Oy Gevalt
Countdown to Armageddon?
Iran has once again, and in spectacular fashion, flipped the bird to the UN by breaking the seals on its Natanz nuclear facility and announcing that it is going forward, come what may, with nuclear enrichment research. Notwithstanding their forked-tongue protestations, this will obviously include the production of weapons-grade material.
It’s a little hard to blame them for proceeding merrily according to plan, since the big cheeses of the world can’t seem to do much more than stamp a foot or two and threaten to bring Iran before the UN Security Council. I don’t get the impression that being hauled up before the UN Security Council is anything that will give Supreme Pan-Islamic Honcho and Cheerful Nutcase Ahmadinejad any sleepless nights, and besides, the US and EU3 (Britain, France and Germany) have been uttering the Security Council threat since…2003. Even they know it’s an empty threat. As military historian (and personal hero of mine) John Keegan notes, neither the Security Council nor the IAEA has any power to actually enforce the NPT. This is due primarily to what Keegan describes as a lack of “will” among UN member states to take meaningful action — particularly Russia, whom the other states are loath to offend. (Russia is busy building a reactor for Iran, so other considerations, like a nuclear holocaust initiated by a foam-flecked sociopath, naturally fall by the wayside.)
So what is to be done? Keegan points out that the sanctions option, sure to appeal to the Europeans, will cause the Iranians some “inconvenience” but will not only not in any way hamper their nuclear progress — it will to some degree serve the interests of the ruling theocrats, who would like nothing better than to starve their educated young population of Western contact. He goes on to say:
To stage a second war in the Middle East would not be a desirable initiative at present for America and would certainly be highly unpopular at home and among its allies. Moreover, Iran, as the possessor of the second largest oil reserves in the world and occupier of a strategic position athwart the sea routes delivering oil to most of the consuming world, has its own means of retaliation ready to hand.
Which brings us, as always in the geopolitics of the Middle East, to Israel. Israel makes no attempt to conceal that it has considered and undoubtedly is now considering its ability to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities by military action.
Keegan then makes a point I don’t agree with — that Israel’s current political situation will hamstring decision-making at this level — but does make the practical and indisputable point that logistically, Iran’s nuclear facilities are much harder for us to get at than were Saddam’s in 1981 (please see my October 27 post on Iran for a further discussion of this point).
The Glasgow Herald (via Israellycool) has pounced on the Israeli option: according to them, we are contemplating a preemptive airstrike against Iran’s nuclear facility as early as March. I haven’t seen this anywhere else, and the Glaswegians are depending for their information on an “unnamed Israeli source” (who could, presumably, be my dishwasher repairman), so take this with a grain of salt. Still, I suspect the unspoken hope of many around the globe who are unnerved by Iran’s chest-pounding is that we will get on with it and take care of things — a signal service that will undoubtedly be repaid by heaps of opprobrium, as would an American military strike.
Gloria, according to the Glasgow Herald, as quoted in the NewsMax story you reference, a pre-emptive attack by Israel on Iran’s nuclear facilities would “set Tehran’s weapons program back by up to two years.”
One has to wonder if such a modest result–a two year reprieve at most–would be worth the cost. Overnight, the scales would shift. Iran would become the country trangressed upon; Israel would be the transgressor repaid for her efforts, as you say, by heaps of opprobrium.
The mullahs would claim all the more justification to preach death to Israel and, the worst part, more people than ever would listen and nod and believe they are right. At present, by some estimates, up to 80% of the Iranian population opposes the Iranian Islamic Revolution. It might be worth asking what that number might be after an Israeli airstrike.
I’m not advocating a policy of inaction. Rather, it’s possible Israel might serve its own people and the Iranian majority better by initiating a decapitation strike on the fundamentalist Iranian leadership. Properly done (perhaps internally in conjunction with Iranian opposition forces) Israel and the world at large might very well gain far more than a mere two year respite.
Hey,
There is an interesting discussion going on at Chester’s. While his original post and updates are interesting, the comments are even more so and show the different opinions of people (not just Americans).
While I believe that Bush still might use the Military (in 2007) and assist Israel (or the other way around), there are many other options and ideas that need to be considered first.
