SALON

Friday, Jun 15, 2012 3:13 PM UTC

We can’t crush Iran

Three new reports conclude a U.S. or Israeli strike on Tehran's nuclear sites would have disastrous results

By

Topics: Foreign policy, Iran, Israel,

We can't crush IranThe Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran. (Credit: AP/Mehr News Agency, Majid Asgaripour)

This month’s Vanity Fair has a feature on Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. “An Israeli strike against Tehran’s nuclear facilities gone awry may pose the single greatest peril to his political future, which may be the biggest guarantee — more than American opposition to any move or the effectiveness of sanctions — that it won’t happen,” the article reads. Indeed, gradually and without fanfare, the possibility of a military strike against Iran, which only a few months ago seemed imminent, has lately receded from view. It seems that perhaps the U.S. and Israel came to their senses and realized that an attack on Iran would be disastrous.

The turning tide against a military strike is underscored by three new reports on the problems of an attack. Taken together, they suggest that significant parts of the U.S. establishment are pushing back against the notion that, in senior Romney adviser John Bolton’s words, “There is no doubt that Washington could shatter Iran’s nuclear program,” and that “Iran’s real options, post-attack,” would be “limited.”

First on the table is a monograph from the staunchly pro-Israel think tank the Washington Institute on Near East Policy. The report is called “Beyond Worst-Case Analysis,” suggesting that it intends to avoid what it calls “apocalyptic” conclusions about an attack on Iran. And yet, as former CIA analyst Paul Pillar notes, the paper’s ideas suggest that the “consequences would be very bad indeed.”  The report’s authors, Michael Eisenstadt and Michael Knights, write that Iran would “respond in a way that deters additional Israeli strikes and U.S. intervention.” They suggest Iran would strike against any attacking country, which even if it is meant to be “limited” could easily escalate into a full-blown regional conflict. Iran would want to make retaliation as “painful as possible” for Israel, employing direct and indirect measures.

It would use Hezbollah and other proxies to sabotage petrochemical infrastructure in the Gulf, and attack “commercial ships or elements of the U.S. Fifth fleet in the area.” In other words, it would attack the United States military. Iran also “would likely respond almost immediately with missile strikes on Israel, to punish it and deter follow-on strikes.” The Persian nation would attack Israeli military and civilian population centers with its hundreds of long-range conventional missiles. Hezbollah could launch thousands of rockets from Lebanon, and attacks could be forthcoming from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and even beleaguered Syria. Israeli or Jewish targets around the world would not be immune. The list goes on: terrorism against U.S. targets on several continents, attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, kidnapping American citizens, strikes against neighboring countries, harassment of U.S. vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and a revitalization of the popularity of the Iranian government. And all of this, according to the report, is far from a worst-case scenario.

Following closely on the heels of the WINEP report is one from the Center for a New American Security, famous for its support for counterinsurgency campaigns. The authors state definitively that a “preventive military strike against Iran’s nuclear program by either the United States or Israel at this time is not the best option, and rushing to war would risk making the threat worse.” Contrary to popular belief, the Iranian regime is rational and could be deterred from using nuclear weapons, and in any case Iran “is unlikely to make a rash decision anytime soon” on whether to build a bomb at all. Iran’s rhetoric against Israel is just that — rhetoric. “That is the case today, and it would remain the case if Iran acquired nuclear weapons,” according to the report.

There is little chance, the report states, that an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities would be 100 percent successful, raising the possibility that Iran would retaliate using its residual arsenal. In addition, “an Israeli strike would likely prompt the Iranian regime to rapidly rebuild its nuclear program,” defeating the purpose of such a strike in the first place. In sum, “an Israeli strike would, at best, have limited effects and, at worst, increase the threat.”

The third outlet advocating a different direction on Iran may be the most important. The forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs has a cover article by Columbia University’s Kenneth Waltz called “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb.” Published by the Council on Foreign Relations, the most important establishment think tank, Foreign Affairs is the most influential foreign-policy periodical in print. Leading up to the Iraq War, the journal published essays almost exclusively in support of the invasion. Given its reach, Foreign Affairs’ one-sided perspective on Iraq before 2003 must be counted as a significant editorial failure.

By commissioning a piece by Waltz, however, the journal seems to be trying to avoid making the same mistakes. The journal has already published widely discussed articles on both sides of the Iran issue, giving at least a more balanced view than it did with Iraq. Waltz is among the most influential international relations theorists in the world (tied for second, according to one survey), but he rarely writes for anything but academic journals. His new essay, the feature in the forthcoming issue, argues that the world would be better off if Iran gets the bomb. That argument may seem radical, but it is in keeping with Waltz’s long-standing arguments on the stability of nuclear weapons (arguments echoed by John Mearsheimer, among others).

Waltz’s case goes like this: It doesn’t matter which type of regime gets nuclear weapons, because it has been proven in all instances that “whoever get nuclear weapons behaves with caution and moderation.” He says that countries from Cultural Revolution-era China to the Soviet Union to Great Britain have become more careful with nuclear weapons, because they feel more secure once they have them. Wars become less likely to occur as more countries gain nuclear weapons, because they have a sufficient deterrent to prospective attackers.

Iran is no different. The country has good reasons to seek nuclear weapons, with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq on its borders, and consistent threats coming from the U.S. and Israel. “It would be strange if Iran did not strive to get nuclear weapons, and I don’t think we have to worry if they do,” he has said. Deterrence among countries with nuclear weapons has a 100 percent effectiveness rate, so Israel and the United States have nothing to fear from a nuclear Iran — or any other countries, for that matter.

The new Waltz essay is sure to make a splash, and we should hope it does. Controversial though its larger claims may be, it helps bolster the case that an attack on Iran is both unnecessary and potentially disastrous. That might seem obvious, but to many Americans it isn’t. Together, the three new pieces help make the case persuasively.

Jordan Michael Smith writes about U.S. foreign policy for Salon. He has written for the New York Times, Boston Globe and Washington Post. More Jordan Michael Smith.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 29 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
122 points123 points | 3 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
113 points114 points | 18 comments
vote
“Jodorowsky’s Dune”: The sci-fi classic that never was.
54 points55 points | 13 comments
vote
Doug Henwood: Capitalism Thrives on Class Exploitation
41 points42 points | 4 comments
vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills. "In an economy where we’re all in the same boat, one person’s spending is another person’s income. So when the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy."
35 points36 points | 19 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations