Daniel McCarthy
The basic fact of the Israel-Iran war is that Israel is much stronger than its opponent. Iran’s retaliatory capabilities are limited, though not trivial. Not long ago, Hezbollah would have been the fiercest of those capabilities—but Israel dealt a crippling blow to Hezbollah months ago, and the ongoing war against Hamas has kept Israel alert to terrorist dangers from Palestine. Iran has launched drones, which have proved to be a significant weapon of 21st-century warfare in Ukraine’s struggle with Russia. Yet earlier Iranian drone campaigns proved largely ineffective against Israel. This time might be different. All recent evidence, however, points to a balance of power tipped decisively in Israel’s favor.
There is no reason for this to be America’s war. Ironically, however, many opponents of US involvement in Middle East wars share a premise with supporters of intervention. The common assumption is that America really can, and should, control events in the region. One side says we must get involved to aid Israel. The other says we must get involved to restrain Israel. The latter camp takes it for granted that President Trump could simply have ordered Benjamin Netanyahu not to attack Iran. And what’s more, President Trump should have issued such an order because Netanyahu’s war will inevitably drag America into the maelstrom. The Iranians will blame us for Israel’s actions no matter what, the story goes, so we should have prevented Israel from launching its campaign.
That line of thought is wrong. This is Israel’s war, and the decision to embark upon it was Israel’s alone. America does not and should not have a veto on other nations’ foreign policy, though there are occasions when our own interests demand that we exert influence over others. In this case, our interest lies in staying out of a conflict that Israel is perfectly capable of winning on its own. To be sure, part of Israel’s rationale for going to war is to forestall a new American agreement with Iran on the latter’s nuclear program. But just as we should not view ourselves as the managers of Israel’s foreign policy, we need not consider ourselves Iran’s keepers, either. Nuclear nonproliferation is an admirable ideal, yet in the long run it is doomed to fail. More dangerous states than Iran already possess nuclear weapons. The Israelis may not see it that way—Iran is their enemy while neither China, North Korea, nor Russia is. We Americans, however, have faced nuclear opponents for more than seven decades. All that time deterrence has worked. It’s even working in the India-Pakistan conflict.
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