Iran Is A Special Case
Fareed Zakaria is not particularly worried about Iran:
Iran is run by a nasty regime that destabilizes an important part of the world, frustrates American and Western interests, and causes problems for allies like Israel. But let’s get some perspective. The United States is far more powerful than Iran. And, on the issue of Tehran’s nuclear program, Washington is supported by most of the world’s other major powers. As long as the alliance is patient, united and smart—and keeps the focus on Tehran’s actions not Washington’s bellicosity—the odds favor America. Ahmadinejad presides over a country where more than 40 percent of the population lives under the poverty line; his authority is contested, and Iran’s neighbors are increasingly worried and have begun acting to counter its influence. If we could contain the Soviet Union, we can contain Iran. Look at your calendar: it’s 2006, not 1938.
Whether a nation possesses nuclear weapons is not always a political catastrophe. That Israel has such an arsenal has surely rendered another regional war similar to those of 1948, 1956, 1967 or 1973 unviable. That both India and Pakistan have the bomb is better than only one of them being in that position, and conflict was more likely when each enjoyed only conventional military muscle. The thought of the crackpot regime in North Korea being a member of the atomic club does not lift the heart, but it dare not dream of deploying such weapons without the blessing of Beijing, which would not be forthcoming. There is an extent to which nuclear missiles are little more than a national virility symbol, the military version of counterfeit Viagra.
Yet Iran is different, which is why a collapse in resolve towards Tehran really matters.
Iran is a special case because, first, it is already an established menace. It has spent the past two decades consistently seeking to sabotage any prospect of a permanent peace settlement between Israel and its neighbours and it remains dedicated to that mission. It continues to sponsor extremist fanatics in the Palestinian Authority and Lebanon. It is behind much of the trouble that has tortured Iraq and it does not intend to stop pulling these strings once US and British troops have left. If it becomes a nuclear nation, it is likely to be emboldened in these deeds.
Iran is also distinct because this project is not merely about national symbolism, but also religious aspirations. It would not be an “Islamic” bomb but a “Shia Islamic” bomb, the most potent physical representation so far of a drive to seize command over a faith that was briefly, if tenuously, held and then lost in the 7th century. It would be in the hands of people whose interpretation of theology places a weight and value on the concept of martyrdom that the rest of us properly find alien, bizarre and chilling.
Sunni nations, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, would, rightly, be aghast at, and uncomfortable with, the notion that they have to rely on Israel as their de facto nuclear deterrent. The incentives for them, too, to pursue nuclear status would be overwhelming. Indeed, to put it bluntly, if Tehran obtains nuclear standing, then tacitly encouraging Cairo and Riyadh to travel down the same path may be the least bad outcome for outsiders to fall back on.
An Iranian nuclear capacity would, finally, make a mockery of the United Nations. It would be seen as confirmation that the phrase “Security Council ultimatum” is close to a contradiction in terms. I am not a huge fan of this organisation, but it undoubtedly has its merits. It will be seen as having huffed and puffed on Iran and blown nothing down. Other rogue states will observe these events and reach their own, rational, conclusions. What passes for international order will be deeply undermined by this imminent debacle.
Three things make me more inclined to adopt the Hames view than that of Zakaria:
(1) The complete and utter collapse of the UN Security Council. Simply put, if the UN intended to do nothing, it should have said so. Now, it is the boy that cried wolf, and in the consequenceless defiance of its edicts by Iran, it is finally totally bankrupt of credibility.
(2) The messianic anti-Semitism of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Zakaria is right that he is no Hitler; he doesn’t have the power, nor the magnetism, that Hitler possessed. But at some point he may start believing his own rhetoric (I think the process has already begun). That will put pressure on him to instigate some glorious deed to match his words.
(3) The terrorism connection. It may well be that it is impossible for even a nuclear-armed Iran to strike the United States, for lack of an adequate delivery system. It may even be that a nuclear-armed Iran wouldn’t strike Israel, for the simple reason that to do so would be to destroy many of the most holy Muslim sites, as Christopher Hitchens has pointed out.
What about Iraq? Sure, Iran wouldn’t strike directly, but what if they armed a terrorist organization, just as they are doing this very day, but with a nuclear device? What if the marketplaces of Baghdad were visited by a low-yield nuclear explosion rather than a car bomb?
Is it so unlikely? Is it not, indeed, a 50-50 proposition? (Forget the “One-Percent Doctrine”, we’re way past that). I’m well aware that lightweight pseudo-intellectuals of the Eleanor Clift variety view the current crisis as ‘Iraq Revisited’, a trumped-up case for war, in an election year, no less, about a barely existent threat that is years away from being a reality.
I wish that were the case. The truth is, I would trade away Republican control of the Presidency and the Congress for the next 150 years (forever?) if I knew that it would mean the prevention of a nuclear Iran. This is way, way beyond partisanship. It borders on existential; and if that strikes some as absurd, so be it. Radical Islam may yet get the bomb; indeed, the odds are pretty solid that it some day will.
Let it not be from lack of effort to prevent it…
Mark, while I thoroughly believe your intentions are genuinely non-partisan, the same is clearly not true of the White House or GOP. They are, quite tranparently, ginning up the Iran debate in order to distract from the Iraq debacle and paint their opponents as weak “appeasers.” There are no doubt countless memos to this effect written by every major GOP political consultant.
