American Democracy Might Not Survive a War With Iran

The United States is well down the road to dictatorship. Imagine what Trump would do with a state of war.

By Robert Kagan

he current debate over bombing Iran is surreal. To begin with, bombardment is unlikely to lead to a satisfactory outcome. If history has shown one thing, it is that achieving a lasting resolution by bombing alone is almost impossible.

There was a reason the United States sent ground forces into Iraq in 2003, and it was not to plant democracy. It was that American officials believed they could not solve the problem of Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs simply by bombing. They had tried that.

The Clinton administration bombed Iraq for four days in 1998. At the end, they had no idea what they had destroyed and what they hadn’t.

They certainly knew they had not put a permanent end to the program. In 2003, if George W. Bush thought he could have permanently ended Saddam’s weapons programs by bombing alone, he would have taken that option.

Iran today poses the same dilemma. America’s weapons may be better than they were in 2003, its intelligence capabilities greater, and Iran may be weaker than it was even a year ago, but the problem remains.

Bombing alone will not achieve a verifiable and lasting end to Iran’s nuclear program. It can buy time, and Israel’s strikes have done that.

American strikes could extend that period, but a determined Iranian regime will likely try again.

A permanent solution would require a far more intrusive international verification regime, which in turn would require a ground presence for protection.