Well Contained

In, let the reader understand, The Jerusalem Post, Larry Derfner writes:

In his May 10 column, “All things not considered,” Barry Rubin argues that even if Iran doesn’t fire nuclear weapons at anyone, and even if it doesn’t intend to, just its having nukes is enough reason for the world to stop it from getting them. Rubin describes some of the horrific scenarios that could arise from Iran’s going nuclear, insisting that the “complacent, conventional wisdom, containment-is-no-problem mainstream” has never come to grips with them.

Alright. First of all, in Israel and the US, at least, the argument for containment – that it’s safer and saner to deter Iran’s prospective nukes than to start a war to pre-empt their manufacture – is anything but conventional wisdom.

Furthermore, it’s not a complacent approach; complacency implies doing nothing, and containment means the nuclear powers have to make sure their arsenals stay prohibitively superior to Iran’s. We’re talking eternal vigilance here. But Rubin raises some interesting questions, and maybe he’s right that nobody in the containment camp has ever answered them; I know I haven’t in writing, so now I’m going to try.

I think the arguments he makes don’t hold up, and I still think the risks of attacking Iran, which has long-range missiles, chemical weapons, very possibly biological weapons and many other ways to devastate Israel, and not just Israel, far outweigh the risks of an Iran with nukes.

Rubin doesn’t think Iran intends to fire nuclear weapons or even give them to a terrorist group, but asks: What about an Iranian loose cannon? “The chance of an Iranian Dr. Strangelove pushing a button, a mad ideologist rather than a mad scientist, is higher than that for the weapons held by the US, USSR/Russia, Britain, France or Israel over many decades.”

But he leaves out Pakistan. And North Korea. They already have nukes, and aren’t they as likely to have mad ideologists with access to the button as Iran? I’m afraid it’s too late to worry about Dr. Strangelove; he’s already in the building. He’s been here at least since Mao’s China and Stalin’s Soviet Union got the bomb, maybe since Truman’s America dropped it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Then Rubin warns that Iranian nukes would provide a “defensive umbrella for aggression” – that its allies, such as Hizbullah and Hamas, might be tempted to start wars in the belief that their enemies, including Israel, would be deterred by Iranian nuclear power from fighting back.

I think he’s vastly underestimating the intelligence, knowledge of history and survival instincts of Hizbullah, Hamas and other radical Islamist groups. The US, USSR and China fought each other’s proxies all over the world for decades without being deterred by the other side’s nuclear weapons. Fear of Soviet nukes didn’t stop JFK from trying to knock over Castro in Cuba, just as fear of US nukes didn’t stop Soviet-backed Castro from fighting back. Likewise, the threat of Soviet nuclear power didn’t stop the US from arming the anti-Soviet mujahedeen in Afghanistan, just as fear of US nukes didn’t stop the Soviets from fighting them.

The list goes on and on. Nuclear weapons have never been a defensive umbrella for aggression by anyone. It’s fair to assume Hizbullah and Hamas understand this. Despite Rubin’s contention, I think it is far-fetched that if and when Iran goes nuclear, Hizbullah or Hamas might attack this country in the belief that we would do nothing, that we would be afraid to defend ourselves because of what their big brother could do.

Finally, he argues that the Arab world would be even more intimidated by Iranian nuclear weapons than Israel because, unlike Israel, the Arab countries have no nuclear deterrent of their own and must depend on America’s, which, in the Obama era, can’t be too reassuring. “They would still be afraid to do anything Iran didn’t like, not only because they didn’t have full trust in the Obama administration but also because by the time the US kept its pledge and retaliated they would all be dead.”

I understand that the Arab countries don’t want Iran to get nuclear weapons, and will become very edgy if it happens – but I don’t see their leaders bowing down to the mullahs and Ahmadinejad. I don’t see them handing over their power, or their land, or their oil, or becoming Shi’ites because Iran will nuke them if they don’t and Obama can’t or won’t save them. That’s also far-fetched.

What I do think, though, is that nuclear proliferation is going to come to the Middle East – but I think it’s going to come to the Middle East and beyond whether Iran gets the bomb or not.

In late 2007, Amos Oz told Haaretz: “In another 15 years everyone will have nuclear arms, and the balance of terror will remove the threat of nuclear attack.”

I think Oz might have been exaggerating for effect – it’s going to take more than 15 years, and the threat of nuclear attack will not be altogether removed. But I agree with his basic point – that it’s futile to try to stop nuclear proliferation, and that no matter how far it spreads, the balance of terror – MAD – will continue to be an awesome deterrent.

How long will it last? Who knows? But I think it’s the only military approach to nuclear proliferation we’ve got, because you can’t stop technological advancement with bombs, you can’t stop nations from wanting as good or better weapons than their enemies have, and you can’t stop second- or third-tier powers from wanting to join the first tier. That’s the way the world is.

