To put it mildly, I am uncomfortable with any policy that involves assassinating scientists. I can understand that it might be necessary in some extreme cases, like preventing a hostile adversary from developing weapons that can put your entire populace at risk, but it really ought to be a last resort. For one thing, it does nothing to resolve conflicts between nations, and will tend to invite revenge attacks. Most likely, it will do no more than delay the development of weapons and make your enemy more determined to use them. Stalling tactics can be better than no tactics at all, but they’re only a solution if you use the borrowed time to reduce the overall risk.
The Israelis’ policy of killing Iranian nuclear scientists might make sense for them but it doesn’t follow that it fits America’s national security needs. We had a policy, which Israel vociferously opposed, of easing tensions with Iran and heavily monitoring their nuclear program. It had massive international buy-in. And it made it unnecessary to target scientists in Iran. Trump withdrew from that agreement, and Biden wants to stand it back up. That’s why the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is so troubling. It seems designed to cut off Biden’s plans.
Sending kill teams into a foreign country to murder their scientists is not a sustainable policy. It’s an act of war and the only reason it doesn’t immediately result in open conflict is because, in this case, Iran is too weak to fight back. This is largely because they don’t have nuclear weapons, so it’s kind of obvious that these actions will incentivize them to obtain nuclear weapons. The idea, I guess, is to make the nuclear physicists too scared to work on the project, but I’m not sure they really have any choice in the matter, and they’ll be expected to take risks out of pure patriotism.
It just seems like a much better idea, and certainly a less morally dubious path, to pursue a monitoring program and seek ways to reduce tensions. I’m not naive about the nature of Iran’s revolutionary government, but I can’t support these murderous violations of the sovereignty when clear alternatives are available.
I also think it’s unacceptable to take rash actions designed to limit an incoming president’s options, especially when it’s clear that a new policy is coming.
If the Iranians intend to stick to a renewed JCPOA this will make no difference. Analogy: I have a baker who can make a pie. I don’t want pie. Therefore the loss of the baker is irrelevant.
Iran can still be furious at the violation of their sovereignty, but it will have no downstream effect unless, of course, they intended to develop nuclear weapons.
An overlooked story that may be relevant. We have recently retrofitted some F-35s to be able to carry nuclear dumb bombs. The US has a wide array of possible delivery platforms for nuclear weapons that do not require us to endanger a jet. Indeed, flying an F-35 against the Russians or Chinese would entail threat to the F-35. Whereas flying an F-35 against Iran, with much more primitive air defenses, would not.
Who then might plausibly use F-35s to deliver a nuclear dumb bomb? Israel. Would this retrofitting make Israel capable of using the platform to deliver their bombs? Don’t know – sizes, shapes, weight, etc… come into play. But it’s certainly interesting. An F-35 launched from Saudi or Emirati airfields can reach almost any target in Iran, even without mid-air refueling. With mid-air refueling over the Gulf they can reach every corner of Iran, likely undetected.
All things considered an assassination seems preferable to an Israeli/Arab attack on Iran, especially if Israel decides it has to use nukes.
When I was very young we had practices to “hide” from the bomb that we almost knew for sure was coming via Moscow at any moment. Even as little tykes we knew this was pure bullshit. Hide from a hydrogen bomb? Surely you jest. At the time I thought if I had the time I would ride the subway into NY and hang out in Times Square. Surely they would drop one near there and I could end the bullshit. I mean who the fuck wants to play baseball in a blue glowing haze?
And yet we are still playing scaredy cat today. One of these days when Iran really does get the bomb Israel may unleash pure hell on them cause you know, scared. Never mind the children, they threatened us. Meanwhile we all make plans like children to hide in the hallway and tell ourselves we are all safe and the planet can handle the destruction.
We may indeed discover Trump and Yahoo are in this together. We will scare the shit out of them and at the same time tie Biden’s hands. Wonderful strategy. School kids couldn’t have figured it out better. Well, we all could hide under our desks until our elders got sufficiently freaked out.
I got nothing to add. Just can we have a little peace for a few weeks? Can we arrest the crazy fuck at say 12:21 pm that fateful day?
The most frustrating part of being against Empire is having to deal with “Realpolitik” and actions like “assassination”. Euphemisms for phrases that are more accurate, simply because of the spectre of Empire.
Want to know what this assassination actually was, if you remove the filter of Empire?
Terrorism.
The US commits terrorism, and our satellite states commit terrorism, because of “American Exceptionalism”, or “American Interests”, which are just euphemisms for extra-legal activities of Empires that are allowed to stand because there’s no one to stand up to the Empire.
