A blueprint for Iran
Simple but Not Easy
The military buildup in the Middle East is the biggest since the Iraq War. “Only President Trump knows what he’s going to do,” says his spokesman. Americans may disagree about what they want him to do, but they should all agree that “only” he does not get to decide. The Constitution and the War Powers Act are clear: Congress must authorize the use of force.
Next week, the House of Representatives will vote on a bipartisan war powers resolution. It requires the president to come to Congress to make the case for using military force against Iran. I support this resolution on its legal merits. I also support it for its strategic value.
The American posture towards Iran has long vacillated. Since before the Islamic Revolution, each president has taken a different tact. Doves and hawks have alternated, using different carrots and sticks. Congress must put ballast into the ship of state. As it has with
Taiwan (Taiwan Relations Act),
Ireland (support for the Good Friday Agreement), and
NATO (funding the alliance’s defense),
Congress should set a stable, bipartisan course for Iran policy. Presidents can steer that course with adjustments to the wind and currents of the day. A debate on this president’s coercive diplomacy with Iran would be an opportunity to set that course. The timing is ideal: the Islamic Republic is weak and the Ayatollah is dying. Moderates in the coming succession struggle will have a stronger hand if they can point to a bipartisan blueprint in Washington for better relations.
That blueprint starts with American and allied air supremacy in the Middle East. The Islamic Republic’s aims to rain down terror with its own ballistic or nuclear weapons are non-starters. Its funding for proxies to fire their own rockets is similarly unacceptable. The United States will maintain the means to conduct aerial strikes to prevent those ballistic, nuclear, or rocket attacks. It should also continue to support Iron Dome for Israel. Eventually, it may extend Iron Dome to regional air defense. Tactics and techniques will vary. But the imperative of air supremacy is constant.
If the strategic ‘stick’ is air supremacy, the carrot is mutual non-interference. It should be bipartisan congressional policy that the United States considers interference a tit-for-tat enterprise. Iranian leaders need not fear overt or covert reprisals, kinetic or non-kinetic, if they do not interfere with others. Supporting jihadists in Syria, attacking Americans in Iraq, attempting the annihilation of Israel – this is Iranian interference. If it stops, the reprisals stop. Mutual non-interference is the goal, not regime change; although the United States will always support the right of all people to speak, assemble and vote freely.
This blueprint of American air supremacy and mutual non-interference could get bipartisan support in Congress. It could stabilize and rationalize the U.S. posture towards Iran. And perhaps it could signal to the moderate faction in Tehran that, once the Ayatollah dies, there’s a viable path to a better economy for Iranians.
These ideas asume that Iran has any intention of abiding by ANY agreement. They have proven skilled and unreliable negotiators. They will/have promised many things in the past to remove sanctions, then systematically reduced compliance by multiple means. The JCPOA failed because they were not complying with it. Back Door deals with counties to supply they with Nuclear technology and materials, limiting IAEA access to critical sites that would expose the non-compliance. All the while stating that their Nuclear Enrichment Program was for "peaceful purposes only". EVERYONE knew that statement was demonstrably false. They enriched Uranium far beyond what was need to power civilian power generation plants and built "Bunkers" that didn't have IAEA Access to hide it. JCPOA proponents said that the agreement provide some degree of regulation of Iran's nuclear ambitions. The first Trump Administration said that nothing short of total compliance with the agreement would keep it viable. As the Iranian Government had no intention of coming to full compliance, the treaty was abrogated by the U.S.; some of those the EU et. al remained in the agreement, though it was unenforceable.
I don't believe that the Iranian Government will honor ANY agreements with the "Great Satan" or "Little Satan", as the destruction of the U.S. and Israel are discussed as religious imperative by the Mullahs who run Iran. As Golda Mier once stated "“You cannot negotiate peace with someone who has come to kill you.”. True then, true now. As a Veteran I truely wish that this was not left to us to deal with these homicidal maniacs, but here we are...again.
Wow!
You truly are naïve and apparently a conservative disguised as a Democrat.
If you vote in favor of this resolution to use military force against Iran on the basis of anything that comes from Trump I will commit to seeing you lose the 2026 election and be sent home in shame as a Trump-Collaborator.