At Foreign Affairs Daniel C. Kurtzer and Steven N. Simon urge the Trump Administration to interceded with Israel to end its war on Iran:
Since launching its military operation against Iran last Friday, Israel has dealt a devastating blow to the country’s nuclear program, its ballistic missile arsenal, and its military leadership. But Israel is unlikely to be able to fully destroy Iran’s nuclear program by itself. It does not have the bombers or heavy ordnance it would need to penetrate the fortified, underground Fordow enrichment facility. It has also evidently avoided striking fuel-storage facilities for fear of unleashing a public health crisis.
The United States has the aircraft and so-called bunker-buster bombs to cripple Fordow. That means that the outcome of the war will depend as much on decisions made by U.S. President Donald Trump as it will on further Israeli airstrikes. Israel has urged the United States to join the war, and if Trump decides to do so, Iran would almost certainly suffer a strategic defeat serious enough to push its nuclear capabilities back years and conceivably threaten the viability of the regime—which would quickly become a U.S. goal, owing to the logic of escalation.
But Trump should not enter the war as a combatant on Israel’s side. The United States does have an interest in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. In 2015, it secured an agreement with Iran that would have blocked the Islamic Republic’s quest for that for at least a decade, if not longer. Washington believed that negotiating an outcome in which Iran had a stake would be a more durable solution, and much less expensive than opting for war. Israel did not agree with this approach, nor did Trump.
In 2018, Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement, an act that facilitated Iran’s impressive accumulation of highly enriched uranium. It is no more in Washington’s interest now than it was in 2015 to go to war for a result that could be achieved with far less risk through negotiations. That means that it is not in the U.S. interest to go to war to neutralize Fordow militarily, either, and it would be a mistake to do so. If Israel is determined to substantially damage Fordow, the Israel Defense Forces could do so by sending troops to Iran or by making it impossible to enter the facility or relocate centrifuges there. Achieving either goal, however, would be tricky and costly, and it is understandable that Israel would want to outsource the job to the Americans.
Sadly, I don’t find their argument compelling. I say “sadly” because I materially agree with it. My argument is that preventive war, which is what Israel’s war against Iran is, is immoral. I wish that an appeal to morality were more convincing to Americans and, especially, to President Trump but that does not appear to be the case.