Interesting thought on Iran from Dave Price, writing at Dean Esmay.com:
We can always hope for peaceful regime change, but it’s probably a pipe dream as the regime seems quite capable of brutally suppressing such an uprising, and like Saddam it seems unlikely the Iranian government will ever abandon their quest for nuclear weapons so long as they remain in power. At some point, we have to choose to accept one of two realities:
1) A nuclear-armed Iranian theocracy that may regard a nuclear exchange as glorious martyrdom
2) Use of American military force, in some capacity, to remove that government (it has been made clear by Rumsfeld and others that we do have this capacity)
Scenario one may have you thinking, “Well, OK, Iran might develop a couple nukes. Sure, that’s very bad, but a couple nukes won’t be the end of the world, and Iran can’t reach us anyway.” But what’s going to happen in 10 or 20 years? Iran has trillions in oil money to continue missile development and build up its nuclear arsenal, perhaps eventually into hundreds or thousands of ICBMs. Within a couple decades, this group of unelected, unaccountable-to-anyone religious crazies may have the ability to end all non-Islamic civilization at the push of a button, with Allah’s reward in Paradise awaiting them after our counterattack. Mutually assured destruction is not exactly a sure-fire deterrent against an enemy that believes his greatest spiritual honor is dying to kill you.
Another facet to the equation is that if we don’t take action before they get their first deterrent nuke, we will never again have the chance to remove them without the risk of facing a nuclear response, and it seems doubtful anyone is going to risk that no matter how reliable our ABM technology becomes in the future.
So, all that said, will we actually invade Iran and remove the regime strictly over this issue? I very much doubt it. With Iraq, there was a decade of UN Security Council violations, invasions of other countries, mass graves, and a history of WMD use. Iran has none of those. For all the talk of “Iran cannot be allowed nuclear weapons” it’s probably just not politically feasible for America to go to war strictly over a WMD program. At most, I think we’ll see a series of airstrikes, something like Desert Fox, which will at best slow the Iranian nuke program, and certainly not stop it  and a whole host of negative consequences accompanies that scenario, not the least of which is that it may turn the Iranian people, including the democratic opposition groups, against us.
Bill Kristol noted today that we could be doing far more for those dissident groups in Iran. While they have little hope of overthrowing the government unaided, controlling as the theocrats do the secret police and loyal factions of the military, they might be able to force the regime’s hand. A massive pro-democracy demonstration that requires a military crackdown to subdue could provide the opportunity for the U.S. to step in on their behalf. Best case, the implicit threat of American intervention causes the regime to back down and allow true democracy to be established in Iran without much bloodshed. A massive increase in U.S. support for those Iranian pro-democracy dissident groups would be a step in the right direction.
We’ve learned from Iraq and Cuba and N Korea that sanctions will not bring down a strong regime determined to hold on to power. We’ve also learned in Kosovo (though sadly, did not apply the lesson in Rwanda) that the world will broadly support military action to stop a regime from mass-murdering civilians. We learned from the fall of Communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe that if people think there’s a chance of success, they will take to the streets to reclaim their countries. And we learned from the Taliban’s refusal to turn over Osama that pragmatic self-preservation generally takes second place to religious zealotry when you’re dealing with theocrats.
Depressingly, the most likely scenario is that at some point in the next five to twenty years the regime will acquire what they seek and we’re simply going to have to cross our fingers and hope they don’t nuke anyone.
Yesterday’s realist remarks by Donald Rumsfeld [via FOXNews] on the threat posed by Iran presented to the world the US stick portion of the equation—at least, it hinted that we have the stick, and that we are dispassionately, if necessary, forced to wield it. Condoleeza Rice says no negotiations.
Here’s Jeane J Kirpatrick: “Dump the ABM Treaty” (from AEI):
If treaties and diplomatic control regimes actually worked, Iraq, North Korea, India, and Pakistan would not have bombs today. But they do. Nor have countries like Iraq been prevented by various treaties and conventions from developing and using chemical weapons. What happens when a nation violates a weapons treaty? Little or nothing. A country attacked by the resulting weapons, however, will experience devastation.
