No. of Recommendations: 18
So we should...do nothing. The Iranians admitted - bragged, actually - that they had enough nuclear material for several bombs already. And they've also been lying about the scope and scale of their ballistic missile programs.
If all the alternatives to nothing don't help - or result in a worse situation than doing nothing - then doing nothing is the right move. If there are alternatives to doing nothing that might result in an improvement, but this specific thing isn't one of them, then you shouldn't to this specific thing. Whether the alternative we should be pursuing is something else, or nothing, it shouldn't be this.
They've threatened to close the Strait before, specifically during the Iran/Iraq war and at other times:
But they didn't do what they're doing now. That's the thing - once you start a war, all the things that the other side refrains from doing because they don't want to escalate things into all-out war suddenly are very much on the table. Which is, of course, exactly what happened. We started the war and killed their leadership, and they responded with attacks up and down the energy supply chain - including direct missile attacks into the territories of their fellow Gulf states.
Iran has committed enough mayhem and murder over the years against the entire West that a reckoning was due at some point.
Just because "a reckoning was due" does not mean that "starting a war was likely to improve our strategic position."
Given that war with China is a non-zero possibility in a few years having a nuclear-armed Iran threatening US interests in the Gulf *and* having the ability to close the strait *and* having unlimited access to terror proxies is an unacceptable national security risk.
And a course of action that would actually prevent all three of those things from happening might therefore be appropriate. But that's not this thing. We've had minimal impact on Iran's ability to develop a nuclear weapon (and I think the net effect of the war is to make Iran obtaining a nuke more likely rather than less likely, since we've completely discredited the faction that was pushing to remain below breakout). We haven't taken away their ability to close the strait. They've never had "unlimited" access to terror proxies, and it's hard to see how the U.S. military operation materially affects their access to them now - the regime is staying in place, it will be just as hardline and perhaps even more belligerent towards other nations in the Gulf (not just Israel), they're likely to get a new source of funds from their Hormuz extortion, and they have enormous credibility among the "terror proxy" community now that they've stood up to the U.S. and taken our best shot and survived intact.
Just because we really >want them to not have nukes and not have the ability to project power in the Gulf doesn't mean that starting a hot war with them is going to accomplish those goals. Recognizing that isn't saying that people are happy with the status quo - it's just recognizing that bombing them isn't going to have sufficient benefits to change that.
