Category: Iran

A reader writes:

Krauthammer is shortsighted, of course. The Iranians are after larger game than the Jewish state. They understand that the Israelis would have no hesitation in leveling Tehran, Qum, Shiraz, the Natanz Enrichment Facility, the Arak facility, and the other military installations in an atomic attack that would make what Paul Tibbets did to Hiroshima look like a walk in the park. For example, Tehran sits in a valley, and is probably the best atomic target since Hiroshima itself. The Iranians aren’t stupid. They know these things. Yet they want an atomic arsenal. Why?

Their target isn’t the Israelis; it’s the Europeans and the Arabs. They have judged that Europe is weak and craven and can be browbeaten into appeasing the demands of a nuclear Iran. Further, they believe that they can dominate the entire Middle East from the Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush as long as they have the atomic bomb.

Then, they will be treated not as a regional power, but as a Great Power, like one of the Permanent Five who won the Second World War. This grates on Persian pride, of course, how they were one of the objects of 20th Century History. They want to sit at the Top Table, not exterminate the Jews.

If they try to exterminate the Jews, they will be exterminated themselves. Israel and the United States would make Iran a radioactive wasteland in a period of under three hours. The Iranians know this and are rational actors.

Understand this, however. Rational actors are quite capable of doing wicked things in pursuit of what they perceive to be their national interest, not what we perceive to be their national interest. Hitler, after all, did invade Poland, then France and the Low Countries, then Russia, when the “smart thing” according to foreign observers was for him to remain at peace and build up Germany’s strength. Indeed, there were many Western Europe and the United States who insisted that Hitler was misunderstood.

Andrew, right now most people in the West who are critics of Bush are almost certainly underestimating Iran’s atomic buildup and its general threat to any sort of long term peace. They do this for various reasons, one of which is, of course, antipathy towards the Bush Administration that the President’s clumsiness has done much to bring about. But the Iran issue exposes a long term issue that the Iranians are exploiting as part of their game.

Nevertheless, I think you do yourself no favor in casting Bush as the Devil and Barack as Jesus when they are actually bit players in the split between America and Europe that began after the Cold War ended that the Iranians are doing their best to exploit. The notion that an Obama Administration will fundamentally change an Iranian drive for regional mastery and a bid to be considered a Great Power is laughable and, sadly, not limited to Obama partisans. The Iranian drive for Wilhelmine Greatness is there and they believe that their time is coming. It started long before Bush, and sadly, Krauthammer and Podhoretz have been allowed by the right to hijack American thinking on this subject to consider solely the survival of the State of Israel. There are larger matters to contend with here. The American policy of building up an Iraqi Army and leaving behind a tripwire force is the best guarantee against regional adventurism by a nuclear armed Iran. The notion that a region absent of American divisions will be a region at peace is both puerile and foolish (Saddam knew this, which is why he wanted the bomb in the first place).

Perhaps the Iranians will be amenable to a general settlement, but first they must know that there is force behind all of that good intention.

Barred from "elections". A brief round-up of blogger reactions from the region here.

Russia and China are proving a little more helpful than expected.

Norman "what’s a Kurd, anyway?" Podhoretz returns the the question of Iran in Commentary today. It’s worth reading because NPod is nothing if not clear. His case for attacking/bombing Iran pre-emptively rests on a few notions that are worth at least recognizing. They are based fundamentally on the notion that deterrence is meaningless for the mullahs, that mutually assured destruction is a theory that only worked with communists bent on global domination and a vast land-mass:

Under the aegis of such a [theocratic] attitude, even in the less extreme variant that may have been held by some of Ahmadinejad’s colleagues among the regime’s rulers, mutual assured destruction would turn into a very weak reed. Understanding that, the Israelis would be presented with an irresistible incentive to preempt—and so, too, would the Iranians. Either way, a nuclear exchange would become inevitable.

Podhoretz also believes that tiny Israel would somehow do better in such a conflict:

In the grisly scenario Anthony Cordesman draws, tens of millions would indeed die, but Israel—despite the decimation of its civilian population and the destruction of its major cities—would survive, even if just barely, as a functioning society. Not so Iran, and not its “key Arab neighbors,” particularly Egypt and Syria, which Cordesman thinks Israel would also have to target in order “to ensure that no other power can capitalize on an Iranian strike.” Furthermore, Israel might be driven in desperation to go after the oil wells, refineries, and ports in the Gulf.

