Tom Alerts: Iranian leaders irrational?
Thursday, March 9, 2006 at 12:55PM Google sent me this link yesterday to The Post Chronicle's U.S. Falls In U.N. Trap On Iran by Cliff Kincaid [warning: egregious advertising, including popups]. Here's the part about Tom:
It's important to note that some don't believe in putting pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program. Thomas P.M. Barnett, the author of "The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century," writes that "I choose to see Iran's reach for the bomb as possibly the best thing that's happened to the Middle East peace process in decades."Barnett is not a leftist by any stretch of the imagination. His bio says that he has been a Senior Strategic Researcher and Professor in the Warfare Analysis & Research Department of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the U.S. Naval War College.
Barnett says that Iran's possession of nuclear weapons would level the "playing field" by "finally allowing the Muslim Middle East to sit one player at the negotiating table as Israel's nuclear equal." He predicts, "Iran will get the bomb, no matter how the United States or its allies seek to prevent that outcome."
He urges a "grand bargain with Iran" in which "Iran gets the bomb, diplomatic recognition, the lifting of sanctions and the opening of trade, and its removal from the axis of evil." In return, Iran is supposed to stop supporting terrorism and will recognize Israel.
In a leap of faith, Barnett believes that Iran wouldn't use its nuclear weapons. He asks, "In which scenario do you think Tehran might risk it all by sponsoring a terrorist WMD strike against Israel or the West—when it has something to lose or nothing to lose?" The flaw in his thinking, of course, is the failure to take into account the religious mind-set of the Iranian president and his top advisers. Barnett seems to assume that the Iranian leaders are rational.
Tom's reply:
Where is the history of states acquiring the bomb and then using it irrationally? History has consistently proven just the opposite, even with Islamist regimes like Pakistan and quasi-theocracies like Israel. This is just another example of the sad American tendency to demonize all potential foes as irrational. You take down a country on either side of Iran and they reach for the bomb: who's being irrational or naive on that one?
Reader Comments (9)
Isn't that the crux of the matter about Iran? Are their leaders rational? I think they are very rational, but you need to approach that from the perspective of their goals and worldview.
I think Barnett's idea could work if we could completely verify that Iran has stopped its support of terrorism--in the case of Palestine and elsewhere, a terrorism it feels is not terrorism, but justified, armed resistance to reclaim land it feels is wrongly that of Israel.
That a nation such as Iran could go nuclear and be a rational actor also means that they might not use it and continue to support terror groups as proxies without the threat of a confrontation from the targets of their terror. i think that is exactly what Irans has in mind. I do not welcome such developments.
I believe Iran's nuclear program predates our recent take downs of Iraq and Afganistan. Even though we controled Iraqi airspace under the previous administrations, Iran knew that the Clinton administration was no threat to it's existence.
The mullahs running Iran have been at war against the United States since they first came to power. That's why they blew up the US embassy in Lebanon and sponsored terrorists who have attacked US interests for the last two and a half decades.
They are rationally attempting to keep their own population in particular and the rest of the Muslim world in general from getting connected to the functioning core. I would say that they are doing pretty well in achieving their goal.
Winston Churchil once said in a different context "God, in His wisdom, did not create the French in the image of the English." The Iranians are even less like Americans in their view of the world.
Does Ahmenidijad really want to precipitate a nuclear war in order to hasten the return of the 12th Imam? There are lots of people out there who believe much stranger things.
Israel may even be cooperating with Iran's nuke program. Recally, Israel was the conduit for Iran-Contra. And there are thousands of Farsi-speaking formerly Irani Jews. And, perhaps most important, in the Middle East,
"the enemy of my enemy is my friend" - both Israel and Iran hate the Sunni Arabs above all others. Israel and Iran would sit athwart the oil with their nukes at the ready -
Oh, Hitler won't do that, he is not irrational.
Pakistan may not have pushed the button, but a “Pakistani-run network had provided information and nuclear-weapons components to Iran and North Korea, and had begun negotiations with a fourth country, perhaps Syria or Saudi Arabia”. Now to be fair “the current dictator of Pakistan… denied any personal knowledge or governmental involvement”, but since A. Q. Khan was a virtual demi-god there, and integral to developing Pakistan’s nuclear program, all that mattered was the interest of Mr Khan. Not to mention that a "price tag [of] $100 million", certainly sounds rational. But it certainly wasn't in the interest of the globalized countries. And in the long term it wasn't in the interest of Pakistan.
Let’s assume that Pakistan didn’t know about Khan’s dealings (for the sake of argument). The fact that a key member of the Pakistani nuclear program, who was loved by his country, compromised the program is unacceptable. Some nations are simply too corrupt to have a responsibility of this magnitude. The US intercepted the Pakistani parts due for Libya in 2004, but I am not looking forward to more close calls because individuals in nuclear-capable countries are acting in a self-serving manner. Does Iran have anyone like that?
I mean come on Tom, Ahmadinejad called to “wipe Israel off the map”, and then you have the mullahs, and all the alleged ties to terrorism, you really think that no one in Iran would make the same mistake that A.Q. Khan did?
Now I don’t disagree with the long-term vision. I agree that someday equalizing nuclear powers in the region would be good, but that day sure as hell isn’t today.
[quotations from The Atlantic, Nov 2005]
Even if Iran, as a State, continues to support extremist terrorists and their networks, I'm not sure they would provide those networks with Nuclear weapons even if they had them. Bottom Line, these networks are political tools for Iran and Iran uses money, intel, basing, conventional weapons and technical training to string them along and influence them toward the goals Iran wants. Iran wants their pet terrorists to cause long-term instability. Giving the terrorists nukes would cause a massive amount of short-term instability and an even greater backlash than 9/11, and that would end the terrorists utility and put a huge bulls-eye on Iran. The mullahs may not be entirely rational, but they aren't entirely stupid either. Nukes are for States to have, not to use, and not to give away.
Arherring,
I'm not sure if you were referring to my comment or a collection of comments, but in my particular case, in Tom's scenario I don't think Iran would feed the bomb through its terror networks. I agree with you in that they don't need to in order to manipulate the region to its own desire.
The way to limit this is to diminish or transform Iran's satellites--Syria, Palestine, Venezuela, etc--against them (i.e. connectify them into the Core so that supporting Iran's terror lines becomes too much of a risk). That would definitely fall under "the Long War."