Mares: The Intervention Debate

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(Host)
Pressure is mounting for collective military intervention in Syria and
Iran. But writer and commentator Bill Mares is a former teacher and
state legislator who thinks that Americans must first determine whether
or not this kind of action would be truly in our national interest.

(Mares)
Back when I taught American foreign policy to high school students, we
began the first day of class by trying to define our country’s national
interest. In language that anyone could understand, we broke the concept
down into three parts: economic, ideological and strategic or military.

In the last ten years, we’ve fought two wars, spent millions of
dollars, and lost thousands of lives. We’re still emerging from the
worst recession since the Great Depression, with our human and physical
infrastructure hollowed out like a Halloween pumpkin. We like to
consider ourselves the one remaining superpower, but many think we’re
increasingly beginning to resemble the description of the Soviet Union
in its twilight: Burkino Faso with rockets.

That doesn’t seem to
bother war hawks like Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman. To them, a
Syrian intervention would be just another regime-change, like the ones
that toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Moammar Kadafi in Libya. At the
same time, some Israeli leaders and their supporters in the U.S. are
promoting a preemptive strike against Iran to forestall its nuclear arms
program.

I worry that from an economic standpoint, a U.S.
attack on Iran would send oil prices sky high, kill our fragile economic
recovery, and harm the entire global economy. And I think it’s ironic
that many of the people yelling loudest for an attack are also pounding
President Obama for not keeping oil prices low – as if he had that power
to begin with.

Ideologically, such an attack would be
simplicity itself – the Great Satan against one of the Axes of Evil. But
then why not attack North Korea, which actually has the bomb?

Meanwhile,
as syndicated columnist William Pfaff writes, "Israel’s political
right, chiefly the Likud party and the settlement parties with their
supporters in America, is now politically dominant in Israel. He also
writesIt apparently has two goals: the destruction of Iran as a major
military power, so as to preserve Israel’s regional military supremacy;
and the effective annexation of what remains of Palestine. This cannot
be achieved peacefully." End quote.

If Israel wants to attack
Iran, we can’t prevent them. But I question whether we should join them.
Containment worked during the Cold War because of the concept of
mutually assured destruction. Iranians know an attack on Israel would be
suicidal.

If it is determined that military intervention is in
our national interest, we would still have to decide whether to take
action in cooperation with the United Nations and other international
coalitions – or act unilaterally, as many interventionists advocate.

It seems to me we should not out-source the question of what’s in our national interest to another country.

In short, we need to decide if we have a dog in this fight – or not.

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