In a reality-based world, the idea that the United States should attack Iran would by now seem most implausible. Not only is the Iraq war taking a terrible financial and human toll, but American intelligence agencies have concluded that Iran is not building nuclear weapons. Iran should logically fall into the same category as Cuba, Venezuela, Syria and North Korea - countries that behave in ways the U.S. dislikes but do not pose such imminent threats that they must be bombed.
Unfortunately, though, reality is not what guides the Bush administration. It is still driven by the impulses that led to the Iraq invasion. This means that the world may wake up any morning between now and Jan. 20 to news that U.S. missiles are falling on Iran. Ominously, Adm. William J. Fallon, who had strongly opposed the idea of attacking Iran, announced his early retirement yesterday.
The fact that most Americans seem to believe the threat of such an attack has receded may actually make it more possible. Officials in Washington could easily take the lack of sustained public and political protest as a sign that citizens don't really care whether the U.S. launches this new war.
Perversely, the recent National Intelligence Estimate concluding that there is no active nuclear weapons program in Iran could have the same effect. Before it was issued, there seemed at least a chance that European and other powers would join the United States in imposing new economic sanctions on Iran. Now they are unlikely to do so. With sanctions off the table, some in Washington may conclude that military action is the only remaining option.
Utopians who believe that bombing Iran would serve the cause of peace and democracy in the Middle East have not stopped their campaign. Norman Podhoretz, one of the godfathers of the neoconservative movement, has just published a lengthy article, "Stopping Iran: Why the Case for Military Action Still Stands." It casts doubt on the recent intelligence estimate and argues for an attack "in 2008, when Iran can still be stopped from getting the bomb and millions of lives can be saved."
Six years ago, President Bush warned Iran that he would "not wait on events while dangers gather" and "not stand by as peril draws closer and closer." In December, after the intelligence estimate was released, he asserted that "if Iran shows up with a nuclear weapon at some point in time, the world is going to say, `What happened to [the Americans] in 2007? How come they couldn't see the impending danger?'"
