The claim that the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon by far outweighs the pain of the aftermath of going to war with Iran has emerged as a standard talking point among neoconservatives hawks. So too has a contradiction from their descriptions of the threat that the Islamic Republic allegedly poses. On one hand, Iran is ruled by “apocalyptic Islamists” who are intent on destroying Israel. On the other hand, Iran’s leaders are rational enough to restrain themselves from responding too aggressively to a military attack on their soil. Writes former CIA mideast adviser Paul Pillar in the National Interest:
Deterrence of Iran with a nuclear weapon frequently gets described as far too thin a reed to lean on when facing ideologically crazed mullahs, but after the Iranians become targets of armed attack, they somehow become such calm and cautious decision makers that deterrence can be relied on greatly.
Pillar’s article points out that Eisenstadt and Knights’ approach is narrowly selective with the consequences that are addressed and that more focus needs to be on the broader consequences of attacking Iran–such as how another US waged war in the Middle East will be perceived by Arab populations and how that could affect US interests in the region or what happens if Iranians respond with more than just a “short term nationalist backlash”. Most Iranians, myself included, have asked themselves at one point or another who would be ruling the country today if Iran’s democratically elected President Mohammed Mosaddegh was not forced out by a campaign and eventual coup orchestrated by the British and the US in the 1950s.
Pillar also notes that Eisenstadt and Knights do not adequately address what “difference an Iranian nuclear weapon would make—to Iranian behavior, to peace and stability in the Middle East, or to anything else.” That’s a topic which Pillar has explored in depth and just this month prominent international relations theorist Kenneth Waltz ruffled more than a few hawkish feathers by arguing that nuclear balancing could bring stability to the Middle East. See
One shared conclusion in many academically accepted works about “what went wrong” in Iraq is that their wasn’t enough focus on the day after. For Pipes, this WINEP publication does just that and backs up a policy recommendation he made 2 years ago. But for former top intelligence official Pillar, these assessments are far from thorough.
]]>Michael Eisenstadt & Michael Knights, WINEP: Contradicting ongoing warnings from former and current
Michael Eisenstadt & Michael Knights, WINEP: Contradicting ongoing warnings from former and current high-level U.S. national security officials, experts and several Israeli counterparts about the potentially catastrophic effects of an Israeli strike on Iran, two analysts from the hawkish pro-Israel Washington Institute (aka WINEP) paint a relatively rosy picture about an Iranian response to Israeli-waged “preemptive” war. Eisenstadt and Knights’ report title begins with “Beyond Worst-Case Analysis” and they certainly delve into best-case scenarios like Matthew Kroenig infamously did in December. But even Kroenig argued against an Israeli strike because he believes the U.S. is much better equipped for the job. In any case, highly qualified critiques of Kroenig’s argument (here, here, here and here) also apply in many ways to this WINEP production.
Interestingly, it is in the last paragraph of the paper that the authors mention one of the most important and alarming effects of any strike on Iran’s nuclear program–that it could (or rather most likely would) result in immediate Iranian withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the halting of all International Atomic Energy Association monitoring mechanisms, as well as propel Iran to quickly build a nuclear weapon. As former Pentagon Mideast advisor to the Obama administration Colin Kahl and other experts have stated, you can’t bomb knowledge and the Iranians already have nuclear weapon know-how. For this reason Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association adds that the key to stopping an Iranian nuclear weapon requires the power of persuasion rather than brute force. Eisenstadt and Knights also ignore the fact that U.S. support for a preemptive strike would violate both U.S. and international law according to Yale Professor Bruce Ackerman. Then there’s that pesky issue of costs to human life. Never mind all that though. Write Eisenstadt and Knights:
In short, although an Israeli preventive strike would be a high-risk endeavor carrying a potential for escalation in the Levant or the Gulf, it would not be the apocalyptic event some foresee. And the United States could take several steps to mitigate these risks without appearing complicit in Israel’s decision to attack. The very act of taking precautionary measures to lessen the impact of a strike, moreover, would enhance the credibility of Israeli military threats and bolster the P5+1’s ongoing nuclear diplomacy. Less clear, however, is whether a strike would prompt Tehran to expel inspectors, withdraw from the NPT, and pursue a crash program—overt or clandestine. And whether enhanced international efforts to disrupt Iran’s procurement of special materials and technologies would succeed in preventing the rebuilding of its nuclear infrastructure remains an unknown.
Clifford D. May, National Review: The president of the hawkish and neoconservative-dominated Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) makes clear his obsession with Iran, which he calls “the single most important strategic threat facing the U.S. — hands down” (eat your heart out China!) in an article overwhelmingly implying that the U.S. should arm and aid Syria’s opposition forces mainly because doing so would weaken Iran:
Those facing Assad’s guns are not asking us to put boots on the ground. What they do want are the means to defend themselves, secure communications technology, and a limited number of other assets that will give them a fighting chance — though no guarantees. Providing such assistance will give us a fighting chance to influence the opposition now and the post-Assad environment later — though no guarantees.
