It’s time to get tough on Iran

The media has recently been rife with speculation about the possibility of a U.S. or Israeli preventive strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure — from former CIA Director Michael Hayden’s observation last month that the drift toward military action against Iran appears "inexorable" to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen’s recent statement ...

BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images
BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images
BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images

The media has recently been rife with speculation about the possibility of a U.S. or Israeli preventive strike on Iran's nuclear infrastructure -- from former CIA Director Michael Hayden's observation last month that the drift toward military action against Iran appears "inexorable" to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen's recent statement that the U.S. military has drawn up plans to attack the Islamic Republic.

The media has recently been rife with speculation about the possibility of a U.S. or Israeli preventive strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure — from former CIA Director Michael Hayden’s observation last month that the drift toward military action against Iran appears "inexorable" to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen’s recent statement that the U.S. military has drawn up plans to attack the Islamic Republic.

But, given recent developments in Iran, it is at least as likely that an increasingly belligerent Tehran will be the one that makes the move that sparks a conflict with the United States — whether by an act of terrorism, by facilitating insurgent attacks in Iraq or Afghanistan, or by a military provocation in the Gulf or elsewhere — unless Washington, acting with both caution and firmness, moves to avert such an eventuality.

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Michael Eisenstadt is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
David Crist is a senior historian for the U.S. Department of Defense and serves as an advisor on Iranian issues. He is the author of The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict With Iran.

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