I thought we had moved past John Bolton's brand of nonsensical foreign policy, so I have absolutely no idea why the Washington Post gave him 800 words this morning:
... the uprising in Iran also makes it more likely that an effective public diplomacy campaign could be waged in the country to explain to Iranians that such an attack is directed against the regime, not against the Iranian people. This was always true, but it has become even more important to make this case emphatically, when the gulf between the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the citizens of Iran has never been clearer or wider.
This is insanity. Bolton is arguing that Iranians will appreciate an airstrike on their country -- an Israeli airstrike, no less -- and will respond by taking to the streets and toppling the Iranian regime. These are the same Iranians who have praised Obama for his restrained, non-interventionist response to Ahmadinejad's "victory."
Bolton's argument is eerily reminiscent of the pre-Iraq claim that American forces would be greeted as "liberators" -- with flowers and sweets. Remember how well that worked out?
If the United States has learned one thing from Bush and Cheney's adventure in Iraq, it is that people in the Muslim world do not appreciate having their countries bombed unilaterally. It doesn't matter how repressive their government is. They will not side with the attackers.
Bolton's argument is doubly insane when you realize an Israeli airstrike on Iran's nuclear facilities will not be a "surgical" attack. As I've written before, this isn't another Osirak. Any attack would inevitably lead to civilian casualties -- which would only deepen Iranian resentment.
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Categories: Iranian Elections (2009), Politics, War and Terrorism
Tags: Iranian elections, Iranian nuclear program, John Bolton
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