Can we have some new hawkish pundits please?

The debate about Iran has now begun in earnest. The usual suspects are already clamoring about the need for a military solution. Bill Kristol. Mark Steyn. Charles Krauthammer. Victor Davis Hanson. All have recently been ratcheting up their rhetoric.

I'll be the first to admit that Iran does indeed present a troubling problem, albeit perhaps not as time-sensitive a problem as many are now claiming. A nuclear Iran is in nobody's best interest (except perhaps some Iranians). And we do need to have a national discussion about how best to approach the problem, a discussion that does not rule out any realistic military options.

That said, could we at least hear from a new crop of hawkish pundits? I'm sorry, but I really don't care what the likes of Kristol, Steyn, Krauthammer, and Hanson have to say anymore. These guys have been so spectacularly wrong over the last four years with respect to just about everything that I just don't see why their opinions should carry any weight at this point. Their advice has been terrible; their predictions staggeringly off the mark.

And it's not just that they were wrong. Many people were wrong. It's that this particular group of hawks has never come to grips with their own embarrassing complicity in the Iraq debacle, and as a result, their current analysis of the Iranian situation is hopelessly incomplete. In their latest pieces, none of these guys can bring themselves to acknowledge the obvious: that the primary beneficiary of our adventure in Iraq has been the Iranian regime.

For those of us whose reputations do not hinge on the ultimate wisdom of the decision to invade Iraq, a few observations seem rather self-evident.

1) We have replaced Iran's chief military and strategic rival (Saddam's Iraq) with a much weaker and much more Iran-friendly Shia-led government. Whatever your opinion about the Iraq war, this is incontrovertibly true.

2) The invasion and occupation of Iraq has bogged down our armed forces, greatly limiting our ability to mount or even credibly threaten to mount any serious military action against Iran.

3) The failure to find any WMD in Iraq, along with the now well-documented pre-war hyping and distortion of intelligence, has shattered our national credibility. We are the country that cried wolf. If we attack Iran, we will be doing so without even our previous "coalition of the willing" to support us. Iran knows this.

4) Our inability to impose order in Iraq and defeat a group of ragtag insurgents and jihadists has made us look weak and non-threatening to other regimes. We have demonstrated for the world that even a superpower has significant limitations.

5) Our differing approaches to Iraq and North Korea have convinced the Iranian regime that the best way to insure security is to develop a nuclear weapon.

6) The anti-American sentiment stirred up by our invasion of Iraq has, at least arguably, increased the internal political support for Iran's hard-liners and made things more difficult for Iranian moderates.

The unwillingness of our hawkish pundits to acknowledge any of these facts renders them unable to provide any useful analysis of our current options for dealing with Iran. Instead they are content to talk tough and ridicule those who suggest that direct diplomacy may be the only realistic option available to us at the moment. They are big on hawkish rhetoric but always seem to stop short of putting forth any actual plan, or even a sketch of one. Do they favor a full scale invasion of Iran? Airstrikes? Nuclear attack? It's never clear.

That is until now. In an article published Monday, Mark Steyn--to his credit--actually makes his position known:

Once again, we face a choice between bad and
worse options. There can be no "surgical" strike
in any meaningful sense: Iran's clients on the
ground will retaliate in Iraq, Lebanon, Israel,
and Europe. Nor should we put much stock in
the country's allegedly "pro-American" youth.
This shouldn't be a touchy-feely nation-building
exercise: rehabilitation may be a bonus, but the
primary objective should be punishment--and
incarceration. It's up to the Iranian people how
nutty a government they want to live with, but
extraterritorial nuttiness has to be shown not to
pay. That means swift, massive, devastating force
that decapitates the regime--but no occupation.

Okay, so his plan is totally crazy, but at least he put it on the table. We now know where his hawkish logic actually leads, and can be appropriately horrified.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that we can somehow muster a sufficient number of troops and military resources to go into Iran with "swift, massive, devastating force" (presumably by dropping everything that we are currently doing in Iraq). Steyn thinks we should swoop into Iran--unilaterally and unprovoked--defeat its military, decapitate the ruling regime (presumably including its religious leaders), and destroy its nuclear infrastructure. *If* all this goes according to plan, we should then leave the Iranians, frightened and angry, to fend for themselves in a state of destruction and anarchy.

Such a plan *if successful* might indeed be a significant setback to Iran's nuclear ambitions. But let's consider the obvious costs.

1) Such an attack would undoubtedly provoke significant Iranian retaliation against U.S. interests in Iraq and around the Middle East, including possible terrorist attacks at home.

2) Decapitation of the Iranian regime and destruction of its military would likely result, at least temporarily, in another failed state in the heart of the Middle East, one that would function as a safe-haven and launching pad for terrorists.

3) Whatever new regime eventually rises to fill the power vacuum would likely be even more hostile to U.S. interests, more determined to secure nuclear weapons, and will enjoy greater support from the newly radicalized Iranian population.

4) The price of oil would sky rocket, likely leading to a worldwide energy crisis.

5) The U.S. would likely lose any remaining support it has from our traditional allies. Worldwide anti-American sentiment would reach never-before-seen levels, particularly in Europe and the Middle East. The attack would prove to be a recruiting bonanza for Al Qaeda and other militant groups.

And these are just the obvious results. If history tells us anything its that the unforeseen consequences of actions are often more problematic than the obvious ones. The world is a complex, chaotic system, not a deterministic one. Actions on the scale of those proposed by Steyn inevitably result in wildly unpredictable outcomes, which is all the more reason why they should not be embarked upon hastily or with insufficient necessity and forethought.

Now that Steyn has laid his lunacy out on the table for all to see, I'm curious whether his neoconservative colleagues will endorse his plan or distance themselves from it. Probably neither. They'll probably just continue to beat the war drum, without offering any specific plans or giving any real thought to the realities of the world they helped create.

So I ask again: can we please have some new hawkish pundits? Preferably ones with less intellectual baggage. I'm genuinely interested in a realistic discussion of our options for dealing with the Iranian problem, but so long as the hawkish side of the debate is represented by these clowns, that's just not going to happen.