Iran And Its Nuclear Program: The Military Option Discredited

From Commentary Magazine:

Preserving the military option against Iran has long been a key lynchpin of the U.S.’s effort for halting Tehran’s nuclear program. The strategic thinking is obvious: even as the Obama administration attempts to engage Iran diplomatically, it must retain the credible threat of military force so that Iran believes it faces severe consequences if diplomacy fails. Indeed, the only safe way to experiment with soft power — and that is precisely what Obama has been doing — is to reinforce it with the overt possibility of destructive hard power.

Yet yesterday, this strategy collapsed. In his remarks before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that military action for halting Iran’s nuclear program would be ineffective, and would merely send the Iranian nuclear program further underground. Given Gates’s high rank and bipartisan domestic credibility, this amounts to a virtual declaration that America simply has no military option vis-à-vis Iran whatsoever. After all, how can Obama maintain a military option that his top defense official has declared counterproductive and wasteful?

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My Comment: Iran figured this all out a year ago. The blame will be leveled at President Obama's administration, but the fault should also go to previous U.S. administrations .... both Republican and Democratic.