The case for U.S. intervention in Iran

Unpacking the U.S. strategy for dealing with Iran

Donald Trump as Uncle Sam/kalhh/commons.wikimedia

Why does the United States intervene in foreign conflicts?

The United States intervenes abroad because it has the power to do so—militarily, economically, diplomatically—and because its global position often demands it. Nations who don’t share the U.S.’s position often look to those who do for assurances, incentives, and fairness. If the U.S. lacked that capacity, the question of intervention wouldn’t even arise.

The real debate isn’t about ability; it’s about purpose.

Should the U.S. use its strength to advance its national interests? I think it should. Once we accept that, the real discussion becomes about when and why it should do so; intervention should be tied to a clear understanding of American interests.

Too often, when people argue against U.S. involvement in a particular conflict like the one now unfolding in Iran, they’re not just questioning the strategy, they’re rejecting the very idea that the U.S. should project power at all. A form of appeasement framed as pacifism and prudence.

I acknowledge we should debate what our interests are. We should be smart, honest about costs, and clear-eyed about risks. But refusing to act simply because it could go wrong is more abdication than strategy.

“Should the U.S. be involved abroad?” I think most agree the answer to that is clear: yes, when our interests are at stake.

Does the U.S. have sufficient interests to intervene in Iran?

The current situation in Iran is the result of a major U.S. policy failure. The first Trump Admin’s decision to unilaterally exit the 2015 Iran nuclear deal negotiated under Obama resulted in a dangerous situation.

Many of the deal’s conservative critics acknowledged that Iran was, at the time, complying with the enrichment limits. That wasn’t the problem. Their objections were about the broader consequences of easing sanctions, rewarded to Iran as they complied with the deal. Not unreasonably, conservatives thought Iran was using the economic relief to fund proxy groups and terror activities across the region, including the October 7th massacre in Israel. They were right.

However, abandoning the deal without a viable alternative was not a solution. It was an unforced error. It didn’t take long for Iran to begin enriching uranium again, eventually reaching levels beyond civilian use.

On May 31, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a global nuclear watchdog that promotes the peaceful use of nuclear technology, declared Iran in breach of its nuclear non-proliferation obligations. That’s not just a problem for Israel, Sunni powers like Saudi Arabia, or the United States. It’s a problem for the broader Western world.

Iran has been blatant in its hostility toward the U.S. and Western allies. You might sympathize with some of Iran’s historical grievances, and that’s your prerogative. But the reality is their “Death to America” chants and calls to assassinate U.S. leaders aren’t rhetorical.

Still, this isn’t just about whether Iran would use a nuclear weapon. I don’t think they would. They know the consequences would be catastrophic.

As Christopher Hitchens pointed over a decade ago, the danger of Iran isn’t an unprovoked nuclear strike—it’s the leverage that comes with having the weapon. It’s about blackmail. It's about coercive diplomacy on their terms. Hitchens put it better than most ever could: “We’d have to live in a world where perforce, we were polite and accommodating and agreeable to these characters—and I decline to live on those terms.”

Iran possessing nuclear weapons wouldn’t inevitably usher in the apocalypse. But it would shift the strategic influence and power dynamics in the direction of the West’s adversaries’ in a perilous way.

A nuclear-ready Iran would hurt American interests even if they simply used the mere existence of the weapon as a shield to act more aggressively, fund more proxy attacks, and erode liberal democratic values across the world. Just the threat of doing so whilst armed with nuclear capabilities would force Americans to follow orders.

The kind of intervention I support are those that prevent an openly hostile regime from acquiring irreversible strategic leverage over its neighbors, its enemies—us.

The recent U.S. strikes—carried out by B-2 bombers—didn’t hit civilian infrastructure. They targeted specific facilities used to convert enriched material into nuclear weapons. It was a clear, limited, and purpose-driven action. This is exactly what one should want if they want to solve a problem and avoid further escalation.

How does the Iraq War compare to the problem in Iran today?

Plenty of people have compared recent reports of Iran’s nuclear buildup to the Bush administration’s deception in the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion. I hate this kind of inductive analogizing.

Yes—President Bush's WMD case was flawed at best. The war was mismanaged. But that doesn’t mean every confrontation with a hostile regime is automatically another Iraq. This reflexive skepticism, in my view, is traumatization disguised as non-interventionism.

I’m not going to try to prove I know more about 2003 than I do, but not everything about the Iraq War was a failure. We had a serious problem with Saddam Hussein’s regime, and that problem was removed. We also had a problem with the lack of international access to Iraq’s suspected weapons programs. That issue—the ambiguity—was resolved. One could argue the cost wasn’t worth it, and that’s a valid debate. But don’t confuse that with the idea that inspections aren’t in the U.S.’s interest. They are.

And that’s the main issue with the comparison: Iran is enriching uranium. The IAEA has confirmed this. This isn’t based on Donald Trump’s gut feelings or manipulation.

If your position is that the Iraq War was such a disaster that the U.S. should never intervene anywhere again, then we’re not debating Iran. No amount of interest or risk justifies action in your view. If the standard is that past failures permanently disqualify future action, then the facts on the ground don’t matter. It doesn’t matter what Iran’s nuclear program is doing. It doesn’t matter that the IAEA has raised alarms. It doesn’t matter that a hostile theocracy is openly threatening the U.S. and its allies.

That’s not restraint; it’s paralysis. Every conflict deserves to be evaluated on its own merits. Iran is not Iraq. Bush is not Trump. The world today is not the world of 2003.

Isn’t Iran justified in building up nuclear capacity for leverage to further its interests?

I’ve seen this point of Iran’s perspective raised a bunch since the first intelligence reports surfaced about an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. It’s a fair perspective to consider, and it’s worth engaging seriously.

