Edward N. Luttwak on Iran for Commentary: Neo-Con Hesitation for Military Preemption? by Mark Dankof
Edward N. Luttwak's latest CSIS analysis on Iran for Commentary magazine has now made it to press sites in Azerbaijan.
A number of items of interest emerge from the piece. The CSIS strategist concedes the existence of a wide variety of opinions regarding the effectiveness of potential air strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. The usual controversies over multiplicity of sites and hardened underground facilities as complicating factors in the military planning of the proposed aerial strikes are reiterated once more. Disturbingly absent from the Luttwak piece, however, is fair consideration of the grim topic of massive civilian casualties and the dangers of radiological material dispersion in the region. Here, Luttwak places more faith in the dogma of air-strike "precision" capability than is shared by many analysts of the scenario in question, as is reflected in the recent on-line video produced by the Union of Concerned Scientists on the subject of the utilization of "bunker-buster" explosives in Iran.
It is concurrently refreshing to note that the Luttwak Commentary tome concedes that Iran is years, not months, away from a nuclear weapons capability, and that preemptive military action against the IRI regime may well boomerang where long-term Western and Iranian human-rights activists' interests truly reside. In this vein, the professor's outlook dovetails with that of Reza Pahlavi, who expressed recent public opposition to military action against Iran to CBS News on largely the identical ground.
If the Luttwak article is indicative of a larger trend, perhaps it suggests, in tandem with Francis Fukayama's recent expressed disenchantments with Neo-Conservative doctrine, that Paleo-Conservative foreign policy predilections are as sound as ever in countering Neo-Conservative militarism and recklessness: let the people of Iran decide for themselves that getting rid of the Mullahs is their own and best choice to make; jettison Zionist-Likudnik influence in American foreign policy in favor of a return to Washingtonian/Madisonian doctrine on foreign wars and interventionism; and reiterate that the Hippocratic Oath's supreme injunction about "doing no harm" is operative--or should be--in the consideration of what American foreign policy in Central Asia and worldwide should be foundationally premised upon.
We may know by the end of the year which view has prevailed, and whether or not, in the words of an Israeli governmental spokesman two days ago, "the first world war of the 21st century has begun."
A number of items of interest emerge from the piece. The CSIS strategist concedes the existence of a wide variety of opinions regarding the effectiveness of potential air strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. The usual controversies over multiplicity of sites and hardened underground facilities as complicating factors in the military planning of the proposed aerial strikes are reiterated once more. Disturbingly absent from the Luttwak piece, however, is fair consideration of the grim topic of massive civilian casualties and the dangers of radiological material dispersion in the region. Here, Luttwak places more faith in the dogma of air-strike "precision" capability than is shared by many analysts of the scenario in question, as is reflected in the recent on-line video produced by the Union of Concerned Scientists on the subject of the utilization of "bunker-buster" explosives in Iran.
It is concurrently refreshing to note that the Luttwak Commentary tome concedes that Iran is years, not months, away from a nuclear weapons capability, and that preemptive military action against the IRI regime may well boomerang where long-term Western and Iranian human-rights activists' interests truly reside. In this vein, the professor's outlook dovetails with that of Reza Pahlavi, who expressed recent public opposition to military action against Iran to CBS News on largely the identical ground.
If the Luttwak article is indicative of a larger trend, perhaps it suggests, in tandem with Francis Fukayama's recent expressed disenchantments with Neo-Conservative doctrine, that Paleo-Conservative foreign policy predilections are as sound as ever in countering Neo-Conservative militarism and recklessness: let the people of Iran decide for themselves that getting rid of the Mullahs is their own and best choice to make; jettison Zionist-Likudnik influence in American foreign policy in favor of a return to Washingtonian/Madisonian doctrine on foreign wars and interventionism; and reiterate that the Hippocratic Oath's supreme injunction about "doing no harm" is operative--or should be--in the consideration of what American foreign policy in Central Asia and worldwide should be foundationally premised upon.
We may know by the end of the year which view has prevailed, and whether or not, in the words of an Israeli governmental spokesman two days ago, "the first world war of the 21st century has begun."
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