The one thing that bothers me is that there is little or no real intel from inside Iran. Almost all intel is from expats and others OUTSIDE Iran. I don’t think that intel is really valid.
Anyway, if you have time some night when you can’t sleep, I suggest you might consider reading this post and comments.
Continued health and safety to you and yours.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
VDH reports in with Our bad and worse choices about Iran.
Papa Ray
Does it seem to anyone else that, when someone excitedly talks about a possible Israeli strike against Iran, they’re the people (or countries) who simply don’t want to dirty their own hands with the job?
Just for the sake of perspective, let me point out something else. What would happen if military action was launched, massively; coalitions were formed and re-formed; heated debates were held in the UN as the fighting raged; and, when the smoke cleared, Iran had experienced regime change, and the nuclear facilities secured… whereupon some enterprising reporter visits the Natanz facility, and discovers the original seals intact and in place?
Oops.
We know what would happen then, don’t we? I can already hear the screams of “we had no business invading in the first place!”; “Iran was never a threat to us!”; “We only invaded for the OIL!!!”; and so on, and so on, ad endless nauseam.
I trust the analogy is clear. Today, everyone knows that Iran is on the verge of building a working nuclear weapon… just as, in 2002, everyone knew that Saddam had chemical agents (and maybe even biological ones) stockpiled and ready to go. There is no doubt about the danger of Iran now, just as there was no doubt about the danger of Iraq then.
The lesson, should one be necessary, is this: you go to war when you must, with the forces you have, as Donald Rumsfeld once famously said… and also with the intelligence you have. Not what you wish you had, what you have.
Today we’re certain that Iran will have nuclear weapons very soon… in part, because under the circumstances, it would be insane to assume anything else. It is, however, an assumption, based on incomplete information; at the end of the day, we don’t know what’s going on in Teheran, we just don’t.
If we later find out that we were wrong, let’s not forget how certain all of us were today, all right?
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Bernard and Daniel, you both make interesting points that I’d like to respond to.
Bernard, I agree with you 100%. If a strike on Iran would give us only a two-year respite, it would be an act of disastrous folly, bearing in mind a) the near impossibility that we could hit all their facilities at once (and the consequent likelihood that they would hit us back), b) the catastrophic p.r. loss for Israel that would result (and the consequent astronomical p.r. gain Ahmedinejad and the other jihadists around the globe would gain from an Israeli first strike), and c) the collateral damage to the Iranian civilian population that would inevitably result. A strike would only make sense if it would set Iran’s nuclear ambitions back a generation at least, and even that isn’t really long enough. The top priority — and here too I agree with you — should be regime change in Iran over stopping the Iranian nuclear program. (Don’t get me wrong — I want it to be stopped — but it will never be stopped forever. The real issue is the country’s psychotic leadership, which wants nukes and wants to use them.)
But that’s no walk in the park either. Going in and whacking the leader of a foreign country might prove to be almost as unpopular and counterproductive in terms of p.r. value as taking out their nuclear facilities. The safest route is probably a strong push to assist the internal Iranian opposition in wresting control away from the lunatic. And that can’t possibly be done by Israel; it has to be an American initiative.
Daniel, I take your point about assumptions of certainty prior to war, but I would argue that there are important differences between this scenario and the Saddam scenario. In the case of Saddam, Bush et al were saying “You have WMDs” and he was saying “No I don’t”. In this case, it is the Iranian president himself who is making sure we all know what he wants, and what he wants to do once he gets it. I don’t think anyone is thinking of striking Iran because he broke the seals on the Natanz nuclear facility, or for any other such specific reason. It’s being contemplated because the Iranian leader has threatened the total destruction of a nearby country and looks forward to the subsequent total destruction of the world’s only superpower, and is doing everything he can to hasten both events. His object is the complete collapse of Western civilization — a worrisome thought unto itself, but in combination with his religious belief that the “end times” will come within the next two years, he is clearly a short-term threat. No one disputes the absolute necessity for solid intelligence, but I think the raison d’etre of a strike will be the existential danger posed to the free world, not the audacity of a man who may or may not have torn the seals on a nuclear facility.
Two things I forgot to mention:
1. Apropos of nothing, I am by no means convinced that Saddam did not have WMDs. We considerately gave him 12 years in which to hide them, and Iraq is quite a big place.
