{"id":31371,"date":"2025-06-20T04:46:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T04:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=31371"},"modified":"2025-06-20T04:46:56","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T04:46:56","slug":"us-debate-over-whether-to-bomb-iran-recalls-anguish-of-iraq-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=31371","title":{"rendered":"US debate over whether to bomb Iran recalls anguish of Iraq war"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In 2016, Donald Trump called the invasion of Iraq a \u201cbig fat mistake\u201d, the result of a deliberate act of deception by US intelligence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey lied!\u201d he said during a Republican primary debate in February that year. \u201cThey said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none. And they knew there were none.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now Trump is in the White House, weighing military intervention in a war<\/a> that has eerie parallels with Operation Iraqi Freedom \u2014 a campaign he said was a waste of $2tn.<\/p>\n

Then as now, the rationale for war is to stop a country acquiring nuclear weapons<\/a> and so remove an existential threat to one of America\u2019s closest allies \u2014 Israel.<\/p>\n

Then, as now, some harbour doubts that the WMD threat is real.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe intelligence suggests that even though Iran has a nuclear programme, they haven\u2019t been pursuing weaponisation,\u201d said Rosemary Kelanic, director of the Middle East programme at Defense Priorities, a think-tank.<\/p>\n

Some have gone further. Tucker Carlson, the rightwing media personality who fiercely opposes any US involvement in another Middle East war, has said the suggestion that Iran is close to building a nuclear bomb is a \u201clie\u201d peddled by longtime advocates of regime change in Tehran. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, there is zero credible intelligence that suggests Iran is anywhere near building a bomb, or has plans to. None,\u201d he wrote on X. \u201cIf the US government knew Iran was weeks from possessing a nuclear weapon, we\u2019d be at war already.\u201d <\/p>\n

Critics of the rush to war cite the latest annual US intelligence threat assessment, presented to Congress in March by director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard \u2014 a former Democrat and sceptic of military interventions abroad.<\/p>\n

While acknowledging that Iran\u2019s stockpile of enriched uranium was at its highest levels, she insisted Tehran was not building an atomic bomb. <\/p>\n

But Trump dismissed that assessment. \u201cI don\u2019t care what she said,\u201d he said on Tuesday when asked about Gabbard\u2019s view. As far as he was concerned, Iran was \u201cvery close\u201d to having a nuclear weapon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump is not the only sceptic of the 2025 threat assessment. \u201cIt\u2019s exceptionally foolish,\u201d said Elliott Abrams, a foreign policy hawk who served as US special representative for Iran and Venezuela during Trump\u2019s first term. \u201cNo country has ever enriched uranium to 60 per cent purity [as Iran has done] without going on to build nuclear weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also noted concerns voiced recently by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN\u2019s nuclear watchdog, about Iran\u2019s failure to adequately co-operate with its inspectors. The IAEA recently declared the Islamic Republic in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in nearly 20 years.<\/p>\n

David Petraeus, the retired general and former CIA director who fought in Iraq and once led US Central Command, said it was clear Tehran was \u201cworryingly close\u201d to being able to build a nuclear bomb. \u201cCloser than every before,\u201d he said \u2014 even if the country\u2019s leadership might not have decided to make one.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have always said we will not allow them to have a nuclear weapon, and we think we will know if they enrich to weapons grade,\u201d he told the Financial Times. \u201cBut this is not something that you want to rest on best-case assumptions. You have to worst-case this.\u201d <\/p>\n

Others have a similar view. <\/p>\n

Suzanne Maloney, a former adviser to the US Department of State on Iran policy, said: \u201cFrom the very start of this crisis, which goes all the way back to 2002, what Iran has built in terms of industrial-scale enrichment has all the hallmarks of a programme that\u2019s intended for military purposes, not for civil infrastructure and energy production.\u201d <\/p>\n

But despite that, Trump\u2019s insistence that Tehran was \u201ca few weeks\u201d from acquiring a nuclear weapon has surprised experts on the region. <\/p>\n

Maloney said: \u201cWhat I worry about\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009is that the president has jumped a few steps ahead of what we know to be fact and drawn a conclusion which is not unreasonable, but is also not supported by intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

That impression was compounded by the informal way policy is made in Trump\u2019s White House. \u201cThe president seems to be making decisions based on his gut rather than on the best advice of informed counsellors,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Some analysts fear Trump is too susceptible to the influence of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who insisted Iran has a secret plan to weaponise its uranium.<\/p>\n

Sceptics also wonder whether the president has accurately judged the mood among US voters, many of whom endorsed his promise to end America\u2019s \u201cforever wars\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are certainly cautionary tales,\u201d said Petraeus.<\/p>\n

The debate about Iraq\u2019s supposed WMD programme came just two years after the 9\/11 attacks, when Americans were more united behind the need to hit back against the country\u2019s enemies. Opinion on the wisdom of foreign military engagements is more divided now.<\/p>\n

Kelanic at Defense Priorities said then-president George W Bush \u201cwent to the American people over a span of 18 months to make the case for war, and also went to Congress to get authorisation. The big difference now is just the speed at which this is all unfolding.\u201d<\/p>\n

That apparent rush to military action has also exposed lingering tensions between Trump and more isolationist followers in the Maga camp, chief among them Carlson. <\/p>\n

Some erstwhile fans<\/a> of the president have accused him of betraying his \u201cAmerica First\u201d principles by veering dangerously close to the \u201cneoconservative\u201d foreign policy of old, based on unconditional support for Israel, pursuing regime change in hostile countries and acting unilaterally in the world to defend US strategic interests.<\/p>\n

The tensions flared in Carlson\u2019s viral interview this week with Ted Cruz, the Republican senator and Trump supporter, who has said the US must support Israel in its war with Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to stop a lunatic who wants to murder us from getting nuclear weapons that could kill millions of Americans,\u201d Cruz told Carlson. \u201cYou say I can\u2019t see how that benefits America anyway. That is bizarre\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. isolationism.\u201d <\/p>\n