But my main issue with the argument that Iran is being forced to pursue nuclear weapons to avoid Western intervention is it treats Iran as though it has no other options. They’re either too stupid or too evil to pursue anything else. And that’s where I must contend.

Iran has countless alternatives available besides funding terrorism and enriching uranium. Some of those options include: holding free and fair elections to give public sentiment more influence over Iranian policy; stopping the routine calls for the destruction of Israel, the U.S., and the West; and ending support for terrorist proxies across the region—just to name a few.

I think I know what most are thinking: Iran would never agree to this. And that represents a more fundamental problem here.

Iran has agency! Too often, arguments about international conflicts assume that one party—usually the one someone sympathizes with—has no choice in the matter. Those who think the U.S. is going too far tend to suggest Iran’s only viable path to justice is to build nuclear weapons.

Now, I do think it’s true that if Iran were to successfully develop a nuclear weapon, Western powers would be far more hesitant to intervene militarily, and that would give Iran greater freedom to act without consequence. But as previously explained, I don’t think that’s a more desirable scenario for Americans—it’s just a riskier one.

Yes, Iran may be trying to enrich uranium to strengthen its negotiating hand in future talks with the U.S.. But assuming that’s the only path they have misses the point. It’s not right to excuse that behavior; it’s a failure to hold them accountable for the other options they’ve refused to take.

At the end of the day, Iran’s nuclear development runs counter to American interests. If someone’s going to hold leverage in global power dynamics, I’d much rather it be the U.S.—or one of its allies—than Iran. For all its flaws, the U.S. is more likely to prevent nuclear war than to threaten it as blackmail. Iran would use that power for intimidation and compulsion purposes.

Does the U.S. have options other than military force?

Trump’s decision to rip up the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 was shaped, at least in part, by the ambition of his strategy of “maximum pressure” that could force both North Korea and Iran to the bargaining table. By applying overwhelming leverage, so thought Trump, the U.S. could extract a better deal from Iran that eased conservatives’ concerns.

That didn’t happen. Iran continued to comply with the nuclear deal—until they didn’t.

President Biden genuinely attempted to renegotiate with Iran. He offered sanction relief as a bargaining chip but eventually gave up. Last year, the State Department concluded that Iran wasn’t negotiating in good faith; they kept enriching uranium and wouldn’t cooperate with the IAEA.

In February of this year, Trump started pushing for a new agreement. And in April, he set a 60-day deadline for Iran to come to the table before more coercive tactics would be considered. Some analysts caught on to the fact that Trump wasn’t setting a deadline for Iran; he was setting one for himself.

To be fair, Iran’s perception of Trump as someone who talks tough but doesn’t follow through—what some called “TACO”, Trump Always Chickens Out—might’ve played a role in their delay. Nevertheless, Iran’s nuclear program had become too large and fast-moving, and diplomacy had become a last resort before harder options were considered.

Either way, it’s clear the U.S. did attempt diplomacy. You can debate the exact offers made and whether the pressure strategies were wise. But the question remains: what exactly was being proposed that Iran couldn’t accept in exchange for giving up uranium enrichment? To me, it seems that Iran doesn’t just want leverage—they want the weapon itself, for whatever larger strategic purpose they may have in mind.

The U.S. hasn’t limited its involvement to direct military action, either. It has shared intelligence, financially supported Israel’s strikes on nuclear sites, and repeatedly tried to bring Iran back to the table. Yet despite that, many Americans still object to those kinds of involvement. That makes me think it’s not that they lack justification—it’s that people don’t want the U.S. involved at all, under any circumstances. And that’s fine so long as that’s your stated position rather than some surface-level bickering about particular justifications.

Is Iran acting in good faith?

Like the constant comparisons to the Bush Admin in 2003, many argue Iran never had nuclear weapons—or that intelligence reports suggesting otherwise are unreliable or exaggerated. But if that’s true, then why aren’t they jumping at the prospects of making a deal? If Iran doesn’t have such power, then they have nothing to lose—they have no leverage to give up.

The apparent existence of some assessments saying U.S. military actions only set Iran’s nuclear progress back by a few months strongly implies that they are developing serious nuclear capabilities. And doing so out of view, much less, beyond the reach of inspections and intelligence. Who is recalling Iraq now?

I can’t help but wonder if Iran really just wanted to use the enrichment as leverage, why keep so much of the program hidden? Why not be more transparent about their progress, and use it to their advantage in extracting concessions? A secretive Iran, enriching uranium underground and dodging inspections, seems far more threatening than one openly signaling its intentions.

One possibility is that Iran wants the benefits of nuclear leverage without exposing the true extent of its program to foreign intelligence. But that’s super risky. If their capacity is unknown, it could be underestimated—and if someone like Trump calls their bluff, they could lose all leverage. If they revealed more, they might secure better deals by making the threat more credible. The secrecy undermines the very leverage they might be trying to build.

Is the United States any different from the Iranian regime?

Unlike Whoopi Goldberg, I’m fully aware that Iran is not just another version of the United States with different customs.

It may seem to some as though the U.S. hasn’t learned much from its past foreign policy failures. I sympathize with that. But you’re wrong: we have learned—and more importantly, we can continue to learn. Unlike Iran, we’ve changed leadership since 2003. We can hold our leaders accountable without violence. We can protest, vote, criticize, and push for change. Iranians can’t—not without serious risk.

One of the strange upsides of America’s recently balanced elections, near 50/50 outcomes, is that more voices are being heard. Republicans and Democrats alike will be watching how we respond to Iran’s next move and especially the public sentiment regarding each decision. That’s not the case in other parts of the world. The Iranian regime is only interested in further entrenching their power by silencing dissent and spoiling institutions that could correct their mistakes.

I don’t think a country like the United States, with all its power and global reach, should quietly tolerate being pushed around by a regime like that.