Why Attack Iran?

A Question for Mr. Romney

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said something quite interesting about Iran. One of the editors at the Journal asked him how he would respond upon learning that President Bush had launched an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. He answered:
"I would hope that the president would have outlined a great deal of information. I have very little information, for instance, on: How many nuclear facilities are there? Where are they? Can we take them out? Can we not? What is the capacity of the Iranian military to respond? Are our 160,000 troops in Iraq safe, or are they going to get hit?" (Brian Carney, "Mitt Romney: Consultant in Chief," Wall Street Journal, Nov. 10, 2007)
Brian Carney, the Journal editor who wrote the article, noted that Romney always likes to ask such questions the way a consultant would: getting a quick understanding of the situation in order to assess it. That's how Romney made his substantial fortune as a business consultant. Carney and I would agree that there's nothing wrong with that. It would be nice to have a president who digs and probes. But do you notice two other questions missing? I do. These are the two follow-up questions I would have asked Mr. Romney had I been one of the interviewers:
Let's say you get your questions answered as follows. There are many nuclear facilities and they're scattered around. But we can take 100 percent of them out. The Iranian military has little capacity to respond. Let's assume, with little justification, that our 160,000 troops in Iraq are safe. [Incidentally, Mr. Romney, they're not safe. You might have heard that the U.S. is at war in Iraq. War is unhealthy for soldiers and other living things.] Here's my first question: Would you second Mr. Bush's decision to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities? My second question: If you answer yes to the first question, why would you bomb Iran?
It's too bad that Romney apparently didn't answer my first question and that, apparently, none of the Journal editors asked it. But they probably didn't need to. The reason: almost everyone understands that, if Iran were found to have nuclear weapons, virtually all of the Republican candidates, with the notable exception of Ron Paul, would support the U.S. government trying to eliminate them with bombs. Which leads to the second, more fundamental, question: Why?