NOW can we question his patriotism?

Can I use that gabberflasting word?

It seems they are so busy taking a side they forgot what their side is. He should move to Iran and then he can chant Death to America with the rest.

And note he doesn’t seem to wonder if maybe Bush has a point, if his own beliefs lead him to do something that might help Bush.

“speaking nothing to power”

Indeed. And remember: They’re not ‘liberals’ (they’ve corrupted the term - see also Dean’s World), they’re not ‘progressives’ (another improperly appropriated term – to be progressive implies supporting progress, and this group is having none of that). They’re just anti-Bush, anti-Reagan, anti-Lieberman, anti-whoever they’re blaming for the world’s ills this week, leftists.

And does Drum worry that his criticisms of the Administration might be picked up by the “repressive, misogynistic, theocratic, terrorist-sponsoring state that stands for everything [he] stand[s] against” and used against not just Bush and the neocon cabal but against our country, the West in general and everything he stands for?

Some of these folks just stop thinking once they get past the real simple stuff. Some of these folks.

One wonders if Drum even sees his own illogic. If something is true, if it’s something he believes (criticism of Iran)…how can it be “part of the Bush administration’s marketing campaign?” Is it that painful for liberals to admit that Bush is at least right about Iran, was right about Hussein and is right at least generally about Islamofascism? I expect it must be, since it is more important for them to undermine Bush than it is to undermine the very people who would just as soon as kill them as look at them.

And that’s just twisted.

American Progressives: Speaking nothing to totalitarians since, well since we’ve been around.

This surprises me not at all. Kevin Drum claims to be a journalist, but I experienced first hand his ideas of objectivity and impartiality on his comment thread.

This is a man who told me via email that he had “never heard” that the Swift Boat Veterans had proven Kerry had lied about being in Cambodia. This was WAY after the 2004 election, mind you, during which Kerry’s campaign even admitted he had “mispoke” regarding that claim.

Drum is a partisan, not a journalist. Next!

I hope that Bush declares 3-month old milk is horrible.

A number of good points have already been made so I won’t echo them, but I note Drum says:

-would end up being used to advance George Bush’s distinctly illiberal ends.

How does he figure a war against a repressive, misogynistic, theocratic, terrorist-sponsoring state that stands for everything [he] stand[s] against to be so inherently illiberal he need not explain himself on this point. Did he miss that time they talked about World War 2 in class? Korea? FDR and Truman? I also don’t know where Drum was during the late ‘90s, but I’d assume he was in hibernation, ignoring the US’s action in Yugoslavia.

I tried following some of the article links- one which sent me back to an earlier mention of Beinart’s book- but I’m not finding much to suggest he’s already addressed this. Beyond the idea that, were we dealing with the problem of global Islamicist terrorists using Beinart’s method, we wouldn’t really send troops there or use the term war or such. But in this his only proof that Beinart’s formulation is exclusively liberal (assumably exclusively so…otherwise he can’t rule out that military action is obviously illiberal) is to say people at DK wouldn’t disagree with the platform.

Drum’s shortsightedness is entirely unsurprising.

From the 1930’s to today, Leftists have always and everywhere discounted the idea of “peace through strength.”

It never occurs to them that by showing unity and resolve and the NATIONAL WILL to use military force to counter foreign threats, the probability that such force will be necessary can actually be DECREASED.

Instead, the divisiveness that arises from their aversion to the use of force — or even the credible threat of force — makes catastrophic conflicts like WWII more likely.

The best chance for Drum and those like him to avoid military action against Iran would be for them to publicly criticize the policies of the Iranian regime and to lend their vocal support to a military response should the Iranians fail to change their policies.

It’s a remarkably honest look at how some people think. Bush is the greatest evil in the world—that’s their focus, that’s their belief.

If it were otherwise all he would have to say is that he hates the Iranian regime but will not support military action against it.

Although even there, that would show something too wouldn’t it?

Drum:

I’d rather say nothing rather than hurt Iran lest it help Bush.

JYB

Kevin Drum is not a bat-crap crazy Kos type at all

Perhaps you should consider rethinking that opinion.

We are now seeing in the “mainstream” left, what happened in the “fringe” back in the 1960’s: it’s about the power, stupid.

