We need a new word to describe Charles Krauthammer’s cynicism. No one with any responsibility for America’s national security interests thinks a war or bombing campaign against iran is in our interests. The president has mobilized the world community to put pressure on Iran both to open themselves up for inspections and to discontinue activities that seem designed to give them ability to build a nuclear weapon in the future. Iran now faces tough sanctions and has agreed to new inspections and a new round of negotiations. They are not presently working on an actual weapon. In other words, Obama is successfully preventing them from building a nuclear weapon, and he’s making progress on changing Iran’s behavior. He’s also taking steps that would add legitimacy to any military action in the future, rather than short-circuiting the process and moving to war before all other alternatives have been explored.
Israel has a different calculation. They want to strike Iran now, before they can put all their facilities so far underground that they are invulnerable to attack. But that’s Israel’s calculus, not ours. Why should the president put Israel’s interests above America’s interests? And hasn’t Krauthammer considered the possibility that Israel is blustering for political advantage but would not be better off if they attacked Iran unilaterally and without America’s support and superior firepower?
If Krauthammer is trying to win some political points, he’s certainly too willing to politicize national security issues. But if he’s serious, he’s nothing more than a bloodthirsty idiot.
