War Hawks Are Hungry For War With Iran

With negotiations to rejoin the nuclear deal showing promise, JCPOA opponents are going all in.

By Joe Cirincione and Geoff Wilson, Responsible Statecraft

The crusade for a war with Iran continues.

Just weeks into the new year, war hawks are again calling for the U.S. military to prepare plans for a comprehensive strike against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Foundation for the Defense of Democracies CEO Mark Dubowitz and the Atlantic Council’s Matthew Kroenig — longtime advocates for a preemptive war with Iran — argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week that “the red line for military action will come when Iran’s timeline to sprint to a nuclear weapon shrinks to less than the Pentagon’s response time,” which they clam “could happen early this year.”

“If and when it does,” they say, “the president should order military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent Tehran from building the bomb.”

A missile moves across the American and Iranian flags

In addition to casually calling for another preemptive war in the Middle East, these authors arrive at this conclusion by distorting the facts and ignoring sound military strategy.

To convince policy makers to consider yet another regional military misadventure, proponents of war with Iran must promote two great falsehoods: that diplomacy cannot resolve the crisis and alternatively that war could.

Thus, Dubowitz and Kroenig begin by claiming negotiations “have stalled.”