The way America's foreign policy establishment is likely to repeat its greatest mistake
Indeed, as political scientist John Mearsheimer predicted in the run-up to the Iraq War, “The administration has been making the case for war by exaggerating the threat.”Today’s Iran policy debate follows the same eerie script, with the aluminum tubes now replaced by enrichment levels, the mobile labs traded for ballistic missile capabilities, and the face of Saddam replaced by Iran’s Supreme Leader.
Lessons unlearned from the Iraq War
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was based on assertions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, as well as operational links with terrorists that posed a threat to the United States. Both assertions were later proved to be false. The human toll was extreme. The conflict led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, with estimates ranging as high as 500,000 to one million excess deaths. Millions were displaced, with the social fabric of Iraq torn apart.
As journalist George Packer explained in his influential study of the war, “The freedom agenda became a way of justifying a war that had already been decided on other grounds.” Those responsible for this war were never held to account and are now pursuing careers in think tanks and journalism, with their reputations for judgment intact.
The neoconservative worldview resurge
“The intellectual foundations for military action against Iran rest largely in the same neo-conservative tradition that advocated the war in Iraq. This ideology, as has been dissected by political scientist Francis Fukuyama, is based on “an optimistic view of America’s ability to use its power for moral purposes” and the conviction that American military power can trigger democratic change.”
However, it is the same groups of policymakers who promoted this intervention in Iran who are represented in the think tanks, cable television programs, and legislative briefings where Iran policy is being considered. As Stephen Walt, a foreign policy analyst, wrote, “The same people who were wrong about Iraq are now telling us what to do about Iran.“
The Iran debate cannot and should not be divorced from the strong influence that pro-Israel lobbying groups exercise in the formulation of American foreign policy. As researchers, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt found in their thorough and scholarly investigation, pro-Israel groups exercise “unmatched power” in framing debates about Middle Eastern policies, thereby discouraging critical views as unpatriotic and antisemitic. When the threat perceptions of a regional power are translated into America’s military obligations without critical examination, the country’s foreign policy drifts into dangerous, uncharted territory.
Iran is not Iraq
As military strategist Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies has warned, “A war with Iran would not be anything like the Iraq War. It would be far more serious, far more costly, and the outcome would be highly uncertain.” Iran’s involvement in the region’s web of relations ensures that a war will not end in a change of government but will rather trigger a prolonged Middle Eastern conflagration.
Furthermore, as arms control expert Jeffrey Lewis has pointed out, “Bombing Iran would be the best way to ensure they build a bomb.”
The erosion of American credibility
After World War II, the United States of America was a leader in international law. But after the Iraq War, its moral authority was badly shaken. This is because of torture at Abu Ghraib, civilian deaths at Fallujah, and intentional misrepresentations made to support the invasion of Iraq
A war against Iran would be the final step in this collapse. As political scientist Robert Jervis wrote in his examination of the aftermath of the war in Iraq, “The credibility America lost was not its willingness to use force, but its judgment and honesty.”
The cycle of imperial overreach
Empires fall apart because of strategic overreach, moral exhaustion, and an inability to distinguish between security needs and the demands of dominance.
The United States is currently caught up in a cycle of militarized foreign policy within the Middle East. Each intervention has led to instabilities that are then used as reasons for further intervention.
Historian Andrew Bacevich, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, has described this phenomenon as “a crisis of profligacy” in which “the exercise of power has become an end in itself.” The United States has been at war or involved in various combat activities since the early nineties. This is an unparalleled expenditure of resources and blood. However, it has neither brought about stability nor credible deterrence.
A choice for restraint
However, going forward means acknowledging that it is not possible to solve every international challenge with a military solution. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, achieved in 2015 but later derailed in 2018 by the US, proved that a diplomatic approach to the nuclear issue could work. The people who favor war in Iran ask the American people to have faith in the same decision-makers who delivered the Iraq debacle. Iraq has demonstrated the American military’s strength in remaking societies. A war with Iran will prove something even more disconcerting—that America has learned nothing from its mistakes. History does not pardon repetition. History only registers repetition. Whether American leaders will notice the similarities before another disastrous war is waged remains in question, or whether the force of war will prove irresistible once again. The world is watching, and this time there can be no excuse for ignorance.
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