The strategic reasoning for why the US Air Force should destroy Iran’s nuclear program is perfectly obvious.
Of course, since the order would have to be given by Joe Biden the actual task of destroying the Iranian program will, in practice, probably have to fall to the Israeli Air Force because the Biden Administration excels at not doing what it should.
For example, the Biden White House should have given Polish Mig-29s to Ukraine because it makes absolutely no sense for America to, on the one hand, be giving Ukrainian forces most of the US military’s inventory of Javelin and Stinger missiles while, on the other hand, drawing an arbitrary line at giving Ukraine fighter jets.
Yet, in an impressive display of pure Progressive stupidity, the Biden Administration refused to give Ukraine extra Mig-29s while at the same time it continues to send Kiev billions of dollars worth of other weapon systems.
Unfortunately, the Israeli Air Force cannot destroy Iran’s underground nuclear facilities nearly as easily as American bombers can.
Nevertheless, Israel should take close note of how Ukraine is showing the world how a determined military can perform brilliantly despite facing seemingly impossible odds.
Just because a successful strike on Iran’s nuclear program is harder to execute for Israel than it would be for America is no reason for Israel to be complacent.
All that means is that Israel’s war planners and corps of engineers need to be extra creative at overcoming the various hurdles to an airstrike – very much like Ukraine’s military has been extra creative in their challenging campaign.
But whether Iran’s nuclear ambitions are stopped by Israel or America does not change the fact it is very much in the strategic interests of the United States for the the risk of a nuclear Iran to be destroyed permanently, not deferred with a weak nuclear agreement.
The reason is quite simply that destroying the possibility of an Iranian bomb will make it easier for America to build a strong deterrent against China.
This is because Iran without nuclear weapons is much easier to contain than an Iran with nuclear weapons.
If Iran acquires nukes (and even if it has no intention of ever using them) they will be able to engage in the type of nuclear blackmail and brinkmanship that Russia and North Korea have engaged in for decades.
Nuclear weapons would give Iran the power to threaten to use them in order to gain extra negotiation leverage for its bad behavior, much as Russia is using the mere threat of a nuclear strike as negotiation leverage to minimize how much support NATO is willing to give Ukraine.
If Iran had this extra leverage the United States would need to divert extra military resources to the Middle East to deter a nuclear Iran because Iran would be able to engage more freely in non-nuclear terrorist and conventional attacks in the region because their arsenal would give them much greater freedom to engage in all sorts of mischief and threats (like Russia and North Korea) while being able to deter American conventional retaliation.
This extra deterrent in the Middle East would draw US forces away from Asia and would have to be significantly larger than what America already has deployed across the Middle East.
But if Iran’s program is destroyed before they develop nuclear weapons then America would be able to free up extra resources to buildup its forces around Japan, Australia, and other friendly Asian nations, in order to deter China; although the US should keep a moderate level of forces in the Middle East in order to prevent a strategic power vacuum from developing in this oil rich region of the world.
And the best way to maintain a strong deterrent against China is for either Israel or America to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, instead of relying on a flimsy, short term nuclear deal that Iran will constantly try to avoid abiding by whenever possible.
With an airstrike that obliterates Iran’s nuclear facilities America will not need to rely at all on a completely untrustworthy Iran to keep its word because Iran will have no power to create them.
Pragmatically Distributed 