This end result became inevitable the moment that the Left succeeded in injecting a decidedly illiberal notion into American liberalism in the 1900’s: the idea that the government power can and should be used to “shape” society. We are now seeing that this idea logically results in the jettisoning of the professed uses to which this power will be put, in favor of openly seeking the power for its own sake — and we are literally seeing it happen inside a man’s mind.

The left-wing fringe discovered this in the 1960’s, and the mainstream is discovering it now.

Reminds me of what Salon’s Gary Kamiya said:

I have a confession: I have at times, as the war has unfolded, secretly wished for things to go wrong. Wished for the Iraqis to be more nationalistic, to resist longer. Wished for the Arab world to rise up in rage. Wished for all the things we feared would happen. I’m not alone: A number of serious, intelligent, morally sensitive people who oppose the war have told me they have had identical feelings.

“American liberals: speaking nothing to power.”

The only way this statement is true is if you assume the Mullahs have the power, and Bush doesn’t. Fact is, Drum does speak to power: his whole point is that at the moment, a reckless military operation against Iran is more of a threat than anything the Mullahs running Iran are doing. We have power, they don’t. They don’t have the bomb yet- if they did, this would certainly alter his stance, as well as mine.

The things I personally care about most are the security of the United States and the safety of the troops in Iraq who would be the ones to pay in the wake of any military strike in Iran. The folks who write posts like this don’t seem to even concern themselves with the strategic implications of a strike against Iran, nor with how the public discussion can influence a possible strike.

For you people it’s just white hats vs. black hats, and all the brilliant analytic assessments that follow from such an simple-minded approach to world affairs. Even if he were alerted to this post Drum would probably not trouble himself to even respond.

For baby boomers, liberalism is all about justifying their refusal to serve in Viet Nam. They stayed safe at college, smoking dope and getting laid, while the working class tried to do the patriotic thing, and died. To be able to look at themselves in the mirror, they have to see themselves as heroes, and American “war-mongering” Republican presidents as evil, and the will repeat the story of 1972 until they die.

I have o idea what motivates younger liberals.

You should turn that last line into a bumper sticker and sell it for CASH.

I’d put one on my vehicle, and I don’t even use bumper stickers.

“American Liberals: Speaking Nothing to Power”

Too true.

Domestic partisan considerations, and winning the war against Republicanism, is far more important to them than anything having to do with such petty things as the country as a whole, or the principles they claim to hold dear.

But I’ve known that about Kevin Drum in particular for years.

“They don’t have the bomb yet- if they did, this would certainly alter his stance, as well as mine.”

This is the problem with how liberals react to threats. Do nothing until it’s too late.

Nate: Thanks for a substantive comment contrary to the current. Your thrust seems to be that Bush, and by extension the US, as the more powerful in nuclear terms is necessarilly the one to whom KD should be speaking. In this, though, I think you make several assumptions and errors of judgement.

First, this position assumes an equity of power, or that power itself exists within a vacuum. This seems, to me, akin to the idea that “guns are bad” without considering the thoughts and motives behind the one wielding the gun. I contend that nuclear weapons, of themselves, are no more evil than a rock or knife. I have heard others question why we, as a nuclear power, should try to deny other countries their “right” to the same technology. In response I often list several countries that would not cause me a single moment of lost sleep should they become nuclear powers (e.g. Japan, Canada, Australia, Italy). As such, I see the idea that it is right or understandable to speak out against Bush rather than Iran simply based upon the fact that the US is a more powerful country not unlike searching for one’s keys where the light is better rather than where they were lost.

This leads into the second assumption, that speaking out against Iran can wait until they have the bomb. If your local school was going to hire a convicted child molester should you wait to speak against it until after the person has been hired? Why not, rather, speak to prevent that which you don’t want to see happen? Again, this idea carries the assumption that the addition of nuclear weapons would not lead to a material increase in the threat Iran poses to the US, her interests and her regional allies. Completely lacking is any serious consideration of Iran’s motivation in her nuclear ambitions.

After all, with the exception of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bombs that were dropped during an intense bloody war and in the infancy of the nuclear age, the US has not used her nuclear arsenal offensively in the past sixty years. As such, I completely reject the idea of any nation feeling they need to develop nuclear weapons to protect themselves from the US as either paranoia or a ruse. It is far more likely that this desire for the power of nuclear weapons is to either wield them offensively (a horrible and, in our way of thinking, almost unimaginable motivation) or to use them to insulate themselves from external criticism or censure as they further their “repressive, misogynistic, theocratic, terrorist-sponsoring” actions against both their own people and others in the region. Either of these potential motivations is reprehensible and to claim that they are somehow less dangerous than the motivation of the Bush administration (a temporary resident of the White House, by the way) sems short sighted in the extreme and counter productive to your stated conern for security of the United States.