The fact is, the question of what to do with Iran is complex, and I’d suggest it is a problem better dealt with in a couple months, after the election. Right now, all you’re going to get it shameless demagoguery and strawman argumentation. This just isn’t the climate for the country to have a serious discussion on this issue.
And it’s worth pointing out the supreme irony of the fact that the GOP is now portraying Iran as Maximum Enemy #1 when, if that’s true, the Iraq war was without question the biggest foreign policy mistake of all time. For Iran, the war in Iraq is the gift that keeps on giving. It has immeasurably strengthened Iran’s position in the region and entirely limited our options for dealing with Iran. It has embolded the crazies in Iran and taken away their fear that anyone will act to stop them. And our troops in Iraq are sitting ducks if Iran wants to retaliate for any airstrike.
The bottomline is, at least the way I see, we simply don’t have any credible military options for dealing with Iran, particularly as long as the war in Iraq is ongoing.
So, what, exactly, is the false information we are peddling to make Iran Public Enemy #1, and how did we get the French, for example, to go along with our sinister demagoguery?
Anonymous, I respect your opinion, but the world won’t care whether there was an election looming if Iran gets the bomb – and this was not a U.S.-imposed deadline, it was a UN Security Council deadline. The US is apparently damned if we do and damned if we don’t, when it comes to multilateralism.
That doesn’t mean I disagree that our options are (a) bad and (b) worse, but the upcoming election is a strawman of its own; nothing we do will be resolved before November, particularly since the UN is quite obviously not going to do anything.
So what can we do? I think we have to deal with allies, but Russia and China will torpedo any effective UN response. That means, I think, either NATO or a new ‘offline’ series of talks. There MUST be some response, even if military options aren’t possible at the moment.
“…when, if that’s true, the Iraq war was without question the biggest foreign policy mistake of all time.”
Of all time, eh? Let’s look at the other possible contenders for “biggest foreign policy mistake:”
- Failure to enter WWII earlier on, when Germany and Japan would have been more easily defeated;
- Failure to detect carrier strike force advancing on Pearl Harbor;
- Failure to detect the Wehrmacht’s additional forces that precipitated the Battle of the Bulge, which prolonged the war in Europe another two years;
- Failure to prevent Russia from confiscating the countries that became part of the USSR;
- Failure to outline clear and consistent goals before the Vietnam war commenced, and also a a failure to commit to a strategy that could actually result in victory.
Somehow I don’t think your earlier hyperbole comes close to these actions, but then there’s this:
“It has embolded the crazies in Iran and taken away their fear that anyone will act to stop them.”
Please offer credible evidence from non – partisan sources to state your case here, or else it’s just more bloviation on your part.
Mark, it’s not that I disagree that Iran is a threat, though I tend to think Zakaria is a lot closer to the mark than Hames. But I don’t see how it can be doubted that the GOP has intentionally ratcheted up its rhetoric on Iran recently, and that this has as much to do with the November elections as external events. It’s not just coincidence that everyone in the administration has suddenly started referring to all our enemies as fascists and making comparisons to 1938. These are clearly talking points intended to frame the upcoming election.
There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Iran will have nuclear capacity in less than 5 years. So I worry when I see the same sort of collective lunacy taking hold that threw us head first into Iraq. There was also no urgency there, but for whatever reason, as soon as the White House started rolling out its talking points, a false sense of urgency took over and all serious debate stopped. Anyone who raised even reasonable objections or questions (like Al Gore) was instantly savaged in the media. I remember that period well because I was one of the people with questions, and it seemed to me like everyone in the media, including most liberals, just weren’t interested in asking those questions. War fever had gripped the country. And look where that got us. We just didn’t think it through very well; no one did.
And part of the problem now, both abroad and at home, is that the same people who were careless and hasty about Iraq, are the ones calling the loudest for military action against Iran. That’s the true “boy who cried wolf” problem. Before the Iraq war, Colin Powell went before the UN and presented to the world all our best intelligence, virtually all of which turned out to have been overhyped or just plain wrong. The world hasn’t forgotten that. Neither have a lot of voters here. Now Iran may be the real deal. Maybe. But if so, it would be nice if those advocating for an aggressive stance at least acknowledge why people might be skeptical this time around. It would also be nice if there was some acknowledgement that our invasion of Iraq has made dealing with Iran that much harder. I’m not holding my breath though.
But Anonymous, let’s just for the sake of argument stipulate that everything you say is true. Nevertheless, the threat remains…
I can just as easily (and just as truthfully) say that the Left is engaged in talking points, seeing a chance to attack the Administration’s Iraq policy under another front…meanwhile, the fact remains, and you don’t address it, really, that the UN Security Council has just seen another deadline pass by without offering any credible threat of consequences…
I disagree that the Left is only engaged in talking points. There are many who suggest an entirely different approach, such as sitting across a table from Iran.
“There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Iran will have nuclear capacity in less than 5 years.”
Do you ever have any actual cites for statments like these? Any evidence to back up your claims ad nauseum here?
Peter, I must be far more cynical than you, but my response is this: so we can enter into a variation of the ‘agreed framework’ that Iran can then violate at will?
“the Iraq war was without question the biggest foreign policy mistake of all time.”
Bay of pigs preceded the cuban missile crisis by a little more than a year.
Vietnam? pick a year, but 50k dead?
If you see Iraq as “the biggest foreign policy mistake of all time”-you really are trying hard to ignore Kennedy.
I can point to major miscalacs in every war, that has led to far worse situations than we face now.