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty has not, despite its defenders’ claims, stabilized international relations. The country with which we signed the ABM Treaty no longer exists, and when it did exist it violated the treatyâ€â€as Soviet Foreign Minister Edouard Schevardnadze admitted soon after the Cold War ended. Today, Russia retains a huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and is much less stable than we would prefer[…]
From the Washington Post’s William Arkin:
For months, the press and blogosphere have been filled with scoops about U.S. and Israeli preparations for an imminent strike on Iran. Commentators in the mainstream press, meanwhile, have questioned the likelihood of a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, arguing that such an attack would be impossible or too costly given Iran’s ability to hide its true targets.
“To locate and then strike these disbursed and underground facilities … would probably require not air power but nuclear weapons,” retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey even said on NBC Nightly News Saturday night.
Commentators on both sides of this issue are wrong. Though the U.S. military continues to prepare a preemptive attack war plan for Iran and North Korea under the “global strike” program, speculation of an imminent strike is utter fabrication.
But those who pooh-pooh preparations to take military action against Iran, or question the likelihood because of targeting difficulties, fail to understand the Bush administration’s policies and intent.
Last May, I wrote about U.S. preparations for “global strike,” the preemptive attack plan developed by the Bush administration. Global strike, formally known as CONPLAN 8022, refers to a specific set of contingencies to attack weapons of mass destruction should diplomacy fail in a crisis or if there are intelligence warnings of preparations for any type of strike on the United States or one of its allies. Practically, the global strike war plan applies to Iran and North Korea.
Global strike differs from other existing war plans—even for those two countries—in that it does not posit a U.S. response to invasion. That would be a defensive U.S. response. Instead, global strike constitutes a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack, a capability that has been developed wherein the President could order an attack within hours.
Since at least the middle of 2004, U.S. long-range bombers and submarines have been on alert to carry out an attack on weapons of mass destruction targets that could potentially threaten the United States. At Strategic Command (STRATCOM) in Omaha, the global strike plan has been written and refined. The choreography for bomber and cruise missile attacks has been arranged. Actual targets have been selected, and WMD activity is monitored, resulting in constant revisions of the choreography.
In May, I wrote that the plan also includes options to use nuclear weapons. But the attractiveness and feasibility of the new global strike planning is that a disarming blow can theoretically be delivered with conventional weapons alone.
The post-9/11 National Security Strategy, published in September 2002, codified preemption, stating that the United States must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies.” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld directed the military in 2002 to create the capability to undertake “unwarned strikes” in crisis situations.
If Iran continues to defy the international community and manufactures nuclear weapons materials, and if U.S. intelligence detects peculiar movements or actions associated with nuclear facilities or, say, Iranian arming and alerting of its ballistic missile or fighter force, CONPLAN 8022 could be implemented to strike at the activity.
Given that the justification for preemption and for the global strike capability is to prevent “another 9/11,” this time one with WMD, it wouldn’t be relevant whether the United States was confident that it knew where ever last gram of Iran’s weapons were. The focus would be against Iran’s ability to deliver a WMD. The objective would be to forestall another 9/11. A strike that halted preparations for attack and set back the program so that it was no longer an immediate threat would be a success under the Bush administration’s plan.
This is why commentators who warn that the United States does not know where all of Iran’s nuclear capabilities are missing the point. Under global strike, the objective wouldn’t be to “disarm” Iran: It would be to stop it.
But equally those who froth that a strike is imminent don’t get it. Sure, the President spoke of an “axis of evil” after 9/11 but since then many realities have sunk in: The U.S. is overwhelmed in Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. allies are as skeptical as ever regarding the use of force and even the government is more modest about what it “knows” after the intelligence failures since 9/11.
Someday, though, the President might indeed order a global strike. The argument on the part of the government would be that a preemptive strike on Iran was last ditch and defensive. Perhaps those who are opining about the subject should stop going around in circles about irrelevant claims and address the real program and its real justifications.
Arkin has it exactly correct – if we hit Iran, it won’t be to invade (though we’d probably have some search & destroy ops running) but to wreck the place, hard and fast. Power stations, oil facilities, government buildings, any nuke facilities reachable by air, and all Iranian planes/ships. The whole place, closed for buisness for god alone knows how long.
Put that in yer oil futures and smoke it.