2. I am not sanguine about the prospects for an internal overthrow of the Iranian leadership, no matter how much help they get from outside. I think it is something that must be tried, but considering the exceptional brutality of the regime, it is highly unlikely to work. I’m almost certain we (meaning the US and/or Israel) are going to have to hit them eventually.
Gloria, thanks for your further input. Too bad three or four of us couldn’t sit around a table, sip beers, and talk about this subject well into the night.
Except… there’d be no escaping the hangover of reality in the morning.
One last thing, if I may, regarding the chances/difficulties of regime change in Iran. I’ve recently entertained the notion that Ahmadinejad’s rantings may be signaling weakness rather than strength. Maybe he realizes he is in a race with time as well.
Bernard, that sounds great — a bunch of us sitting around a table enjoying good beer and good conversation! True, the subject matter is pretty grim, but it certainly is stimulating. In this neighborhood we suffer from the famous curse of an interesting life — there really is never a dull moment.
As to your point about Ahmadinejad, you may be onto something, although my instincts say otherwise. He seems a bright enough guy that if he were behind schedule on the bomb, he’d shut up long enough to get it on track without attracting all this attention.
Of course, he does seem pretty thoroughly certifiable, so who can tell? All we know is that we have to take the man at his word (and get the most solid intel we can).
Good points, Gloria.
I agree with you that Iran is not likely to undergo regime change from within. Granted, what we don’t know about Iran’s internal politics right now is tremendous. Nonetheless, expecting the Iranians to free themselves from the mullahs, at this point, sounds silly at best, at least to me.
I’d disagree with you in re Saddam before 2002. I’d summarize it differently, as Bush saying “you have WMDs; dismantle them or face the consequences”, and Saddam replying “my WMDs are none of your business”. (There were many ways and means for Saddam to unequivocally send the message “no, I have no WMDs”, had he wanted to do so; he didn’t do it.) True, Saddam did not overtly threaten the United States before 2002, but the implied threats were alarming enough. Saddam also threatened publicly to “incinerate half of Israel” in August 1990… and we found out, quickly enough, that he meant it.
So if you view the 2003 invasion of Iraq the way some people do, as the continuation of work that should have been completed in 1991, then the parallels, between Iraq then and Iran now, are rather striking.
In re the seals on the Natanz nuclear facility — such things, and lesser things, have led to war before. I doubt that anyone — other than Israel — is seriously contemplating war just because of Ahmadinejad’s threats. (Heck, how many Europeans are secretly applauding, simply because they don’t ever want to have to think about Israel again?)
The bottom line is that we don’t know what Ahmadinejad is doing, and we don’t know what he’s planning. All we know for sure is what he says. In the face of such uncertainty, small events — such as the Natanz seals — might well serve as triggers, simply because it’s all we have.
Moreover, we were certainly not lacking evidence of Saddam’s belligerent intentions in 2002. It is only after the invasion, when we think we know what we were uncertain about before, that people have started to doubt whether or not Iraq was a threat. That’s the parallel I want to draw to Iran now.
Mind you, I was convinced of the need to take Saddam out in 2002, WMDs or no WMDs, and I haven’t changed my mind on that. I similarly agree that Ahmadinejad is an unstable and highly dangerous maniac, and should be treated as such. But I remember painfully the historical revisionism we’ve seen in the past few years. Remember when the American left argued against invading Iraq, because WMDs were sure to be used against American troops? Now they argue that Iraq should never have been invaded, because it was obvious that there were never any WMD there to begin with, and we should have trusted Saddam’s non-statements to that effect and mistrusted every Western intelligence agency in the world.
I want to be sure that, whatever happens next, we remember the certainty of this moment. If Iran is (God willing) stopped in her nuclear ambitions, some people will be sure to come forward, saying that they never believed Iran wanted nuclear weapons in the first place, and therefore military action was unjustified and a War Crime.
It takes courage to strike out at one’s enemy. It takes a different sort of courage to stay the course afterwards, in the face of ever-increasing doubts. It was flagging courage of the second sort that caused Margaret Thatcher to say to George H. W. Bush, in 1990, “this is no time to go wobbly”. Let’s remember that, as we are forced to endure the legions of latter-day Wobblies in days and years to come.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline