As Harvard University’s Stephen Walt reminds us, making a case for war involves exaggerating worst-case scenarios about so-called threats and then warning about the dire consequences of not eradicating them. That’s what Georgetown Assistant Professor Matthew Kroenig does in his Foreign Affairs article, “Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike Is the Least Bad Option“. Walt explains why and debunks Kroenigs’s argument in detail here. An excerpt:

…When Kroenig is trying to justify the need for war, he depicts an Iran with far-reaching capabilities and dangerously evil intentions in order to convince readers that we have to stop them before it is too late. But when he turns to selling a preventive war, then suddenly Iran’s capabilities are rather modest, its leaders are sensible, and the United States can easily deal with any countermeasures that Iran might take. In other words, Kroenig makes the case for war by assuming everything will go south if the United States does not attack and that everything will go swimmingly if it does. This is not fair-minded “analysis”; it is simply a brief for war designed to reach a predetermined conclusion.

Read more.