A Time to Attack: The Looming Iranian Nuclear Threat

Kroenig (Exporting the Bomb), an expert in nuclear strategy and national security, has become one of the leading academic voices calling for a military strike on Iran. Making a forceful case here, he writes: “It is my judgment, based on the preponderance of the evidence, that Iran has in fact made a final decision to build nuclear weapons.” Arguing that “we can trade Iran’s nuclear program, the greatest emerging threat to the country, for limited Iranian military retaliation”—which he estimates as several hundred deaths, mostly in Israel, and a short-term rise in the cost of oil—Kroenig persuasively argues that the consequences of a preemptive strike are far preferable to allowing Iran to build a warhead; he gives short shrift to the advocates of diplomacy and ongoing talks merit only two sentences. Echoing Netanyahu, Kroenig suggests that Obama would be wise to delineate a clear red line which, if passed, would trigger an immediate strike, but he maintains that ultimately the job will fall to the United States, calling the Israeli military option “an unmitigated disaster.” A continuation of Kroenig’s well-received and controversial article in Foreign Affairs, the book provides similarly clear-eyed but divisive advice regarding an urgent situation. Agent: Will Lippincott, Lippincott Massie McQuilkin. (May)