Inherent in your conclusion that Bush is more of a threat than Iran is also that you have correctly divined that Bush want to invade Iran. This seems to be based upon the frequent complaint that Bush has is either a clueless cowboy or has some secret nefarious agenda, depending upon how much Kool-Aid the speaker has consumed. It completely ignores the reality that the only two large-scale military actions of the GWOT so far have been against Afghanistan (home and sponsor of al Queda) and Iraq (long-time enemy and an invasion that was preceded by about 13 months of diplomatic efforts). We have enemies in DPRK, KSA, Egypt and Syria, but has GWB invaded there? The lesson many on the left have taken from the Iraq invasion is that GWB was dead-set on invading Iraq no matter what, so he did it. The lesson Libya took from the invasion is if you remove the reason then GWB can’t invade.

Further, your concern that military action against Iran would come back against our forces in Iraq, while well meaning and sincere, also looks to me short-sighted and, dare I say it, demonstrates a “simple-minded approach to world affairs.” In order to make a fair assesment of the impact and effect of military action one must also try and anticipate the effect of inaction. While military action against Iran may cause them to operate more openly and with greater vigor in Iraq, it will also allow both us and the Iraqi force to act more openly and directly to crush both the Iranian agents and their supply chains within Iran. On the other hand, an unopposed Iran that is allowed to act with impunity not only poses a material threat through both its agents and surrogates, but continues to relentlessly pursue nuclear weapons. The cost of inaction may very well be the complete destruction of several cities and death of millions of people. Even without a nuclear holocaust, a new nuclear Persian Empire would most certainly require an Arab answer, likely an answer from the very Wahabbi extremists that are today pusuing global jihad. Like many others, I too have lost friends and shipmates in the GWOT, so don’t assume I look at these matters lightly. In a very real sense, it may be my ass on the line. Sometimes war is not so much a matter of chosing the best course of action as it is choosing the least bad. If nothing short of military intervention will deter Iran from its nuclear ambitions which option, in the strategic sense, tends to move the battlespace in the direction of victory? In my analysis, victory in the GWOT relies upon a free Iran, and achieving that end with a nuclear armed Mullacracy is infinitely more difficult.

In the final analysis, if KD et. al. are really worried about GWB taking military action against Iran then it would seem the best course of action would be to do what they can to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Not only does it defang the snake but simultaneously removes the cowboy’s motivation for shooting it. Had France, Germany and Russia convinced Saddam to open wide for real inspections and come clean rather than try and stonewall the US do you really think the invasion would have still happened? As others have pointed out, working against the Bush administration is, in fact, emboldening Iran and actually making military action that much more likely. Right now Iran, believing US oppositions will stop Bush from taking action, feels it can proceed with its nuclear ambitions without consequence. Would this be different, however, if Iran saw a unified front that we would not allow them to reach their goal? That KD doesn’t even recognize this dynamic does more to damn his irrational behavior in the face of a single man he does not like. Therein lies the definition of insanity.

Submandave:

You bring up a lot of topics, but let me explain further my original point.

If you read Drum’s blog regularly (he’s my favorite blogger), you would see that he often discusses the threat posed by Iran and how we should approach this threat. He doesn’t propose talking force off the table or openly opposing any policy enacted by Bush.

What he does propose is keeping mum on the repressive, illiberal nature of the regime in Iran; you know, its rigged voting and execution of gays, etc. This is because he feels (as do I) that such talk feeds the overly moralistic way we are approaching Iran. We see them as evil and therefore not to be negotiated with but to be destroyed. Drum does not want to contribute to an overly moralistic view, and as he says, this is not because he sympathizes with Iran, because he thinks such talk from the left will give cover to unwise strategy.

Think of it as the Tom Friedman rule. Friedman, and moderate liberal columnist, supported the Iraq war, but for very different reasons than the Bush administration. But as a liberal he articulated and gave cover to the inept administration, thus allowing his well-reasoned arguments for the war to be co-opted by the reckless invasion that actually occurred.