We fly death robots over foreign countries, launch missiles that kill foreigners and even US Citizens with those death robots, and the only repercussions are words, and philosophy, and…that’s it.
Some day some politician will be able to come along, accurately describe all of this, and perhaps, bring it to an end. They can credibly tell the rest of the world that the United States stands for peace and freedom, and that we will stand with all other peoples who also stand for peace and freedom.
Until then, it’s just shoulder-shrugs, muted disappointment, and an article that starts on page A1 immediately after…shifting to page A4 and beyond in the days afterward.
I fucking hate Empire. What an immoral, self-destructive policy that we’ve chosen to commit societal and governmental suicide.
Empire IMO is an outdated term. We have acted like an empire at times – the Mexican-American war being an example. But we are not at present controlling any land whose people or government don’t want us there. No one pays tribute – and that is one of the definitions of an empire. It’s an odd empire that pays its supposed vassal states rather than the other way around.
We are simply a superpower primarily concerned with stability, because the status quo works well for us. A status quo power with the ability to extend our power anywhere not protected by an opposing major power – China or Russia. There’s nothing particularly immoral about it, we aren’t knocking off democratically chosen governments, our threats are directed at murderous thug states like Iran. And our overall strategy is not conquest but maintenance of the status quo, which is what wealthy, powerful status quo powers do.
There’s plenty to criticize in US foreign policy, starting with the question of why we get into bed with a murderous thug like MBS. But we are not an empire.
It’s cognitive dissonance to say the US isn’t an Empire. In fact, it always has been, even before it was a country. The US started out as colonies of an Empire, decided that they’d be just fine without Mother Empire, and then started a program of expansion. Hell, “Manifest Destiny” is just a precursor to German “Lebensraum” – and it was done using the same tactics: warfare and genocide.
Empires start out expanding outwards, physically. They almost always end up hollowing themselves out financially just to maintain their present-or-shrinking borders – typically what is thought of as an Empire in decline. And relatively intelligent Empires know that physically controlling a land mass is a huge waste of time and resources – let your ally control it while you gain “access” to their markets, resources, and labor.
You can use whichever euphemism you want, but “Superpower” is just another word for Empire. Just do yourself a favor and don’t get stuck on Empire meaning a sovereign government gobbling up land and then controlling that land physically. It is an anachronistic way of viewing a government that spends close to a Trillion dollars per year on “defense” with a military presence in hundreds of countries throughout the world.
If the US isn’t an Empire, then there’s never been an Empire.
Sorry, no. The purpose of an empire is profit. Show me the countries that pay us net. Show me the countries whose government we choose or install. Show me the countries we can impose a troop levy on. Show me a single country that is prepared to bend the knee and accept the suzerainty of the United States. Having overseas bases – bases where we can be, and have on occasion been, ejected from by the local government – does not an empire make.
The last territorial expansion of the US was the takeover of Hawaii in the late 19th century – and at that time we were an empire, having expanded by force into Mexico and the Philippines in addition to Hawaii. But since that time our power has grown exponentially yet our territory is no larger. We could easily seize any number of Caribbean nations. I mean, they’re right there. Have we? No. Taken parts of Mexico or Canada? Nope. Did we keep Japan after occupying it? Nope. Germany? Nope. Empires are not in the business of abandoning property or paying out more than they take in. None of our neighbors have defenses prepped for an American invasion which rather suggests that they also don’t see us as an empire.
It’s a free country, you can use whatever word you want, but we do not fit the definition of empire any more than Germany or Italy are empires because they contain a number of formerly independent states, and if your definition of empire is that loose, hell, what country isn’t an empire? In fact, it’s the word ’empire’ that is anachronistic and other than a desire to slot us into some pre-existing political formula, I don’t see the point.
Intelligent Empires do not occupy land that they don’t need to occupy. They extract resources, labor, and easements. But if you think the US isn’t an Empire because it doesn’t call itself an Empire, then so be it.
It is a sad comment on our society that domestic extra-judicial killings are only just now starting to receive real scrutiny. The video of George Floyd’s murder lit a fire in this country that I do not think will soon go out.
But I worry that a large part of our country does not think about or care about extra-judicial killings that occur overseas.
In the case of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, I wonder if many Americans would care one bit if it turns out that the U.S.A. committed this particular crime. Even fewer Americans will care (IMHO) if it turns out some other country did the deed.
And on top of all that, you make the great point that this particular killing seems designed to do at least two things: hobble Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and limit Biden’s options in trying to constructively deal with Iran moving forward. The killing is so messed up on so many levels it feels almost Trumpian.