Letters to the Editor: What if ‘boots on the ground’ in Iran is the only real option?

To the editor: Noting that “no one is proposing ‘boots on the ground’” to avoid the “Iraq syndrome” to defeat Iran’s nuclear threat, columnist Jonah Goldberg ignores the plausibility that boots may be the only sure alternative (“Is bombing Iran deja vu all over again?,” June 24). Absent an Iranian epiphany to rid itself of the nuclear enterprise — South Africa being the sole historic example of a country that built and dismantled its own nuclear program — or the inability to rebuild following attack (Israel’s 2007 bombing of Syria’s Al Kibar weapons reactor being a case in point), what is the option?

Two examples support boots on the ground. First, Nazi Germany. It was the May 1945 defeat by Allied forces that eliminated the feared but struggling effort. Then, Iraq 2002-03. After Israel’s 1981 bombing of the Osirak reactor, Baghdad built a secret weapons enrichment program. Only the insertion of international inspectors eliminated the program.

A solution with boots on the ground is a nonstarter for a Washington singed by the Iraq syndrome coupled with an incapable Jerusalem. The default leaves Israel and the U.S. applying periodic air attacks to keep Iran’s nuclear effort in disarray, hoping regime collapse with a roll-up of the nuclear program follows.

Bennett Ramberg, Los Angeles

This writer was a foreign affairs officer in the State Department Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in the George H.W. Bush administration.