Iran Is Vulnerable. Is It Time for the US to Intervene?

President Donald Trump faces a presidency-defining decision as he contemplates and threatens new military action against Iran. His options range, reportedly, from non-lethal support for the opposition forces challenging the clerical regime to sustained military strikes meant to fracture that government’s hold on power. The potential rewards are massive, given Iran’s destructive regional and global influence — but so are the complications.

If the moral logic of intervention is strong, given the courage Iranian protesters have shown in resisting a murderous regime, the strategic case is also tempting. For decades, Iran has been perhaps the most malign, destabilizing influence in a perpetually turbulent region. It has cultivated proxies that violently strike the US and its allies; it stokes sectarian fires from the Levant to the Persian Gulf. Tehran has launched huge, indiscriminate ballistic missile strikes against Israel, while developing a nuclear program that only sharp military punishment could halt.