Assisted (national) suicide

Remember the Brother's keeper post? Jacob followed up with this email:

Tom,

Good point. However. do you think the US would explicitly place Israel under its nuclear umbrella? And, if they did, then wouldn't that put us in the same circumstances with unpalatable choices if Iran did attack?

Also, MAD assumes that both sides could completely destroy each other. That wouldn't be the case for Israel. Israel would have to depend on another nation for that extra punch and, as I said in my earlier email, that doesn't always work.

I believe an acknowledged Iranian bomb would FORCE Israel to attack Iran because Israel by itself couldn't maintain deterrence on it's own. An Israeli strike, even if they went it alone, would have serious repercussions for the American and the Israelis alike. Nobody would believe that the Israelis would have done this on their own and the American would be blamed anyway. Hence, with no real stable MAD you have no stabilizations in relations and in fact stability disintegrates.

In regards to a fix,I don't think you truly need a military strike. I believe effective sanctions would probably remedy this situation. I believe that if you could find an economic way to get China and Russia on board (money to the Russians for lost weapon revenues and alternative sources for oil and natural gas for China) Iran would be more pliable in negotiations. Maybe I am naive but I truly believe that tight sanctions would do the trick in this case. The Iranina gov't isn't all that popular with its citizens and maybe their frustration might lead to a change of policy for Iran.

Again your comments are most welcomed.

Jacob

Tom's reply:

Easy to do, just like Europe. No hard choice: Iran harms Israel and we follow through on massive (and completely justified) retaliation. Rule set on that is same in Mideast as in Europe: if you are willing to commit national suicide, we will glumly assist rather than let your first use go unanswered.

Comments

[zenpundit]

Nixon implicitly placed Israel under the nuclear umbrella when he ostentatiously put American nuclear forces on high alert during the Yom Kippur War.

[Steven]

It will be a good while if ever, Iran develops enough nuclear capability to ensure MAD with any country. Therefore, if they pop off one of these nuclear warheads, the U.S. would pound them back into the stone age for good. I can't imagine they would be so stupid, but it's possible.

More dangerous would be if Iran sold or gave a nuclear suitcase bomb to Al-Qada or someone of their ilk. More dangerous because of the difficulty of tracking it back to a source. Then who do we blame?

[RobQ]

One disturbing fact cannot be ignored in the debate about Iran's nuclear ambitions: Islamists are very adept at using suicide to further their agenda. National suicide may indeed be quite acceptable to many Islamic fanatics. There is a precedent: National suicide appears to have been the policy of some fanatical Japanese Nationalists in 1945. Perhaps a more open discussion of this aspect of the issue would yield better policy options