A Foreign Policy podcast of 15 October Counterpoint (in partnership with the Doha Forum) features a heated debate between Matt Kroenig, vice president of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a professor of government at Georgetown University, and Barbara Slavin, a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center and a lecturer in international affairs at George Washington University.
On the hawkish side, the debate reflects deeply-embedded "American Exceptionalism", that the United States remains able and justified to take matters in its own hands to shape the world according to its own agenda. It also highlights an American tendency to shoot first and face consequences later. The disastrous "War on Terror" comes to mind.
American hawkishness (which resonates outside this debate) ignores the reality that America's "unipolar" moment has already passed. Aside from China and Russia, more and more nations are now able to pull their weight to challenge American diktats in safeguarding their own national interests. Not least Iran and other Arab countries.
What is more important, as highlighted by Babara Slavin, pulling the U.S. trigger on Iran's nuclear installations now risks missing hidden nuclear assets in Iran's myriad underground facilities while provoking and galvanizing the Iranian nation for quickened moves to acquire nuclear weapon capabiliites.
There is also the worse-case scenario of an uncontrollable escalation towards nuclear Armegedden, as frightfully portrayed in New York Times best-selling author Annie Jacobsen's well-researched and timley book Nuclear War: A Scenario (Dutton, New York, 26 March, 2024)