In his Newsweek column Niall Ferguson is calling for bombing Iran: I respectfully disagree

On the surface, Mr. Ferguson seems to make valid arguments on all but his last points (see them in the linked article). On that last one however, he is flat wrong: Iran will never attack the US. It is true though that it may attack Israel if his nuclear arsenal can match that of Israel.


Although the threat of a potential Iranian nuclear attack on the US has been consistently stressed by trigger happy conservatives, it's nothing but warmongering rhetoric. Despite its erratic politics, Iran is not suicidal and it knows that its military capacity can never match the US.

So, that leaves Israel to worry about. If the US wants to stand by its "steadfast" ally in the Middle-East, sending the bombers to Iran, Israeli or US makes no difference, makes some sense.

But, there is a big question here: why would we put ourselves in harm’s way again for an "ally," that blatantly ignores our Middle-Eastern political ambitions? Israel has not moved an iota toward the "two state” solution in the past three years under Netanyahu. Rather, with the expanding settlements it weakens the possibility of a peace agreement with every new building that rises in a geographical area that a Jewish state has not owned since King David and King Solomon.

I propose here that Israel could completely eliminate the risk of an Iranian nuclear attack if it started, in good faith, to negotiate with the Palestinians, in the spirit of the "quartet’s" (US, EU, Russia, UN) proposal for the two state solution.

If Israel was forced to the negotiating table - and the US could push much harder for this than it does now -, instead of given a green light to the jet bombers into Iran, Middle-East peace would have a chance.

After the bombing perhaps Israel will be safer on the surface but the rest of the world, and in particular the US, will become a far more dangerous place.

I hate to think of the prospect of living under the kind of security measures in the US that struggles to keep the Israeli streets safe. On second thought, even an “Israeli-fashioned” safety will be impossible to establish in the US given the vast size of the country compared to the tiny Israel.

Although Mr. Ferguson doesn't enlist it, there is a sixth reason against bombing Iran: the need to avoid widening terrorism. Bombing Iran will be a highly combustible fuel on the fire for an already sizeable terrorist threats throughout the world.