Q&A: Why Iran's not crazy (again)
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 11:48PM Mark wrote:
The basis of open honest negotiation is clearly the foundation to your theory, but with Iran's history of lip service and secrecy it is simply not the tonic the US will swallow.
The one difficult issue to comprehend is the religious undertone to the region. Iran have already publicly resisted Israel's very existence, and have expressed a desire to totally eradicate the state. Past peace deals have all failed and with Israel's existence at stake, there is no peaceful outcome. The US and their allies have been developing mini nukes for 10 years, and this very issue along with North Korea have been the driving force behind this new technology.
Israel will strike soon with bunker buster type mini nukes, this will totally wipe out Iran's nuclear capacity, but the radioactive fall out will cause widespread destruction albeit on a relatively low level compared to a full nuclear assault.
Sadly this option will be mathematically seen as the cleanest option, for the very destruction of vast nuclear material will have risks even if conventional weapons were used. A land offensive would be far too bloody and costly and this will be the preferred solution.
The nuclear security of the world will be the primary goal, and 50,000 lives will be weighed up against the millions should instability become the outcome. You are dealing with a new enemy that would happily destroy itself to become the martyrs of infidel destruction.
My prayers are with a peaceful solution, but I fear the New Year will bring new misery to the world.
Tom replied:
I would dial down all this.
First, Iran has never had any real interest in Israel, one way or the other. Jewish-Persian relations have been, throughout history, awfully benign. Since the 79 revolution, Iran uses Israel to cloak its push for Shia empowerment in the region, preferring that lead to triggering, as such efforts always do, a Sunni backlash. As such, what Iran says about Israel is pure propaganda, to be swallowed at risk of stupidity.
Honest negotiation never happens. The foundation to my thinking is common interests, nakedly defined. Iran doesn't give a shit about Israel, but only Saudi Arabia. Iran hates the Salafists, and fears their impact. Iran greatly fears U.S. invasion and seeks nukes to prevent it. Iran greatly benefited from ours wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and offered to help in both. We refused, and we got the current dynamic of aid to our enemies.
Iran's achievement of nukes is meaningless. States have never gotten anybody to do anything threatening nuke strikes. Israel has 200 plus warheads and a very advanced missile defense system, meaning there is no existential threat.
As for mini-nukes, that's a tactical myth in the sense that high-end conventional bombs have the very same impact, so crossing the line to nukes is worthless, given the trouble it would cause any state.
Israel may well strike Iran's sites soon. It will set them back months, not years, because Iran will redouble its efforts. It will be a meaningless event and not change the underlying reality of Iran wanting and achieving protection from U.S. invasion (already accomplished by our tie-down in Iraq and Afghanistan).
As for the martyrdom angle, it's also hyperbolic. Extrapolating national suicide from suicide bombers didn't make sense for Japan in WWII and it does not make sense here. Iran seeks regime survival above all else, and there's no such thing as an untrackable nuclear signature, meaning Iran cannot pass a nuke to terrorists and not have it tracked back, meaning retaliatory strikes would follow and deterrence still holds.
It's not particularly useful, after 64 years of learning how to live with the bomb, to go all wobbly over a Shia version. But some people love fear and bathe in it daily.
I'm not that person.
An article:
ARTICLE: Restoring Deterrence, by Elbridge Colby, Foreign Policy Research Institute, Summer 2007
Tom finds this article, especially its treatment of how to employ deterrence thinking/action to the reality of a successful "anonymous" (for a while, that is) terrorist nuke strike on America to be highly realistic.
Reader Comments (6)
On rogue use of nukes...
The more likely scenario is a conventional Mumbai type attack using commonly available resources. I would speculate that those that would think about nuking the US (or Israel) would (or do) realize that the response would be overwhelming and awake the leviathan to full kick ass mode. The gloves would come off.
There is always the crazed or deranged person or group that would set off a bomb anyway but very low order of probability. Current leanings of those that study and know such things is conventional arms and doing the Mumbai scenario. In the case of Israel it would be Hamas / Hezbollah, as in 2006.
After following your posts regarding Iran and nukes (other research too) I find myself correcting people when they start to say "Iran should never have a bomb." Let Iran fiddle around and waste the resources for the bomb while the internal problems in Iran get more intense.
PS...Typepad login is still messed up. Tried AOL /AIM. Wouldn't work either.
I once believed as you do that Iran wouldn't risk going forward with a nuclear attack, knowing full well the US would turn Tehran into a parking lot (and then their own personal airport). I used to think that and took solace in it. No longer. Not with Obama. He looks weak to the world and I fear lacks the testicle fortitude retaliate in an appropriate way. Or at least, that is my opinion.
I've been reading about this for years, and formally studying CT for the past 2, and I keep reading about the worst case scenarios. which is fine, because you have to hope for the best but plan for the worst.However it seems to me, and Tom marks this out, that the worst has not eventuated. Not on the resource wars front, not on the global radical Jihad front, which is gradually loosing steam, and not on the cataclysmic apocalyptic bound to engulf the Persian Gulf.
If the Israeli's keep their heads and realize that and engaged Iran is better than an provoked Iran, and if Iran can turn its focus to engagement rather than isolation , I think we'll see the area cool off in a decade or so.
Remember these things take time.
Obama would not be THAT stupid. I may not like his policies and all that but I think his advisers (Gates, Mcchrystal,etc) would lay out the options asHit back...NOW. -or-Get hit again.Like Obama or not he is not stupid.
The American people would call for impeachment if there was no immediate and quite bloody response to WMD attack on American soil.Best analogy would be like being spit on. YOU WILL HIT THE GUY THAT DID THAT. You can say you won't, but you will.