unpopular. But the widespread hostility to this military action seems untethered to any serious discussion of the merits. What is the alternative?
Obviously, few are prepared to say it is simply to permit religious madmen who swear “death to America” and back up their threats with terrorism to secure nuclear weapons and the capability to deliver them. The scope and scale of Iran’s response show how much its military capabilities have progressed, and how dangerous it would have been to permit them to increase further.
For three decades we have tried everything that each president could think of. We’ve tried being nice, talking tough, moral suasion, negotiated agreement, economic sanctions. None worked. The problem is that there is only one language Iran’s leaders understand.
I understand some of the hostility to Mr. Trump’s action. The isolationist wing of the Republican Party and the pacifist wing of the Democratic Party each are wrapped in the fantasy that we can afford to ignore the capabilities and intentions of enemies because they are thousands of miles away. Two hundred years ago that view was credible. One hundred years ago it was plausible. Today it takes only one missile carrying a nuclear or dirty bomb to get through our defenses, or one such device smuggled into this country, to devastate a city.
I also understand—and deplore—the fringes of both parties that apparently hate Israel and Jews so much that they oppose any action to neutralize Israel’s enemies.
What is harder to understand, and particularly troubling for our country, is opposition rooted simply in antipathy toward Mr. Trump himself. We used to say that politics stops at the water’s edge. That was never completely true; the willingness to bludgeon a president over foreign policy for domestic political gain is as old as Vice President Thomas Jefferson’s attacks on President John Adams. Yet for most of our history we have given the president the benefit of the doubt.
More important, criticisms have historically been based on policy differences over the military action at hand, not knee-jerk opposition to the president himself. Many Republicans supported Mr. Clinton’s military actions and President Obama’s surge in Afghanistan; many Democrats supported President George W. Bush’s actions in Afghanistan and (at least initially) Iraq. More Republicans than Democrats probably supported President Lyndon B. Johnson’s actions in Vietnam.
More important still, even when we believed a president’s actions were misguided, we almost always wanted him to succeed if possible. Some efforts to curtail what the president is doing in Iran seem motivated simply by a desire not to give him a win—even if it means a loss for America.
