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Actually, We Absolutely Do Need to Escalate in Iran

(New York Times) Bret Stephens - This year, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Iran was within a week or two of being able to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb. Now's the time for someone to do something about it. That someone will probably be Israel, which has spent two decades successfully delaying, but not stopping, Iran's nuclear program. Iran presents an utterly intolerable threat not only to Israel but also to the U.S. There needs to be a direct and unmistakable American response. Iran currently produces many of its missiles at the Isfahan missile complex. At a minimum, Biden should order it destroyed, as a direct and proportionate response to its aggressions. There is a uranium enrichment site near Isfahan, too. Iran's economy relies overwhelmingly on a vast and vulnerable network of pipelines, refineries and oil terminals, particularly on Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf. The administration can put the regime on notice that the only way it will save this infrastructure from immediate destruction is by ordering Hizbullah and the Houthis to stand down and to pressure Hamas to release its Israeli hostages. We can't simply go on trying to thwart Iran by defensive means only. For nearly four years, the administration's diplomatic outreach to Tehran, along with its finely calibrated responses to Iranian aggression, has done nothing to deter it from striking us and our allies. Moreover, Israel has demonstrated again that its investment in missile-defense technologies that critics said would never work has paid off, chiefly in hundreds or thousands of lives saved.
2024-10-02 00:00:00
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