This is a case of subordinating one principle in the name of promoting a larger, more important principle. Everyone does this. You see this on the Right when it comes to bad behavior by US troops. Most reasonable people agree that the unprovoked killing innocent civilians is wrong, but you don’t see a lot of outcry about it on Right-wing sites when these events occur. This isn’t because they don’t care, but because they don’t want their criticism to morph into a media frenzy against the troops that might engulf the entire military mission in Iraq. So they stay quiet. But this doesn’t mean they aren’t principled. The same goes for Drum and his unwillingness to single out the sins of Iran’s regime.

Maybe you would be okay with Japan and Italy getting the bomb, but I would prefer they didn’t, especially Japan. Giving them the bomb would set off an arms race with China. The reason to keep countries from acquiring nuclear weapons is to preserve the current balance of power. Look at India and Pakistan and their arms race.

I understand that you feel that no other country in the world needs nuclear weapons. But that’s a very American viewpoint. If you are a small third-world tyrant who has just watched the US take out two countries in the last two years- two countries who didn’t have nuclear weapons, you might not come to the same conclusion. These corrupt tyrants are paranoid, power-hungry people, and wishing they would subscribe to your reasoning seems fanciful to me.

See, you want these rogue nations to learn the lessons you see. If you look at it from their point of view, the only thing stopping us from taking out North Korea and Iran is that we are bogged down in Iraq, not that we are a nice and moral nation. And they have a point. If Iraq had gone swimmingly, do you really think we wouldn’t have just taken out Iran?

Nate,

As you explain it, you and Drum want to frame the Iranian threat in pure realpolitik terms, and not moral terms. The nature of Iran’s loathesome government should have no bearing on our decision whether or not to wage war.

To which I say: why not?

The Realists think that evil regimes can be tolerated, so long as they only murder their own citizens. But (even setting aside the morality of that position) not all evil works the same way. Regimes such as Iran can only survive by holding up an outside enemy. That’s us.

The nature of their regime is thus highly relevant to the discussion.

I agree Mastiff, that there should be a moral component to our foreign policy, in addition to Realpolitik. But I think the Bush administration has the balance off, and we need recalibrate to allow for a more realistic approach to our enemies.

As Drum said in his post, he is pained not to be able to discuss the moral component. But he can’t because it would serve to fuel the fire of a potentially unwise Iran policy. Principle and pragmatism don’t always mesh.

I think it’s questionable to say that a regime like Iran can only survive by holding up an outside enemy. There are a number of other opression and appeasement techniques they use to keep their people down. Our hopes that Iran may collapse in an uprising also seem to underestimate the strong nationalism in every Iranian. They may not like their leaders, but that doesn’t mean they like America either.

I guess part of my problem with this thinking is that I don’t believe Bush is as blood-thirsty, hell-bent for war as some portray him. Regardless of how oppressive and “evil” Iran is I think you’d be hard-pressed to find serious discussions citing those facts alone as a causus beli for taking on Iran, either among the administration or the Right punditry. As such, any agreement KD could add as to how bad the Iranian government is would be only tangential to supporting prospective military action. What is does do, though, and what KD seems to find distasteful, is to say “hey, Bush has a valid point.”

While I understand your comparison with right-leaning blogs and military criminal actions, I can’t say I fully agree. Again, I think you’d be hard pressed to find an A-list milblogger whohas, as you said, ignored Abu Ghraib or criminal actions by military members in Iraq. What they have done is not wallow in it 24/7 like more sensationalist or agenda-driven writers have and to be sure to cast the isolated incidents in the context of a much larger professional, deliberative military structure.

I think you misunderstood my point as to not requiring nuclear protection from the US. I fully understand how a “small third-world tyrant” might desire the insulating effect nuclear weapons would provide (reference my possible motivation of Iran), but protection from response to bad actions is not the same as protection against a US attack. Anyone, tyrant or not, who claims to need nuclear weapons to protect them from a US nuclear threat is either paranoid, a poor student of history, trying to hide their real motive or getting ready to do something for which they would otherwise expect retaliation.

