Lessons From History
July 2nd, 2006Little known to much of the public, the Cuban Missile Crisis posed a threat to America from within. President Kennedy’s military advisors were hellbent on invading, or bombing, Cuba, believing that the only reasonable course of action. That is the inevitable result of having Curtis Lemay serving as a Joint Chiefs of Staff, but it was an awful result, and the tensions inside of the White House became so heavy that Robert Kennedy told his brother that it would be better to just fire the Joint Chiefs mid-crisis. John responded that they couldn’t do that — “It’d look like there’d been a coup attempt,” and in a way, there had been.
Almost half a century later, and the United States is in another nuclear confrontation. Smaller in scope, sure, and nobody believes that the Iranians have weapons aimed at us now, but the situation is still critical, and requires sensitive diplomacy. No, I’m not arguing that we hold hands and take the Ayatollah to supper at Disneyworld (sorry Mr. Cheney, sensitive has a lot of meanings). The similarities between this situation and the Missile Crisis aren’t just parellel in terms of danger: they’re perpendicular. Instead of it being the military this time hell-bent on assault and refusing to be sensible, it’s the White House.
In President Bush’s June speech, he accused Iran of pursuing a secret weapons program along with its civilian nuclear-research program (which it is allowed, with limits, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). The senior officers in the Pentagon do not dispute the President’s contention that Iran intends to eventually build a bomb, but they are frustrated by the intelligence gaps. A former senior intelligence official told me that people in the Pentagon were asking, “What’s the evidence? We’ve got a million tentacles out there, overt and covert, and these guys”—the Iranians—“have been working on this for eighteen years, and we have nothing? We’re coming up with jack shit.”
A senior military official told me, “Even if we knew where the Iranian enriched uranium was—and we don’t—we don’t know where world opinion would stand. The issue is whether it’s a clear and present danger. If you’re a military planner, you try to weigh options. What is the capability of the Iranian response, and the likelihood of a punitive response—like cutting off oil shipments? What would that cost us?” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his senior aides “really think they can do this on the cheap, and they underestimate the capability of the adversary,” he said.
Does that sound familiar, by any chance?
There are two historical lessons that we should draw upon with regard to Iran. The first comes from the Second World War: when your enemy is clearly, and undeniably, hellbent on war and hot on the heels of aggression, you don’t appease them. When that time where a nation is no longer showboating has come, you will know it, recognize it, and prepare for action. Until then, diplomacy should reign. Iran is not Hitler — not yet, and maybe not ever — so we shouldn’t be afraid to negotiate. The second lesson we should take comes from the Cuban Missile Crisis: frustrating though negotiations may be, nobody wants to evaporate. Talk accordingly.
Iran will bend if pressured far enough, I think, and engaged well-enough. If not, then we have a variety of deterrents with which to contain the regime. Military action shouldn’t even be something on the table right now, if ever. I’m just surprised that General Peter Pace is making that case to President Lemay. This is a backward White House in every which way.