Devil’s advocate: How long can we keep countries like Iran from being nuclear? 10 years? 50 years? 100 years? They know how to make it work right now. It strikes me as odd that 100 years from now when we (nuclear countries) are riding around in zero gravity vehicles and these guys are still riding around in a ragged out ’76 Ford Thunderbird.
Are we only waiting for stable/rational democratically elected governments before we allow them to be nuclear? This is a sincere question.
“Are we only waiting for stable/rational democratically elected governments before we allow them to be nuclear?”
I’d say, basically yes. Or to put it another way, “How can we keep countries like Iran from becoming nuclear?” In the long run, we can’t, so what we have to do is make sure there *aren’t* countries like Iran. Which could very well get ugly, but it’s better than the alternative.
Nate,
A big underpinning to the logic here is what’s called Democratic Peace Theory. It basically indicates that democratic nations (after their birthing pains) are markedly uninterested in going to war with one another.
So, in answer to your question – yes.
That being said, there is a small caveat – as the number of nations with nuclear weapons increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to stop the further spread of weapons. Think of it as acting like a virus – the more people that carry the virus, the more chance that a new person will get infected.
Since, even with the notion that democracies don’t slug it out that often, an increasing number of states with nuclear weapons means that there is a larger chance of nuclear weapons being used, we aren’t at all very big on most of our allies having nuclear weapons. Among the nations that we’ve dissuaded from pursuing nuclear programs are Canada, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia.
Cheers,
BRD
Questions like these are why in my teaching days I would tell my students to be very skeptical of talking heads who had easy answers to complex questions.
In the long run, states like Iran have to be brought to the point of view that nukes are not worth the bother. South Africa, Japan, South Korea, and Brazil all came to that conclusion on their own. The former Soviet republics (Ukraine in particular for understandable reasons) required more persuasion.
In utility terms the costs have to outweigh the benefits to make going nuclear unattractive. That elementary principle of rationality is what makes the current Iranian regime so dangerous. To this point, the cost has been non-existent. The benefits are unbounded in their warped view of the world.
This one is not easy, folks. If the stick is the last viable option, we must be prepared for the consequences. Charles Krauthammer’s column in todays WaPo is instructive in that regard.
We live in one of those moments, like 1933 or ‘38 or ‘62, on which the fate of the world hangs. I hope we acquit ourselves better than the former and have the courage to face the latter in this age.
Now, who’s for cherry whips?
To add to BRD’s point,
The expansion of the number of nuclear powers also means that we must have faith in their command and control abilities to avoid even accidental use.
Raise your hand if you slept better with the Soviets in control of their button than with that “green aura” nutbag in Tehran in control of his.
Note to self: Avoid instructions in own commets to avoid shoulder dislocation.
To flesh something out that may not have been covered elsewhere, is that Iran has had a nuclear program for more than 30 years – predating the fall of the Shah.
BRD and Wishbone, I appreciate your comments. It’s more than obvious that anyone with a rational mind does not want Iran ‘strapped.’ I hope that cooler heads prevail and Iran backs down. Logic indictates though that the Grand Pooh-Ba is hell bent on having a weapon. A citizen uprising would be the answer to everyone’s prayers.
I think the Rumsfeld-Rice one-two is pretty telling–and I expect we’ll hear more of the same from the VP when he gets home. Rice touted the new combined Defense/State reconstruction program they’ve implemented at Georgetown today, which sounded like a message to any regime-change minded Iranians to me. Why not start the ball rolling with a targeted strike on Natanz, and see if that shakes Ahmadinejad loose?
As mentioned by others, including Lileks, these bozos don’t really need missiles, just trucks and/or boats. Missiles are probably best for massive, rapid attacks, but if their view is that they have time on their side, and all the really want to do is take out Tel Aviv, New York, and Washington DC, then sending out a bunch of bombs by truck and/or boat does the trick just fine. Only one per city has to escape detection. AND, for bonus points, could the U.S. really launch a massive counterstrike, what with big nuclear clouds affecting lots of countries besides Iran (or let’s not forget, North Korea)? With two nuclear bozos out there possibly supplying terrorists who are more than happy to blow themselves up along with one or more major American cities, we would face a “plausible deniability” issue. Could we really blow up both Iran and North Korea when we didn’t know which (if either) had supplied the weapon? I think that’s a reasonable question. Another reasonable question is how to avoid having to answer the first one.
