Why America Shouldn't Bomb Iran

Patrick Porter makes the case at the King's College Department of War Studies blog.

The problem with all the focus on the wicked ‘neocons’ is that we lose sight of intellectual errors that infect the rest of us. One of these is the notion that foreign policy is about relentlessly ‘doing things.’ Just as critics often lambast the US for not ‘doing’ enough about complex regional problems over which it has little direct influence, so now goes the catch-cry, What is America doing about a nuclear Iran? How about -it can’t do much, except make things worse? Where is the case for a little masterly inactivity? This is why Obama’s restraint on the question of Iranian politics and civil society is actually kind of smart. First rule for the US in dealing with Iran and the prospect of political change: do no harm.