Iraq's Opportunity Costs

In his latest column at the Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol writes:

Doves profess concern about Iran's nuclear
program and endorse various diplomatic
responses to it. But they don't want even to
contemplate the threat of military action.
Perhaps military action won't ultimately be
necessary. But the only way diplomatic,
political, and economic pressure has a chance
to work over the next months is if the
military option--or various military options--
are kept on the table.

He ends the column with this:

Our adversaries cannot be allowed to believe
that, because some of the intelligence on Iraq
was bad, or because the insurgency in Iraq
has been difficult, we will be at all intimidated
from taking the necessary steps against the
current regime in Tehran.

Well, I've got news for you, Bill. Our adversaries do think that, and they're right. Who is Kristol kidding anyway? Our armed forces are bogged down in Iraq for the foreseeable future, our government has no international credibility on WMD issues, and there is no domestic support for another military campaign even if we had the capacity to launch one. These are the undeniable consequences of our decision to invade and occupy Iraq. We are all familiar with the direct costs of the Iraq war, the billions of dollars, the thousands of lives, our diminished credibility and influence abroad. But Iran's increasingly aggressive posturing and obvious nuclear ambitions are exposing another kind of cost incurred by our decision to invade Iraq: opportunity cost. Today Glenn Greenwald writes:

Imagine a world where Saddam is still in place,
sputtering around impotently and in check by
stringent inspections. There has been no WMD
debacle in Iraq. Our decades-long alliances are
intact. Our military has been engaged only in
precision strikes against actual terrorists
where they are found -- rather than occupying
a country of 25 millions Muslims plagued by
brewing sectarian civil war -- and is therefore
primed, energized, and fresh. And U.S.
credibility on issues like these is what it was
before we invaded Iraq, rather than what it is
now. The credible threat we could pose to
Iran under those circumstances is in a
different universe than the virtually
non-existent threat we can pose now.

However you feel about Bush's decision to invade Iraq, there is simply no denying the fact that that decision greatly diminished--if not wholly eliminated--our ability to pose a credible military threat to Iran. Sure, we can posture and rattle our sabers, but at this point the Iranians know we're bluffing. Our cards are face up for the whole world to see in Iraq. It's long past time for the Bill Kristol's of the world to acknowledge the realities of the world they've helped to create.