THE SPINE DECEMBER 11, 2007
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I suspect that the American
people suspect that the N.I.E. report on Iran's plans for itself as a
nuclear power is false.
There are at least two reasons for this.
The first is that, left and right, we just don't believe the Bush administration
on virtually anything and everything. I can't remember when an
administration was so reflexive about lying.
The second reason is that we have seen Ahmadinejad up close. He is an aggressive
psychopath, and--whatever the N.I.E. says--his designs are as clear as day.
Actually, like Hitler's. But the so-called informed people in those years
also thought that he would come around...that he had actually already come
around.
This is not a sufficient analysis of the report which, however, has clearly not
convinced England, France, Germany,
and, match this, Saudi
Arabia.
And it hasn't persuaded one of the shrewdest British journalistic analysts of
foreign policy I read. Gideon Rachman has an article in Tuesday's FT headlined
"The myth of a grand bargain with Tehran."
And he is true realist, although--for my taste--he's a bit sentimental about
the Palestinians. Still...
One of Rachman's points is that the quickie American turn-around on Iran's atomic ambitions "will probably be a
boon to hardliners in Tehran."
Iran
has faced down the world.
Another is that "Most of the evidence suggests that the determination to get
a nuclear bomb is a national project in Iran--uniting different political
factions...The nuclear programme has become a symbol of national machismo--and
is also widely regarded as a strategic necessity, given that Iran is surrounded
by hostile powers."
If Bush believes his advisers this time he is really endangering the nation and
the world. Imagine confronting Iran when it has atomic
bombs. In retrospect, Iraq
will have been a picnic.
PS: A'jad told a news
conference today that Iran
will have 50,000 nuclear centrifuges in five years.
Read these next:
- The Security Council Will Never Curb Iran's Nuclear Appetite But The Price Of Oil, Down By Half Since Its Summer High, May Well
- Iran's Paranoid Derangement: Holocaust Denial and Why Tehran Wants a Nuclear Arsenal
- And Now That The Security Council Is About to Do Almost Nothing About Iran's Nuclear Adventures, What Will Syria Do About Its Own?
9 comments
"Iran has faced down the world." True, as is the corollary. Only a concert of nations-- concert as in acting together-- including, most critically, Russia, probably also China, can face down Iran. The Russians hold the key to resolving this. Ask Putin what his price is, and pay it.
- teplukhin2you
December 12, 2007 at 2:23am
Ahmadinejad does not control Iran's nuclear program, nor does he have much influence over their their long term foreign policy objectives. At his day job as the man electorally responsible for improving the lives of Iraians he is failing miserably. We should let him continure to underperform domestically even as we seek a diplomatic solution to the nuclear issue, accepting the idea that deterrence--which has never failed--may be the best we can hope for.
- Maksutov66
December 12, 2007 at 8:28am
Again I agree with Teplukhin. We have not been as weakened by Iraq as some would have us believe. Nor are Russia and China immune from pressure from us.
- r-ennis
December 12, 2007 at 12:51pm
r-ennis--what do you mean we haven't been as weakened by Iraq? This is not a rhetorical question.
- MOLLYSIMON
December 12, 2007 at 2:17pm
We can laugh or sneer at this, but the #1 demand of both Russia and Iran is a recognition by the US of their national greatness, national pride, Big Swinging [Regional Power] status. We fail to grasp-- and it's almost impossible to grasp for anyone who has not lived through, with, inside of these miserable nations-- how complete the devastation has been, on nearly every index of social happiness, for Russians and Iranians during the past three decades. (Yes, three decades in Russia's case as well: Russians under Brezhnev were malnourished. They couldn't feed themselves. Brilliantly educated people living like sub-saharan Africans.)
Prestige matters, hugely, to these rotten regimes because it is ultimately the only source of legitimacy that an incompetent, kleptocratic, shambolic regime can wrest from its people. This has been true for half a milennium in Russia; it's true of today's Iran; it's probably true of most kleptocracies on the planet ie a little more than half of the world's governments.
So let's be _CLEVER_ for once and make some concessions that matter hugely to these regime's sense of pride and prestige, and matter relatively little to us. WRT Russia, that's easy: Do we really need to stand by brave klepto- er democrats like that billionairess bandit in Ukraine? Are bases in Central Asia really crucial to the war effort? And why not take up Putin on his offer to share the missile defense regime and place it in Azerbaijan?
Those more knowledgeable about Iran can, I'm sure, offer similar concessions to Iranian prestige/pride that don't diminish our objective position in the region significantly.
- teplukhin2you
December 12, 2007 at 2:33pm
Molly, I meant exactly what I said. The US was weakened but not as seriously as vociferous doves would have us believe.
Republicans and Democrats used to behave as Teplukhin suggests. It probably helps to treat your antagonist with respect. We contained Russia that way through forty years of Cold War. The fact that the Berlin Wall came down and Eastern Europe was liberated doesn't mean that we can ignore Russia's influence. They have their nukes, their interests and their oil and gas so they can'e be ignored. Neither can they ignore us.
Similarly, China holds our Treasuries, but trade restrictions would hurt them more than they would hurt us. China cannot ignore us either.