And for those who say the answer is to get rid of all nuclear weapons, I’m afraid that even if you could, you can’t get rid of the knowledge of how to make them – and someone will always want to make them, if only out of fear that his enemy is thinking the same thing.

If I could wave a wand and keep Iran from going nuclear, I would of course do so. But looking back on nuclear history and looking forward at the unimaginable future, I think Iranian nukes don’t amount to much more than coals to Newcastle. Especially when you think of all the other catastrophic WMDs in Iran’s hands right now.

Do we want to start a war against that? After the dust clears and the casualties are counted, will we be safe? To paraphrase Churchill on democracy, containment is the worst policy there is, except all the others.

Just as well that the problem itself does not exist:

If Barack Obama is sincere in his policy of “no nukes in Iran — no war with Iran,” he will halt this rude dismissal of the offer Tehran just made to ship half its stockpile of uranium to Turkey. Consider what President Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah himself have just committed to do. Iran will deliver 1,200 kilograms, well over a ton, of its 2-ton stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Turkey. In return, Iran will receive, in a year, 120 kilograms of fuel rods for its U.S.-built reactor that produces medical isotopes for treating cancer patients. Not only did Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and President Lula da Silva of Brazil put their prestige on the line by flying to Tehran, the deal they got is a near-exact replica of the deal Obama offered Iran eight months ago.

Why is President Obama slapping it away? Does he not want a deal? Has he already decided on the sanctions road that leads to war? Has the War Party captured the Obama presidency? If Iran ships the LEU to Turkey, she would be left with only enough low-enriched uranium for one test explosion. And as that LEU is under U.N. surveillance, America would have a long lead time to act if Iran began to convert the LEU to weapons grade.

How is the Iranian program then an “existential threat” to anyone? Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons — America thousands. Critics say Iran still refuses to shut down the centrifuges turning out low-grade uranium. But if Iran stops the centrifuges, she surrenders her last bargaining chip to get sanctions lifted. Critics say Iran is trying to abort Hillary Clinton’s campaign to have the Security Council impose a fourth round of sanctions. Undeniably true. But if the purpose of sanctions is to force Iran to negotiate its nuclear program, they are already working. Tehran’s latest offer represents real movement. Critics say Iran will weasel out if we take up the deal. Perhaps. Internal opposition caused Ahmadinejad to back away from Obama’s original offer, after he had indicated initial acceptance. But, if so, Iran will be seen as duplicitous by Turkey and Brazil.

To the world today, the United States appears enraged that Iran is responding to America’s own offer, that it is we who do not want a peaceful resolution, that we and the Israelis are as hell-bent on war and “regime change” in Iran as George W. Bush was on war and regime change in Iraq. While the Brazilians and Turks have surely complicated Hillary’s diplomacy, their motives are not necessarily sinister or malevolent. Lula may be trying to one-up Obama and win a Nobel Prize as he leaves office. But what is wrong with that? Bill Clinton had a Nobel in mind when, in his final days, he went all-out for a Palestinian peace. And Erdogan leads a country that cannot wish to see Iran acquire nuclear weapons. For Shia Iran shares a border with Sunni Turkey, and the two are rivals for influence in the Islamic world and Central Asia. Moreover, an Iranian bomb would force Turkey to consider a Turkish bomb. Erdogan thus has every incentive to seek a resolution of this crisis, to keep Iran free of nuclear weapons, and avert a war between yet another neighbor and his NATO ally, the United States.

If Obama refuses to take the Iranian offer seriously, it would appear a sure sign that the War Party has taken him into camp and he is departing the negotiating track for the confrontation track that leads to war. Months ago, Time’s Tony Karon asked the relevant question: “What if Ahmadinejad is serious?” And there are obvious reasons why he might want a deal.

First, Iran runs out of fuel this year for its reactor that produces medical isotopes. And despite Tehran’s braggadocio about making fuel rods itself out of its existing pile of uranium, there is no evidence Tehran is technically capable of this. Iranians dying of cancer because Ahmadinejad failed to get those fuel rods would create enmity toward him, as well as hatred of us for denying them to Iranian cancer patients.

Second, as the U.S. intelligence community yet contends, there is no hard evidence Iran has decided to go nuclear. For this would instantly put Iran in the nuclear gun sights of the United States and Israel. And what benefit would Shia and Persian Iran, half of whose population is non-Persian, gain by starting a nuclear arms race in a region that is predominantly Arab and Sunni?

Third, Ahmadinejad leads a nation that is united in insisting on all its rights under the Nonproliferation Treaty, including the right to enrich. But his nation is deeply divided over his regime’s legitimacy after last June’s flawed, if not fixed, election. If the United States were to accept Iran’s counter-offer, it would be a diplomatic coup for Ahmadinejad.

Maybe that’s the problem. The powers that be don’t really want a deal with Iran. They want Iran smashed.