Four years ago this spring, rumblings could be heard out of Washington suggesting that the Bush administration might be planning to invade Iraq. At the time, most Americans — and most American news media — failed to pay those reports much heed, which was a mistake.

Today, similar rumblings are again being heard, this time regarding military action against Iran. And once again, the war signals are being dismissed as mere posturing, a negotiating ploy by an administration trying hard to pressure Iran into abandoning its nuclear-weapons ambitions.

So is it all for show this time? We better hope so.

Let's set aside the legal and political questions of whether such action could be justified, or what a second unprovoked attack on another country would do to America's reputation. If we take a hardheaded look at the risks and benefits — the kind of analysis we failed to perform before invading Iraq — the arguments against military action become overwhelming.

First off, the obvious: Given our commitments elsewhere, we aren't capable of mounting an invasion of Iran, so air strikes are our only option. And while bombs and missiles might cripple Iran's nuclear infrastructure, the effect would be only temporary. Air power could not destroy what really matters, which is the expertise in bombmaking acquired by Iran's nuclear scientists.

In return for setting back Iran's nuclear program for several years, what do we risk with military action?

Well, we need to understand that there would be no such thing as a limited strike. By taking such a step, we would risk touching off a broader Mideast war that could quickly spiral out of control, because the Iranians would almost certainly find a way to retaliate.

They could do so either through terrorism or through attacks on Persian Gulf oil shipments, and they have the capability to do both. For example, Iran could quickly shut down shipping lanes in the narrow Strait of Hormuz, which carries 25 percent to 40 percent of the world's petroleum to market, a move that would cripple the world economy and probably force the United States to escalate the war still further.

In addition, the conservative Islamic regime that we are trying to replace in Iran might even welcome a U.S. attack on its nuclear facilities. Such a move would rally Iranian public opinion to their government's side just as quickly and dramatically as the attacks of Sept. 11 boosted American political support for President Bush, delaying for years any real hope of regime change.

And then there's Iraq.

Part of the Bush administration's rationale for invading Iraq was to put military pressure on neighboring Iran. Trigger-happy neoconservatives were even bragging that while everybody wanted to invade Baghdad, real men wanted to keep going all the way to Tehran. At the very least, the idea was that with tens of thousands of U.S. troops stationed right next door, the mullahs in Iran would start to feel vulnerable and thus moderate their actions.

Like so much else about our Iraq policy, that has backfired. By putting more than 100,000 American troops into Iraq surrounded by millions of Iran's fellow Shiites, the invasion has made the United States much more vulnerable to Iran, instead of the other way around.

It would be nice to believe that the Bush administration understands all that; it would be nice to believe so many things. Unfortunately, the White House showed no ability or willingness to think through the invasion of Iraq to its all-too-predictable outcome, and there's little reason to believe that has changed much. The only core figure of the first Bush administration to leave office was Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had been one of its cooler heads.

No one is expecting Bush to publicly take the military option off the table. That threat not only encourages the Iranians to negotiate more seriously, it spurs third parties such as China, Russia and the European Union to cooperate with us in trying to head off war.

China and Russia in particular are reluctant to take a hard line against Iran's nuclear weapons program, but they are motivated to find a peaceful solution out of fear that those crazy Americans might try to solve the problem through brute military force.

In other words, it can sometimes be useful to have other people think you're crazy.

But it is never useful to actually BE crazy.

Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor. His column appears Thursdays and Mondays.

© 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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