The alternative is to stay on the sidelines, leaving the opposition to the tender mercies of Assad and his patrons in Tehran who are supplying weapons, advisers, and more. They grasp that the Battle of Syria is hugely consequential. They know that the fall of Assad would be a major blow to them. By the same token, it will be a major blow to the West if, despite Washington’s pronouncements and posturing, Khamenei, with assistance from the Kremlin, rescues and restores his most valued Arab bridgehead. And should Khamenei move from that victory to the production of nuclear weapons, we’re in for a very rough 21st century.
Henry Kissinger meanwhile argues that U.S. intervention in Syria could harm U.S. interests.
President Barak Obama (New York Times report): David Sanger writes that while Obama was allegedly fervently pursuing diplomacy with Iran, he was secretly accelerating a cyberwar that began with the George W. Bush administration:
Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks — begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games — even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer of 2010 because of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran’s Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet. Computer security experts who began studying the worm, which had been developed by the United States and Israel, gave it a name: Stuxnet.
According to Russian cyber security expert Eugene Kaspersky, with these actions the U.S. is getting closer to opening Pandora’s box. Reports Vita Bekker in the Financial Times:
Eugene Kaspersky, whose Moscow-based firm discovered the Flame virus that has attacked computers in Middle East countries, including Iran, said on the sidelines of the Tel Aviv conference that only an international effort could prevent a potentially disastrous cyberattack.
“It’s not cyberwar, it’s cyberterrorism and I am afraid it’s just the beginning of the game . . . I am afraid that it will be the end of the world as we know it,” Mr Kaspersky, whose company is one of the world’s biggest makers of antivirus software, was quoted by Reuters as saying: “I am scared, believe me.”
Misha Glenny concurs.
John Bolton, Washington Times: The former Bush administration official with close ties to neoconservatives has no qualms about agitating for war on Iran. Bolton has a history of hawkishness and “insanity” about the country and how it should be dealt with. In January he told Fox News that sanctions and covert attacks won’t prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, but attacking “its nuclear weapons program directly” will. This week he breathed a sigh of relief over the fact that no agreement was reached between Iran and the West during recent talks:
Fortunately, however, the recently concluded Baghdad talks between Iran and the U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members and Germany (P-5+1) produced no substantive agreement.
Find Ali’s in-depth report here.
]]>- New York Post: Disgraced Iranian journalist Amir Taheri writes that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki “seems set to strike a Faustian bargain to cling to power: He is ready to dine with the devil.” Judging from the headline, “Iraq: Letting Iran Call the Shots,” the “devil” here is clearly Iran. Taheri, known to have fabricated stories in the past, makes errors in his Post article as well. He writes, “Tehran helped the deal by ordering its oldest Shiite clients, the so-called Supreme Islamic Assembly of Iraq [ISCI] (and its armed wing, the Badr Brigades), to back Maliki.” Historian Juan Cole noted that Badr “peeled away from it’s parent,” and that ISCI stayed out of Maliki’s coalition.
- The Guardian: Michael Knights, a fellow at Washington Institute for Near East Policy, writes that “Tehran [has] become the most influential outside power in Iraq.” He says, however, that the issue is not closed: “Iran, like the United States, will have to continue to vie for influence in Iraq.” He assesses Iranian interests in Iraq and concludes, “Tehran seeks to prevent Iraq from recovering as a military threat or as a launchpad for an American attack.” He sees the Islamic Republic accomplishing this through trade, particularly energy, and influencing Iraq’s “ fragmented and unregulated” politics.
- The Washington Post: A neoconservative editorial writer at the Post make a thinly-veiled call for regime change in Iran, writing that the Islamic Republic has “no interest in a ‘grand bargain’ with the United States or an accommodation with the Security Council… [A]s long as these rulers are in power, Iran will not give up its ambition to exercise hegemony over the Middle East.” Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Southern Lebanon is seen to demonstrate that “Tehran can use its client to trigger a new war in the Middle East at any time; it’s a lesser form of the intimidation that it hopes to exercise around the region with an arsenal of nuclear weapons.” This show of force is viewed as a deterrence against an Israeli or U.S. strike on Iran.
- The Wall Street Journal: Senior Claremont Institute Fellow Mark Halperin writes that Israel’s unique experience as a country “repeatedly subjected to calls for its extinction” and “the steadily improving professionalism of the Arab air forces, their first rate American and European equipment, their surface-to-air-missile shield, and most importantly their mass,” pose a “mortal threat” to Israel’s existence. Halperin observes that “the military strategy of Israel’s enemies is now to alter the conventional balance while either equipping themselves with nuclear weapons or denying them to Israel, or both.” Saving a discussion of Israel’s own nuclear capabilities until the last sentence, Halperin concludes that the only source of security for a Jewish state under “a continual state of siege is the nuclear arsenal devoted solely to preserving its existence.”