Israel to attack Iran?

Recently, there has been some buzz going around that Israel is planning to attack Iran sometime soon. It has been reported that CIA operative Robert Baer claimed that Israel will attack Iran:

There is almost “near certainty” that Netanyahu is “planning an attack [on Iran] … and it will probably be in September before the vote on a Palestinian state. And he’s also hoping to draw the United States into the conflict”, Baer explained.

Immediately, people have been asking if the U.S. military should stop such an attack. Robert Baer continues:

 Masters asked Baer why the US military is not mobilising to stop this war from happening. Baer responded that the military is opposed, as is former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who used his influence to thwart an Israeli attack during the Bush and Obama administrations. But he’s gone now and “there is a warning order inside the Pentagon” to prepare for war.

If war should occur, this would produce more blowback against the United States. Even if the United States were to abstain from any overt military intervention (remember there may be some covert intervention), if Israel were to unilaterally attack the Islamic Republic of Iran, the United States would be indirectly implicated because of the U.S. government's continual military and economic aid to the Israeli government. Robert Baer further notes:

It should be noted that the Iranian regime is quite capable of triggering a war with the United States through some combination of colossal stupidity and sheer hatred. In fact, as Baer explained, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard would welcome a war. They are “paranoid”. They are “worried about … what’s happening to their country economically, in terms of the oil embargo and other sanctions”. And they are worried about a population that increasingly despises the regime.

In 2010, Congress overwhelmingly passed, and President Obama signed a bill that placed new economic sanctions against Iran. While such sanctions are promoted as a way to avoid war, in reality, sanctions are a precursor to war. While it commonly believed that sanctions will weaken tyrannical and authoritarian regimes, the opposite happens. Rarely do economic sanctions effect those in power who are targeted. They often bring great harm to the average citizens. Thus, with such negative economic effects that result from such efforts to stifle trade between two countries, the average citizens, whose standards of living are diminished, will inevitably rally towards their leader, even if such leader is authoritarian. Overall, economic sanctions strengthen regimes rather than weakening them. Sanctions are an act of war because sanctions are efforts by governments to prevent certain goods and services from entering a country, thus effecting the economic lives of the average citizens of the country facing the sanctions.

As the great classical liberal (read-libertarian) Frederic Bastiat once said: "When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will."

Of course, economic sanctions won't be the only grievance the Iranian people have against the United States government. The U.S. government has been intervening in the internal affairs of Iran for many years. The first instance came when President Dwight D. Eisenhower had the CIA, along with the British MI6, overthrow the democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh and installed the authoritarian Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as dictator of Iran. As the U.S. continued to prop up Pahlavi's tyrannical regime, the Iranian people eventually revolted in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution. Because of U.S. support for Pahlavi's regime, this cultivated some blowback against the United States, in the form of the Iranian hostage crisis.

And now, it appears that United States or the State of Israel will launch a war against Iran. If Israel unilaterally starts a war with Iran, what should the United States do about it? The answer: nothing whatsoever. The U.S. government should adopt a policy of strictly armed neutrality and strategic independence (i.e. noninterventionism). If Israel views that Iran is threatening the security of Israel, then it should be Israel's decision whether or not it wages war. The United Nations, nor the United States government should coerce Israel into doing what is not in their best interest. Therefore let us take to heart the wise words of President George Washington: "Every true friend of this country must see and feel that the policy of it is not to embroil ourselves, with any nation whatever; but to avoid their disputes and their politics; and if they will harass one another, to avail ourselves of the neutral conduct we have adopted."

We should also consider the wise words of Congressman Ron Paul:

We would not tolerate foreign covert operations fomenting regime change in our government. Yet our CIA has been meddling in Iran for decades. Of course Iranians resent this. In fact, many in Iran still resent the CIA's involvement in overthrowing their democratically elected leader in 1953. The answer is not to cut off gasoline to the Iranian people. The answer is to stay out of their affairs and trade with them honestly. If our operatives were no longer in Iran, they would no longer be available as scapegoats for the regime to, rightly or wrongly, blame for every bad thing that happens. As bad as other regimes may be, it is up to their own people to deal with them so they can achieve true self-determination. When foreigners instigate regime change, the new government they institute is always perceived as serving the interest of the overthrowing country, not the people. Thus we take the blame for bad governance twice. Instead we should stay out of their affairs altogether.

With the exception of the military industrial complex, we all want a more peaceful world. Many are hysterical about the imminent threat of a nuclear Iran. Here are the facts: Iran has never been found out of compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) they signed. However, being surrounded by nuclear powers one can understand why they might want to become nuclear capable if only to defend themselves and to be treated more respectfully. After all, we don't sanction nuclear capable countries. We take diplomatic negotiations a lot more seriously, and we frequently send money to them instead. The non-nuclear countries are the ones we bomb. If Iran was attempting to violate the non-proliferation treaty, they could hardly be blamed, since US foreign policy gives them every incentive to do so.

Noninterventionism can be achieved here if we terminate all military and economic aid to Israel, terminate and end all the five wars the United States is engaged in, bring the troops home, stop threatening war with Iran, remove the economic sanctions and pursue peaceful relations and free trade.