After losing a couple of US cities, I would say the answer is yes, OC Bill. Both bozos, history.
All Iran would have to do is strap one warhead to a med-range missile, launch it from a barge offshore, and detonate it at an altitude of about 350 miles over the center of the US. The resulting EMP would grind the country to a halt, ruining our economy and starting a world-wide economic domino effect.
That’s why we can’t let ‘em get a single one.
– Well not quite marcus… EMP only lasts for a certain period of the overall airburst which actually dissapates quicker than you might think… Bad for a few hours yes but not taking down the economy bad. The overall panicking effect it would have on the populace is probably the worst effect, aside from the deaths of people within the kill zone, although at 350 miles height, which is essentially space, I’m not even sure what the effects would be since the majority of the blast would be absorbed by the atmosphere. Radiation dump if it was dirty. But even there at that height wind drifting would probably deplete most effects over the states….
– That said, it appears we’re headed for another nuclear “brinksmanship” game, except this Iranian whack job doesn’t seem to realize he’s facing down a nuclear sub fleet that could reduce his entire country to little piles of dust motes, with what amounts to a pea-shooter. I think this comes from the fact that over and over we’ve demonstrated, as a nation, we just aren’t going to nuke anyone unless they actually hit us first, no matter what they say, so they feel safe spewing whatever rhetoric suits their political purposes. I think the danger lies in the idea they think thats true even if they hit Isreal, or even some other European or Med country, and thats the most dangerous assumption they might be making. Condi/Rumsfeld are aware of that problem and are trying to head it off by issuing not so veiled threats to counter that misconnception. In fact I expect Bush to come right out and reassert that any attack on Isreal or our Coalition partners in the WOT will be met with swift and harsh retribution. At which point the left will all need a change of diapers I would imagine. You just know thats where this is going.
– On another level, since everyone seems to agree the best guess for a timeline is Iran Bday in 3 to 5 years, its going to make the choice of the next Pres. and Administration maximally historically important. Civil war level historically important. In the means time, Russian (100 Billion in sales to Iran), and China (25 billion) are playing a very dangerous game. Of everything, thats got to be the most worrisome, since if they interfer things could spiral out of hand fast.
– More tea anyone?
Marcus is basically correct to an extent. 350 miles would be a halfway decent altitude to detonate a device to hit the enemy with EMP effects. The purpose of that kind of high-altitude burst is not fallout. One of the U.S.’s tests mangled things pretty nicely in Hawaii 800 miles away and jangled radio reception for hours. And once rendered, the job’s done. Toasted transistors don’t restore themselves after getting crisped.
OTOH, it takes a device of some size to really get that kind of effect and I have more than a little doubt that the Iranians have already moved on up to hydrogen-bomb class devices. The test I mentioned above was just a hair under 4 MT. You won’t see that kind of yield from straight fission atomic devices.
Agreed SM – Most effects would be on the electromagnetic spectrum. Frying anything at that distance is highly unlikely unless the detonation was huge. Military hardware even less-so since its all radiation hardened. An EMP attack would require a number of very large fussion devices detonated all at once over a wide area, and even then it wouldn’t take out or impede the military once the spectrum cleared. Just not a likely senario. More likely a ship bourne device in a shipping container delivered into downtown Manhattan, or some such. Which gives us much incentive to step up our screening processes if anything ever did.
“I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed! But I am saying 10-20 million killed, tops. Depending on the breaks.”
— Gen. Buck Turgidson, USAF
SB: new
it’s old again.
Our choice is to invade or face the prospect of Islamofascists with nuclear arms. As I see it, Iraq should be almost entirely under control by the fall, so that should free up about 100,000 troops for a full assault and Tehran. After that, who knows, Syria?
– Regime change is probably the only way out in the long run. Krauthammer, as wishbone points out, pretty well captures the essense of the situation. Obstacles: Russian and China.
– Russia: No longer a military threat; Chief supplier of nuclear help, facilities, and materials to Iran. No plausible threat if we act. Offer purchase of Russian oil to offset some portion of financial loss.
– China: Miltary threat under some circumstances. Mainly interested in oil source for growing economy. Offer to continue oil flow from alternate sources, and resume Iranian oil flow once the area is settled. Nuetralize their fears and position. Augment by helping Iraq develop its oil resources as the country stabilizes.
– Significantly step up the research on alternate fuel.Develop offshore, Anwar, et al. to minimize economic impact.
In other words stack the deck. we have the resource to do all that.
Big Bang, it’s hard for me to imagine Russia or China trying to get involved with this. They’re both pretty weak, militarily, and could easily be brought into line by force, if need be. But I doubt it would ever come to that.
– Even more reason to think a stacked deck plan would work. Another positive in bringing Iran under control is it pretty much slams the door on Syria, and probably means a better chance for Iraq as well.
– While its good to have some sort of viable plan in place, I’m not all that down with this Bush “Global Attack” thing. It smacks of yet another under-response, in the vein of Dessert Storm, in which years later we get to face the problem all over again with an even worse set of circumatsnces.
I’m sure the Democrats aren’t willing to do shit about Iran. The media would go nuclear, pardon the expression, the coasts would want to secede from the country… I have my doubts that the Republicans are going to do anything, now or ever.
Funny, it feels like hindsight.
The only comfort I can think of is my certainty that if the mullahs do anything, they’ll overreach right at the beginning.
– Well Josh, if history is any guide we’ll sit here until something really bad happens. If its on American soil all things will suddenly be possible. If somewhere else, imminicable to our interests, there will be a hell of a lot of screaming in the halls of Congress, and the WH, but in the end we’ll have to move. We follow a very distinct pattern as a country because we don’t like to war on other nations, and when we do we try like hell to slavage something for whoever we’re fighting, even to the point of usually leaving them much better off for the wear. Ironic that we seem to always be at the center of the conflicts. But there you are.
“I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed! But I am saying 10-20 million killed, tops.”
If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, there could be many more killed than that. I’m not saying there would be but there certainly could be.
BBH & SciMike:
Good points, and well taken. It probably would take a thermonuke with a nominal yield in the megaton range, or several with smaller yields, both of which are beyond the Iranian’s capabilities (for the short term, at least).
One question: since most civilian electronics are not EMP-protected, what would the effect be on jetliners in mid-flight? Would they literally drop from the sky?
marcus – Airliners are hardened and redundent up to a normal type of interference or damage you might expect from a severe thunder storm. A true large yeild EMP attack could well fry their flight instrumentation and even disable flight controls. So depending on a number of factors it would be a good time to have your affairs in order. Miltary are hardened to direct radiation and EMP. Man pack radios, just as an instance, are hardened so the user will be dead from radiation for at least 12 hours before the equipment gives out. Yes, we engineers always wondered why too……
– BTW…. For a commercial airliner in that sort of attack, even if you managed to survive the initial burst effects your troubles would just be starting. Radar would be hopelessly jammed, ditto on most communications links, although some types might still be somewhat usable. even if none of that proved fatal, you’d be dodging any other flights. all of which would be wondering around blind, other than visual, looking for a place to land, with no air controllers or ground guidence. In other words drive, take a bus, or stay home.
And all this time I thought the increasing crap we have to put up with to use airlines, was just bureaucratic stupidity.
Darth Rove, you’re one clever Sith Lord.
marianna,
i think you may be underestimating China’s military capability, especially after all the info the got during the Clinton years. Clinton let them have Cray and other supercomputers. These supercomputers allowed them to make significant gains in research. They also got a lot of info from Loral during Clinton’s “sell ‘em the guns to shoot us with” campaign fundraising push. Then there’s the plans they got from Los Alamos courtesy of Wen Ho Lee (?) who put pretty much every US nuclear secret worth having on a shared drive accessible to the world but probably only really used by the Chinese. I’m not sure they have ICBM’s capable of reaching all mainland US cities, but they really only have to reach Japan, South Korea, etc. I’m not sure where they stand on their submarine-based nuclear missiles, but I think they’ve been buying Russian technology and/or actual submarines. Of course, that’s just their military capability. The economic leverage they hold over the US is now quite substantial.