I’m not going to start figuring out how this scenario is supposed to work.

But the key premise of Podhoretz’s argument is that there is total irrationality in the Iranian regime – even to the point of initiating an apocalyptic scenario in which the Jews actually end up with a grim advantage. Would such an Armaggedon reach the US and Western Europe? No one seems to argue as much, not even Podhoretz’s chosen expert, Cordesman. Podhoretz’s response:

To me it seems doubtful that it could be confined to the Middle East.

That’s it. Persuaded much? Oh, and, yes, it’s still 1938. Iran is Nazi Germany. Bush is Churchill (even though Churchill was in opposition in 1938 and Bush has been in office for seven years). Everyone else is Chamberlain.

I don’t think that Iran’s regime should be under-estimated. It is a highly religious, fundamentalist and dangerously fractured entity. But it seems much more likely that it would use nuclear weapons as leverage to extend its power in the region and world, to counter-balance Israel and the Sunni powers and to enhance its influence than that it would start an apocalyptic battle which it would lose. From the prism of American national interest, moreover, global Armageddon is not inevitable (although vast destruction in the Middle East would be an immense blow). For Israel, the calculations would be different. But even then, I cannot imagine sane Israelis would want to initiate an apocalyptic nuclear exchange, as Podhoretz implies is inevitable if Tehran gets nukes.

I think the best phrase for this kind of strategic thinking is "shrill hysteria". The risks are too great not to subject these nutty views to simple empirical skepticism.

I’m no fan of Vladimir Putin’s but it seems indisputable to me that he has restored Russia’s status as a serious regional power – and as a counter-weight to US influence in the world. The biggest story of this week may well turn out to be the following:

Iran on Wednesday touted this week’s delivery by Russia of fuel for its first nuclear reactor as a step in strengthening ties between the two countries and a sign of Moscow’s confidence that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful.

The shipment of the nuclear fuel, which arrived at Iran’s Bushehr power plant on Monday paved the way for the long-delayed startup of the 1,000-megawatt light-water reactor in 2008.

Iran is hoping the shipment signals Russian willingness to prevent the United Nations from imposing new sanctions against it over Tehran’s refusal to halt uranium enrichment, as sought by Washington. Russia is one of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

This is not necessarily Russia’s alliance with the most powerful member of the Axis of Evil. It could be spun as helping to remove the need for Iran’s uranium enrichment. But it seems equally clear to me that Putin is telling the West that Russia has the technology and the oil-money to rescue Iran if the US were to decide to take military action against its nuclear facilities. We live in a multi-polar world again. The next president will need to understand that, and adjust accordingly. Headline Junky notes:

The difference between Time’s gimmicky pick last year and their selection this year is sobering: viral videos on the one hand, ruthless realpolitik on the other. It’s almost as if the shock of 9/11 is beginning to wear off and, in looking around, America’s suddenly realizing that while we’ve been squandering our political capital, there are other countries out there who have been slowly but steadily building their’s up.

(Illustration: Noma Bar.)

A softening?

Niall Ferguson thinks the NIE is good news for the Arizona senator (whom he occasionally advises).

Vali Nasr and Ray Takeh on Iran:

Iran is not, despite common depictions, a messianic power determined to overturn the regional order in the name of Islamic militancy; it is an unexceptionally opportunistic state seeking to assert predominance in its immediate neighborhood. Thus, the task at hand for Washington is to create a situation in which Iran will find benefit in limiting its ambitions and in abiding by international norms.

Dialogue, compromise, and commerce, as difficult as they may be, are convincing means. An acknowledgment by the U.S. government that Tehran does indeed have legitimate interests and concerns in Iraq could get the two governments finally to realize that they have similar objectives: both want to preserve the territorial integrity of Iraq and prevent the civil war there from engulfing the Middle East.

She derided Obama’s notion of talking to Tehran with no preconditions. Now, Bob Kagan endorses direct negotiation. So Clinton is more diplo-phobic than a leading neoconservative? She really has stranded herself, hasn’t she?