Both Obama and Romney are reckless on Iran

You will strain your eyes looking for a significant difference between President Obama’s and Mitt Romney’s positions on Iran and the prospects of an Israeli attack on the Islamic republic. Both say “all options are on the table.” All. That includes a full-scale military attack with even nuclear weapons. This isn’t alarmism. Iran’s facilities are undoubtedly well protected. No light force would be capable of taking them out.

The Romney campaign created a stir recently when a key foreign-policy adviser, Dan Senor, seemed to up the ante by saying, “If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing that [nuclear weapons] capability, the governor would respect that decision.” The remark apparently went too far, because Romney had to clarify his position. “I respect the right of Israel to defend itself,” he told CBS. But “because I’m on foreign soil, I don’t want to be creating new foreign policy for my country or in any way to distance myself from the foreign policy of our nation.”

This indicates that Senor said nothing that Romney wishes to disavow. Senor just said it in the wrong place – on foreign soil. Americans have this foolish rule that “politics stops at the water’s edge.” But as the classical-liberal critic of foreign intervention Felix Morley once said, politics stops at the water’s edge only when policy stops at the water’s edge – which, for the American empire, it does not.

Romney might differ from Obama over where to paint the red line that Iran may not cross. Obama says Iran must not be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon. Romney and his old friend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say Iran must not be allowed to possess a nuclear capability. That would include possession of uranium and the relevant knowledge. Iran has crossed that line already. Hence the Romney-Netanyahu position sounds marginally more hawkish, though the real difference may not be terribly large.

Also, Obama has pleaded with Israel to give economic sanctions against Iran time to work, but Netanyahu said recently he sees no hope in their working. He appears to be itching for war. On the other hand, he doesn’t have full support from his military and security establishment. Prominent Israeli officials, active and retired, have said that Iran has not decided to build a weapon and that war with Iran would be “stupid.” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Iran would not attack Israel even if it acquired a nuke. It may well be that the war talk is for domestic consumption or is part of a good-cop/bad-cop strategy with the American government.

In some ways it doesn’t matter. In the past, games of diplomatic chicken have ended in wars no one wanted, and it could happen again.

Iran justifiably feels besieged. Economic sanctions against the country, which were recently intensified by Obama and Congress, constitute warfare under international law. Moreover, the U.S. and Israeli governments are conducting covert operations against Iran. In other words, the United States and Israel are already at war with the Iranian people. Great hardship is imposed on them, because their ability to trade for consumer goods has been disrupted and the value of their currency undermined. It’s bizarre that every time the Iranian government says it is prepared to defend itself from attack, it is accused of threatening others. Who’s threatening whom?

And why? They will tell you that Iran must not have a nuclear weapon. But there is no evidence that Iran is developing one. Its religious leader has forsworn such weapons, and the country’s uranium is under the close watch of the International Atomic Energy Agency; that is more than one can say about Israel, which has hundreds of nukes and refuses to join Iran in signing the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

War with Iran would be a disaster for everyone except the war profiteers. Preventing it must be a priority.

Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation (www.fff.org) and editor of The Freeman magazine.