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Opening Arguments

Force factor

President Obama sounds a tad conflicted about war and the use of force. On the one hand, he says this:

“Already, there is too much loose talk of war,” Mr. Obama said. “Over the last few weeks such talk has only benefited the Iranian government by driving up the price of oil, which they depend on to fund their nuclear program.

“For the sake of Israel’s security, America’s security and the peace and security of the world, now is not the time for bluster.”

On the other hand, though, he says this:

 

Mr. Obama declared that he would not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran and would act — with military force, if necessary — to prevent that from happening.

But he made it clear that he did not believe that a strike on Iran would serve the interests of either the United States or Israel. And he chided his Republican critics for, as he described it, putting politics ahead of American national security interests.

I think he's getting closer to the truth with the latter. He even quoted Teddy Rossevelt's line at one point: "Speak softly but carry a big stick," which was kinda Clint Eastwoody before there was even a Dirty Harry.  For that approach to work, the big stick has to be big enough not to be missed. It's a given of international conflict that the best way to avoid the need for force is to have so much of it yourself nobody will mess with you.

Pretty good analysis here:

The “loose talk” that the President deplores is what more than anything has made his policy successful so far.

[. . .]

The President’s best hope for peace now is that sanctions will be so effective, and the threat of war so credible, that the Iranians will agree to settle for what they can get. But the effectiveness of sanctions and the credibility of war threat largely depend on the warlike rhetoric that narrows the President’s options.

[. . .]

The President has kept the peace by moving toward war; he is hoping to avoid a war by promoting a crisis. It is a version of what John Foster Dulles once called ‘brinkmanship’. the art of going to the edge of the precipice in the hope that your adversary will blink. Of all the many paradoxes and ironies of this President’s foreign policy the reliance of “No Drama Obama” on fomenting a crisis to stave off a war is one of the strangest — and perhaps the most fateful.

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