President Bush Cites Iran’s Nuclear Program as a Reason for Not Leaving Iraq

I normally leave Iraq to Travis Sharp’s Iraq Insider and Iran to Carah Ong’s Iran Nuclear Watch, and instead focus on nuclear weapons and nonproliferation issues, but wanted to make note of an important development involving the explicit connection of all three.

In case you missed it, President Bush commented earlier this week that, according to the New York Times, an American withdrawal from Iraq would embolden a belligerent Iran, whose nuclear program threatens to put “a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.” (That Bush chose to use the evocative phrase “nuclear holocaust” provides interesting insight into his thinking.)

Bush’s comments suggest that Iran’s nuclear program is next in the ever growing and evolving list of reasons given to justify the invasion and continued military presence in Iraq, which includes (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction, toppling a repressive dictator, spreading democracy and human rights, combating al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, preventing regional instability, etc.

A likely reason for adding Iran’s nuclear program to the list is that it evokes a great deal of concern among the American people, with a recent poll showing that 63% of Americans view Iran’s influence as mostly negative and other polls indicating deep skepticism over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and intentions. Similar apprehension also exists across both parties in Congress, although there is significant disagreement as to how to contain Iran’s nuclear program.

By piggybacking on this concern, it seems that the Bush administration hopes to increase support for its efforts in Iraq among a public and Congress weary of war but also frightened of a nuclear armed Iran. Whether this approach will actually work is another story.