Israel's regional monopoly on WMD is what's untenable

OP-ED: Taking Iran Seriously, By DANIEL R. COATS, CHARLES S. ROBB AND CHARLES WALD, Wall Street Journal, SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

Note the fait accompli analysis cited:

Last year, a high-level Bipartisan Policy Center task force in which we participated concluded that a nuclear weapons-capable Iran would be "strategically untenable."

That is rich, in many ways, considering that Iran really only needs a nuke against U.S. attack, so of course it's untenable from our perspective. Israel's got no desire to attack Iran absent the bomb, and Iran only yanks our chain in that direction to obfuscate its hoped-for achievement vis-a-vis the Sunni-controlled Arab world--i.e., leadership beyond its Shiite base.

What remains untenable--in historical terms--is Israel's monopoly on WMD in the region. Show me where one state owning and everybody else not has ever worked in terms of strategic stability.

The irony is that Iran's achievement of the bomb will force the region down a path of seriously developing some sort of regional security architecture, just like it did in Europe. Will that be a scary journey? You bet. Could Iran screw it up? Definitely. But we know how to deal with that. Do we, out of fear, offer Israel a no-deductible insurance policy by invading Iran in the meantime? Aint going to happen.

So tell me how we're going to stop this development. We bomb and Iran redoubles its efforts. Same for Israel. Neither of us will be willing to occupy and outside great powers won't stand for it anyway.

So my observation from five years ago still holds: ask what the Iranian bomb can do for you in terms of putting the region down a different path. Because pretending it will be stopped is childish.

Iran has every reason to reach for the bomb. We made that choice for Tehran by our actions over the past several years. I agreed with those choices, and I remain prepared to live with them. Others seem to want that reality somehow magically wished away with diplomacy or threats of bombing. They are being unrealistic.

(Via: WPR Media Roundup)

Comments

[Yatza Yaakov]

My website. The Seasoned Skeptic, is in Hebrew.

I am an Israeli, perhaps the only one that already read Mr Barnett book Great Powers. As far as WMD are concerned, Israel employs ambiguity. In view of the opinions expressed by Thomas Scheling and the writers of the above WSJ article, how would this effect the devlopments between Iran and Israel?