It is in your closing, though, that the real gulf between you and KD and myself is clearly seen. Had Iraq “gone swimmingly” I do not think it would have been a sure thing that military action against Iran would have necessarilly followed. What I do think is that it would have helped our diplomatic efforts against Iran in that it would have made the prospect of military action seem less forboding to the US and therefore more likely to the Mullahs. The bottom line is that both KD’s reticence to “support” Bush’s position and your defence of KD rests upon the belief that GWB, or his neocon handlers, will rush to war unless the left hold him back, a belief that I, frankly, see little to support. As I pointed out, the two major military actions taken so far in the GWOT haev been against countries that either demonstrated a clear willingness to either support or further existential threats to US national security. In the case of Afghanistan we had to eliminate al Queda’s safe base of operation and in Iraq all but the most strident “Bush lied” partisan has to admit that intelligence organizations around the world judged Saddam’s WMD capability as likely and that he left us no way to accurately evaluate the threat without intervention. Neither seems to me to establish a pattern of random wanton war mongering that many Bush detractors use to paint him.

Once again, acting contrary to your own morals and national security interest because of a personal animus with a temporary office holder does not seem like sound judgement to me.

Submandave:

This goes beyond a personal animus with the current president. It’s less a violation of principle than a management of presentation. It’s the difference between Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton, two hawkish liberals who have steadfastly supported the war. Lieberman allowed himself to be used by the Republicans, to be held up as the model Democrat, whereas Clinton has played her cards better. It’s politics, and the Republicans actually do it much better than the Democrats. Drum doesn’t want to be a Lieberman, not when the stakes for supporting the Republican agenda are this severe. I think your main objection comes from the fact that, as a conservative, you view the stakes differently.

I don’t think Bush is bloodthirsty, just reckless. As for these tyrants, I’d say they are both paranoid and poor students of history. And they do recognize a possible power play when they see one. Iran seems to be feeling confident right now that either the US won’t strike or if we do the regime can withstand it, and perhaps come out ahead, Hezbollah style.

I don’t see how you can argue that Bush didn’t rush to war in Iraq. They kicked out weapons inspectors before they were done, and sent troops to Kuwait during the diplomacy. More to the point, they went so fast they didn’t have a good plan for governing the country. The narrative, as far as the world is concerned, is that the US was still pissed after 9-11 and wanted to hit something else. And if you ask me, for Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld this is largely true. A lot of neo-conservatives and liberal hawks got taken for a ride.

Neither Iraq nor Aghanistan represented existential threats to America. They might take out a few cities if they get a bomb, but that doesn’t threaten our existence. This is a large part of the problem with the GWOT rhetoric. It confuses the ambitions of terrorists with their capabilities, unwittingly realizing the former far outweigh the latter.

Nate said: “Neither Iraq nor Aghanistan represented existential threats to America. They might take out a few cities if they get a bomb, but that doesn’t threaten our existence. This is a large part of the problem with the GWOT rhetoric. It confuses the ambitions of terrorists with their capabilities, unwittingly realizing the former far outweigh the latter.”

Glad to know that having a few million US citizens taken out with a bomb is not a big deal to you.

It is this type of thinking - let’s wait until there is a substantial threat - that led to WWII, instead of destroying Hitler in 1936 when it would have been much easier, and much less costly in terms of lives lost.

“Rush to war”? 9-11 happend in September 2001, the war in Iraq commenced in March, 2003. Months were spent in going to the UN and using other diplomatic means (arguably to the disadvantage of the war effort). I don’t see any type of “rush to war.”

“Hillary Clinton, [a] hawkish liberal[] who ha[s] steadfastly supported the war”

You have much more confidence that she means what she (sometimes) says and that she isn’t simply playing up to the group she is before than I do, bu tthen again, perhaps that’s a factor of my view “as a conservative.” 8^D

I can’t help but think you are viewing the Iraqi campaign in a much too simplistic way. “[T]he US was still pissed after 9-11 and wanted to hit something else?” Seriously, can you see no meaningful, strategic reason to want to remove Saddam and change Iraq? I’ve written at greater length before on this topic, but the short is that I fail to see how anyone could expect a meaningful lasting victory against global Islamic terrorism without fundamentally changing the two nations that contribute most to the problem, Iran and Saudi Arabia. It would be impossible to confront either with a hostile and potentially dangerous Iraq on our flank, so from a purely practical standpoint Saddam had to fall.

But you are right, I do aparently view the stakes differently, because I am looking at the challenge before us as how do we best remove the threat of Islamic terrorism rather than how do we learn to live with it. Because I think you are also being simplistic if you really believe that “tak[ing] out a few cities” does not essentially destroy the America you and I have grown up in and loved.

