How war with Iran would undercut U.S. China strategy

There are many reasons why the Trump administration should refrain from further entangling the United States in Israel’s war on Iran. Iran is a relatively weak country halfway around the world and poses no serious threat to core U.S. interests. If you liked the failed forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you’d love the quagmire of a war in Iran—a country of 90 million people with a significantly stronger military than those two countries.

But Israel appears intent on drawing the United States into this destabilizing war of choice. Because Israel can’t totally eliminate Iran’s nuclear program alone, it has urged the United States to intervene directly.

A joint U.S.-Israeli war in Iran harms American interests and would threaten American lives while draining resources and diverting strategic attention from pressing priorities. Indeed, one of the most crucial reasons why Washington needs to stay out of the war is that it serves as a distraction from more critical strategic challenges. Chief among those is managing tensions with China.

Read at National Interest

Author

Adam
Gallagher

Contributing Fellow

Defense Priorities