Intelligence2 debate report: should we bomb Iran?

Iran was in the cross hairs last Tuesday. At the Intelligence Squared debate the mellifluously worded motion, ‘It’s better to bomb Iran than risk Iran getting the bomb,’ was proposed by Dr Emanuele Ottolenghi, a distinguished Italian political scientist. He argued that letting Tehran acquire nukes would create turmoil in the Middle East — and beyond. The Persian Gulf and the Caspian Basin, which currently operate as a sort of all-night Texaco garage to the world’s economies, would fall under the spell of a dangerous anti-Western regime. If neighbouring Turkey went nuclear, proliferation might spread Greece-wards and even into the Balkans.

Against the motion, Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Tehran, applied three criteria to the military option. Legality? Regional support? Commitment by the aggressors? He answered No to all three. In any case bombing Iran, he said, was hopelessly short-term. ‘By the time they knew an attack was imminent they’d have dispersed their facilities preparatory to reconstituting them later.’