The responses from merkur and joan show a basic disregard for economic principles: when you make something more expensive, people will indulge in it less. The point of bombing Iran’s nuclear and petroleum facilities is to make their political and military aggression expensive, thereby giving them incentive to do less of it. Ms. Rosett’s proposal applies this principle both to the cost and the revenue sides of the Iranian nuclear project: building reactors is more expensive when they periodically get reduced to rubble; paying for reactors takes a larger share of national revenue when production of the main national export is degraded.
Would the Shiites hate us forever? Probably not any more than the Japanese do. The Shiites can afford to hate us now because it costs them little to do so – indeed, it is often profitable for them. And, of course, plenty of them hate us already, even though we have not yet bombed them. Better that these ones should never have nuclear weapons.
Would disruption of the oil supply raise the worldwide price of oil? Undoubtedly, but not nearly as much as the price would rise if a nuclear Iran gained hegemony over its Gulf neighbors. Moreover, it’s a cost we seem prepared to bear, at least at the consumer level: while oil prices have spiked over the last year, there has been no significant reduction in consumption – a sign that people like to whine about gas prices, but will pay significantly more for it without a substantial loss in social utility. The cost of an Iranian (or Iranian-sponsored) nuke landing in Manhattan would be far higher. And anyway, since when does the anti-Bush crowd think the price of oil should dictate our foreign policy and military strategy?
Would the Iranians become more secretive about their nuclear research? It’s equally plausible that they would take a page from Libya’s playbook and decide that nuclear development is a low-return project, to be abandoned entirely. But even if they went underground, the costs of doing so would, again, make their nuclear activity more expensive – meaning they would do less of it.
Would other nuclear terrorist wannabes take Iran as an object lesson? We must certainly hope so! As it stands now, the lesson they’re taking is, “Sponsor terrorism, threaten your neighbors, and defy civilized nations, and you can achieve all your totalitarian goals at little cost.” The message we want to convey is, “Be more civilized, or the revenue that supports your totalitarian power will dry up and your military ambitions will be reduced to a slow, costly underground nuke project.”
As for joan’s perspective, the Iraqis did greet us with cheers (if not flowers) at first – until the concerted efforts of the American left, for whom winning the war would have meant political disaster, so constrained our will that our overall strategic plan lost credence. Likewise, Iran will continue to meddle in Iraq as long as they think we’re not serious about stopping them. A methodical, sustained, and determined campaign to eliminate Iranian military and industrial assets would both reduce the turmoil in Iraq and put the brakes on Iran’s nuke plans.
Finally, while I cannot prove beyond doubt that Ms. Rosett is not a closet Democrat, I would observe that joan is, at the very least, a Democrat in spirit. Here’s how I can tell: Democrats think about foreign policy and military strategy in terms of winning elections; Republicans think about these issues in terms of ensuring long-term national security and prosperity. Most Republicans would willingly hand over the White House to the Dems for a while if that’s what it took to implement a policy that ended Iran’s nuke program. Churchill got thrown out after V-E Day, but history seems to have treated him well enough. Democrats who, like the incoming Congressional class, play politics with national security might want to ponder why their party has garnered a genuine majority (as opposed to a plurality or razor-thin majority) in a presidential election only once since the end of World War II. Hint: it’s not because they were excessively vigilant about national security.
