John Bolton's War Obsession (Pssst, McCain, at least someone's on your side)

Guest post by PD:

Former UN Ambassador and prominent neocon curmudgeon John Bolton penned yet another op-ed in The Wall Street Journal earlier this week repeating his well-worn line that talking to Iran is a waste of time when there's plenty of good bombing we could be doing right now. Bolton explains that

"Every day that goes by allows Iran to increase the threat it poses, and the viability of the military option steadily declines over time."

Did I miss something? Should "the viability of the military option" be the determining factor here? I know it's important, and the question of whether we can successfully achieve our military objective should be a key part of our strategic calculation, but the fundamental question is whether we should attack at all, and Bolton ignores that fact. The United States is the strongest military force in the history of mankind. As soon as the question becomes whether we can achieve our goals militarily rather than whether we should, we cease to become the great standard-bearer that America has been for the last two centuries.

Call me provincial, but wasn't there a time when we settled our conflicts with other countries without needing to resort to military force?

Among the abject failures and countless blunders of the Bush administration, few are more miserable or absolute than the failure of the doctrine of preemption. Saddam Hussein's regime had to be overthrown, the neocons argued, because the threat he posed was so great that his mere existence was intolerable--irrespective of whatever practical threat he did (or did not) pose to the US. But hasn't this doctrine buckled under the weight of its own ineptitude at both the theoretical and practical levels?

Bolton also says that Iran's first goal is "to possess all the capabilities necessary for a deliverable nuclear weapon," and that "is now almost certainly impossible to stop diplomatically." But North Korea and Libya provide perfect examples of why that logic is faulty. Their nuclear weapons programs were not nipped in the bud--they were walked back from the edge through smart, tough diplomacy. North Korea tested a nuclear weapon in October of 2006--the first nuclear test of the 21^st century. And the international community--with US leadership--has gotten Pyongyang to agree to disarm.

That is why it is so critical to engage Iran diplomatically. Because though negotiations may not be the silver bullet for changing Tehran's behavior immediately, there are only two other alternatives: continuing the previous three decades of isolation, which have clearly not worked, or attacking Iran militarily, which both Iraq and Afghanistan have shown would be catastrophic for the country and the region.

For voters in the 2008 election, John McCain has made it clear that he's unwilling to try good-faith negotiations with Iran. So he is therefore left with two bad alternatives. And for Obama, my opinion is this: if John Bolton disagrees so strongly with your plan to talk with Iran, then you're probably doing something right.