On 9/11 terrorists only took out a few buildings and look at the billions of dollars in economic costs. If Chicago goes up in flames tonight how many offices and factories in cities across the country do you think will be empty tomorrow? A three-day shut-down of a single industry had global repurcussions. Extrapolate that across the economy on a larger scale. Not to mention the concessions of liberty made/taken in the name of security. I’m not a raving civil libertartian who thinks the Patriot act represents the greatest threat to privacy since the KGB, but just wait for what would happen if terrorists ever did succeed in a taking out an entire city. And if you nohestly believe the Iraq invasion was because the US was “pissed” at 9/11, what do you think the retaliation to a nuclear device would entail? I adamently do not want to find out personally.

“[T]he GWOT rhetoric […] confuses the ambitions of terrorists with their capabilities, unwittingly realizing the former far outweigh the latter.”

And the Democrat approach, to date, has largely confused the motivations of the terrorists with their own. The entire idea that we can deal with a nuclear armed Iran once it happens rests upon two assumptions: that the weapons are not being developed for offensive use, and; that a nuclear armed Iran will act and respond to nuclear counter threats out of a sense of self preservation. I think it is narrow minded and dangerously hopeful to assume that the response and actions of an open theocracy that speaks of apocolyptic retribution and redemption by God would be identical to what we experienced with an avowed athiestic Communist regime. If you cannot imagine strapping explosives to yourself and murdering hundreds of innocent strangers just because they believe differently than you do and your spiritual leader told you that God wanted you to, then do not be too rash in believing you fully understand what a nuclear armed Iran intends.

I do see a “meaningful, strategic reason” for invading Iraq. But wars are waged for many reasons. And the one major reason for going into Iraq was to send a message that regimes that threaten the US will face the prospect of being destroyed. I think a lot of this sentiment was emotional in nature rather than grounded in reason. I don’t think this kind of feeling is necessarily a bad one- in fact, it’s very natural. But it shouldn’t be the controlling idea, which it ended up being. If the Bush administration were serious about the strategic element, they would not have engaged in such imcompetent planning for the post-war phase. This most important phase received the least amount of attention.

Nonetheless, the strategic argument for taking out Iraq, as well as the humanitarian one, are worthless in the arena of opinion, particularly in the Middle East. The world by and large disagreed with the stated reasons for the invasion and now see us as an imperial occupant. I would agree that his view is wrong, but no amount of debunking this will change the story as far as they are concerned.

Your reasoning that Saddam HAD to be taken out to deal with Iran and Saudi Arabia rings hollow to me. Saddam led a Sunni regime that was the enemy of Iran. Can you explain to me how making Iraq a Shia-dominated state inhabited by tons of Iranian spies and informants has enhanced our ability to deal with Iran?

Regarding the cities being taken out: of course that would be a colossal tragedy and we should do everything we can to prevent such an event. But my point was that Islamic Fundamentalists do not pose an EXISTENTIAL threat to the Western world. Unlike imperial Japan or Nazi Germany, which paired advanced industrial economies with belligerant nationalism, Islamic fundamentalism is by nature a backwards-oriented, technologically averse movement riven by inner strife. They have governed one country to this date, a backwater area of land in them middle of nowhere, and even there the majority of their people hated them. (The Taliban) Francis Fukuyama had discussed this concept at length, because it applied to communism before Islamic fundamentalism: liberal democracies have such a massive advantage in technology and wealth that it is impossible for a non-liberal, non-democratic state to conquer them at this point. All these alternate ideologies can do is inflict harm and force us to change some of our habits. They may effect the global economy, but that just means we might not be rich enough for everyone buy an ipod. We will still be able to put food on the table.

I don’t see how you can view the issue as whether we should allow Iran to get the bomb or not to let them. Short of invading Iran and putting in a new regime that doesn’t want the bomb, all we can do is delay the acquisition of a bomb with air strikes, or delay the acquisition of the bomb through diplomacy. Bombing Iran’s visible nuclear sites just pushes their project back a few years, pushes in further underground, and possibly cements their desire to get the bomb. Do you really think strikes without an invasion will convince them to give up? Do you think such strikes would encourage the people to overthrow the Mullahs? I think not.