Not the Time to Attack Iran

The U.S. government says attacks in Iraq are down 55 percent since last summer, thanks to the American surge and better cooperation with Iraqi police. (Although the fact that the surge is about to end is worrying.) The interesting and hopeful side note in the piece, which I’ve read in a few places, are the claims that Iran is stemming the flow of weapons into Iraq.

I hope this is true, because it represents two potentially good outcomes: one, it dents Shi’ite militias’ ability to kill Americans and other Iraqis; and two, it would be a good-faith gesture by Iran indicating that they’re not hell-bent on destroying America at all costs, as right-wing dudes would have us believe.

TIME editor/soulja Tony Karon wrote a while back of the importance of reaching an agreement with Iran to promote Iraqi stability, and this reduced weapons flow would seem to be an opening to approach such an agreement. As much as many Americans believe we shouldn’t negotiate with the Axis of Evil (despite it happening exactly that way in North Korea), reaching a stabilizing agreement with Iran would do far more for America’s interests–a calmer Iraq, a calmer region and, let’s face it, undisrupted oil supplies–than a bombing campaign. We’d also have more legitimacy to pressure them should they break the agreement in the future, and the evidence from North Korea seems to be that negotiation is the best way to prevent what the world really fears: nuclear Iran.