One gets the feeling, however, that Cheney regrets that. Near the end of his AEI speech, the former vice president turned to his proposed alternative to Obama’s accord with Iran. Most critics of the nuclear deal argue that the United States can reject the current agreement, stiffen sanctions, force its allies to maintain theirs, and thus force the Iranians into a better deal. Cheney, however, said nothing about toughening sanctions. His substitute plan for preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons consisted of only one thing: military force.

“[T]here are lessons from the past on which we can draw,” Cheney declared. He then cited Israel’s 1981 attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor; the Gulf War, in which the U.S. destroyed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program; the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which Cheney said convinced Libya to abandon its nuclear program; and Israel’s 2007 attack on a nuclear reactor in Syria. “In each of these cases,” Cheney argued, “it was either military action or the credible threat of military action that persuaded these rogue regimes to abandon their weapons programs. Iran will not be convinced to abandon its program peacefully unless it knows it will face military action if it refuses to do so.”

The closer you look, the more revealing Cheney’s litany is. Obama has been vilified for suggesting that opponents of the nuclear deal are putting the United States on the road to war. But at the end of his AEI speech, Cheney all but proposes war. Sure, he says America just needs the “credible threat of military action.” But he offers no suggestions for how Obama could make that threat credible without actually going to war. Nor does he explain why his own administration’s military threats against Iran weren’t credible during its eight years in office.

In fact, Cheney doesn’t cite historical examples of America or Israel threatening military action. He cites historical examples of America or Israel taking military action. Even Muammar al-Qaddafi, the one leader Cheney cites as having abandoned his nuclear program without being attacked, didn’t give up his program because the U.S. threatened war against Libya. Qaddafi gave it up, according to Cheney himself, because the United States waged war against Iraq. Cheney says he’s drawing on the lessons of history for his alternative to the Iran nuclear deal. But the only lesson he’s drawing is that war works.

For all his dishonesty about the details of the agreement with Iran, there is an underlying honesty to Cheney’s broader perspective. Recognizing that Americans have no appetite for another Middle Eastern war, most deal opponents have spent the summer insisting that they really, really believe in diplomacy with Iran, just not Obama’s kind. Cheney doesn’t bother. The end of his AEI speech is a paean to the effectiveness of military force as a means of stopping nuclear proliferation. Only Dick Cheney could interpret the last decade or two of U.S. foreign policy as a testament to the efficacy and morality of war. But the former vice president has his own relationship with reality. When dissonant information intrudes, he simply mutters “right,” and keeps on going.

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