I am horrified by those who believe that Iranian nuclear capability is a threat to Israel only. Even if that were true, the sentiment is sickening and dangerous. Sickening because Israel would not and could not afford to wait until it is attacked, so must act preemptively, which would be universally condemned. Dangerous, because Israel has second strike capability that would engulf the entire world in a nuclear catastrophe, if it were abandoned to its fate and Iran did, in fact, act upon its threats to Israel's existence.
I also believe that the Arab world feels no less threatened than Israel. I would hope that, behind the scenes, Arabs and Israelis are talking about how to counter Iran.
It is logical to deduce that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 precisely because it was afraid of the consequences of maintaining a program. The NIE Report could be viewed just as well as a vindication of those who advocate keeping the military option open as those who advocate the opposite.
- r-ennis
December 12, 2007 at 4:26pm
Teplukhin, I'm all for smart and clever approaches to specific issues between us and Iran or Russia. That said, I think you are seriously mistaken in subscribing to the "theory of grievances" that presumably drives both regimes and that we somehow could address without giving up something vital.
Iran is clearly bent on driving us from the ME and establishing itself as a regional hegemon. For obvious reasons, I don't think we could find the middle ground with them and their allies and clients - Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas. Their first aquisition targets are Lebanon and Israel - good luck in trying to compromise with them in either case.
Putin's Russia, with oil & gas revenue wind in their sails, is trying to reassert itself as a traditional Russian empire both internally and externally. Thus, they are trying to first push the West out of their "near abroad" - former Soviet republics, and again dominate them. Would it be in US/West's interests to give in?
It certainly woudn't be in the interests of the Baltic peoples, Ukrainians (however distastful their own politicians may be), etc, nor, I'd argue, in the long-term interests of Russian people, for Putin's way is a familiar authoritarian dead-end for Russia.
The bottom line is that the concessions we could make to either regime would not be enough and the ones they'd want us to make would be contrary to our (and West's in general) vital interests.
Again, all this doesn't mean that we couldn't be smarter on some specific issues - eg, I haven't seen an open discussion about our anti-missile radars in the Czech republic (cost/benefit, technology itself) and so on, but the main issue remains the nature of both regimes and their real goals.
- sabaka
December 13, 2007 at 12:51am
Sabaka - I take your points about Iran. Simple answer: containment + MAD.
Re "theory of grievances," not so. My theory, if you can call it that, is basically what I can recall from my grad school days of Richard Pipes thesis about the legitimacy of the Russian state, with a strong helping of the Huntington "Political Order" framework about governments that don't govern. Russia is no longer an orderly state. Basic services and "public goods" are not delivered. I'd argue that an Iranian state that is now forced to ration (!) gasoline is also an incompetent, shambolic state. These are weak regimes that have won the geopolitical lottery in recent years due to a combination of commodity price cycles and US f-p incompetence, and a weak regime is always preoccupied first and foremost with its prestige and image.
My point is that we stop being so inept and start getting smart. My definition of "smart" is clearing one's brain of preconceptions and rigorously applying logic to the hard facts of the situation. Fact #1 is that ANY Iranian regime is going to push and push hard for nukes-- no different from their brethren in South Asia. Fact #2 is that our position right now is by any objective measure quite weak.
seek to bolster their cred with a sullen and distrustful society via chauvinistic f-p adventurism. We know how to handle such regimes, did so more or less masterfully vis-a-vis the USSR for decades.
That said,
- teplukhin2you
December 13, 2007 at 1:47pm
Teplukhin: "ANY Iranian regime is going to push and push hard for nukes".
"any regime" - is this so self-evident? But I'll let it pass, for we are/have been dealing with a very specific regime which doesn't seem to go away any time soon. What would this regime do when/if it acquires nukes? That's the real question, isn't it? If, after some serious analytical work (outside of the CIA please), we decide that they are likely to further spread Islamic revolution both in the region and worldwide, intimidate their oil-producing neighbors (how about oil prices then?), inflame/escalate local conflicts (both against Israel and Arab governments via Shia communities) and - and - if there's even "low confidence" that they might pass WMDs to a terrorist organization, then the question becomes not "can we stop them from getting nukes" but "we must stop them".
For if our position is weak now (and it is), it'll be weakest then - just look at how much time, energy and resources we have to spend on the little miserable N.Korea that is merely in the regime survival by nuclear racket business.
Re containment strategy vis-a-vis the USSR and the applicability of its lessons in the current situation:
I'd would agree that MAD should work against Iran as well as it did against the USSR, but there is at least one big difference: the Soviet leadership (with one notable exception of the Cuban missile crisis) was quite cautious in challenging the US/Nato directly, whereas militant Islam seems to be quite reckless/homicidal/suicidal. Also, there are really bad scenarios short of total horror - eg, escalating regional disturbances leading resulting in even higher oil prices (recall that while US-USSR MAD worked in the main, it didn't prevent numerous bloody proxy wars). In short, Iran riding a rising wave of Islamism isn't the same as post-WWII USSR where the war wounds and lessons were still fresh but the early communist expansionist fervor was in a steady decline.
- sabaka
December 13, 2007 at 7:01pm