Posted under Interventionism & Iran
The people who suggest we should preemptively bomb Iran to prevent them from getting a nuclear bomb base this on the belief that due to Iran’s particular Shiite theology they will not be deterred from using it by the normal MAD type considerations and will surely bomb the US, Israel or both. The case for preemptive bombing then depends entirely on how accurate this assessment is. So is it accurate? This Foreign Policy article says no. The whole article is a must read.
… conservative Hot Air blogger Ed Morrissey helpfully explained that deterrence wouldn’t work against Iran, because “The mullahs’ strategic goals are metaphysical; they want their Messiah to arrive and establish a global Islamic rule. According to their view of Islam, that will come at the end of a great conflagration, and there isn’t a much better way to start one of those than by lobbing nukes at Israel, the US, or both.”
It’s tempting to dismiss this as simply the raving of Congress’s leading anti-Muslim hysteric (West), accompanied by the usual noise from the right-wing blogosphere. But similar assertions about Iran’s supposedly suicidal tendencies have been made by other conservative leaders. Indeed, the belief that Iran is some sort of “martyr state,” and therefore uniquely immune to the cost-benefit calculations that underpin a conventional theory of deterrence, seems to have become something of an article of faith for many Iran hawks…
“Given the novelty of the martyr state argument,” Grotto continued, “and how unequivocally its proponents present it, one would expect to encounter an avalanche of credible evidence. Yet that is not the case.” Finding both that “references are scarce in this line of writings, and certain references are cited with striking regularity,” Grotto determined that the “martyr state” view essentially rests upon a few neoconservative op-eds and a report by a right-wing Israeli think tank, whose claims have been bounced endlessly around the internet.
Daniel Larison comments on the article here.
Sempronius on 01 Sep 2011 at 11:10 pm #
The question that needs to be asked is: How dangerous is Israel and her two little punks, the UK and the US?
Dave K on 02 Sep 2011 at 1:30 am #
If you add to the debunking of the charge that Iran is a suicidal state the debunking of the claim that Ahmadinejad has threatened to “wipe Israel off the map” (Google; Rumor Of the Century) the paranoid Zionist war stooges who want to drag the USA into more war have nothing left to stand on. The fact that these false charges reign supreme in the USA despite the ease with which they can be refuted is enough to make one despair. Radical Judaism (Zionism) and their nutty American Christian Zionist supporters are the biggest threat to world peace. These people are far more crazy than the Iranians.
Aaron on 02 Sep 2011 at 6:41 am #
I don’t know if this article was right or wrong, but it did not address some of the opposing claims. One is that in recent years, A-jad and the Revolutionary Guards branch of the military – i.e., the loonies – have gained authority in the decision-making that would enable them to carry out a crazy first strike, against the wishes of the clerics of course. That they’ve gained power recently seems uncontroversial, as Wikipedia puts it:
So one question is, How supreme is the so-called Supreme Leader, given the political changes over the last five years?
The other, more obvious, objection is that given the horror of a nuclear strike, even a very small chance of it justifies worry. I think it’s very unlikely that Iran would carry out a first strike, but the question is, how very unlikely? I know there’s a literature on high-risk, low-probability disasters, but I’m unfamiliar with it and apparently no one writing about these things (on either side) seems interested in it at all, which is very strange.
Then, even given that there’s cause for worry by the Persian gulf states (remember Wikileaks?), Israel, and the US, the question is whether anybody can do anything about it. I think that Daniel Larison is among those who argue that nothing will stop Iran from getting the nuclear bomb, not even a military attack.
I don’t have any answers for this. Fortunately, my opinion doesn’t matter. It would be nice to see some higher quality analysis than what was in this FP article, though.
RonL on 02 Sep 2011 at 7:11 am #
When did any sane person take the theories of the Center for the American Progress and the CFR as reality? And clearly we should trust someone at Brown University to tell us about ideology and religion. What is the Iranian equivalent of communist allied panda huggers? But as much fun as attacking the silly messenger, allow me to show it to be an irrelevent point.
Let us pretend that the Iranian regime isn’t willing to trade nuclear strikes to bring the Mahdi. Is it willing to gamble? The issue is not merely Iran, but the nuclear arms race in the region. The Saudis and Egyptians have programs and the Pakistanis have nukes. Hopefully yhe Egyptian program is now compromised. But the Saudis are plugging along. And they have a huge problem with Islamists, who consider the Saud family corrupt. In 10 years, who do we blame if we start facing nuclear terrorism? How do we prove which country gave a nuke to a terrorist group, which may or may not admit the act? And even if we are certain, why should we imagine that the Iranians would not imagine us caught off guard. Why should we imagine the Iranians so much better tempered than the Imperial Japanese?
A nuclear Iran would already have forced us out of the region, or at least greatly weakened our influence. We would be a paper tiger, hobbled by $200/gallon gasoline before, we face nuclear terror.
But if you want to gamble that “Death to America!” is also a joke to the Mullah, please digg up some other commie article to “prove” it.
RonL on 02 Sep 2011 at 7:13 am #
Dave K,
Spin is not fact. “Death to America”, Destroy the Great and Little Satan’s still mean exactly what they sound like, even if you fabricate an alternate reality where post-Israel Levant would not necessitate or cause the deaths of millions of Jews.
mpresley on 02 Sep 2011 at 10:35 am #
A suicidal state, whatever that could mean in the real world, would hardly be concerned over long term oil and gas deals with Sinopec, etc. The most obvious suicidal state is the United States, which is fast on the way toward complete self-destruction.
Kirt Higdon on 02 Sep 2011 at 11:39 am #
The real danger of a nuclear first strike is from the US or Israel against Iran. The US has proven repeatedly that it will attack non-nuclear countries which have neither attacked nor threatened it; e.g. Yugoslavia, Iraq, Somalia, Libya. It has also proved that it will use nuclear weapons to carry out a mass slaughter of civilians in non-nuclear countries with which it is already at war. At least some in the US ruling establishment want to set the precedent of a nuclear first strike against a non-nuclear country which is no threat to the US. Iran is the preferred target. Others would like to outsource the nuclear first strike to Israel and then bring the US into the war to “save Israel” when the Iranians make or threaten whatever feeble retaliation they are capable of. Either way, this is a thoroughly evil project. Iran’s maximum danger will be in the few months before the US election when Obama might be tempted to order a nuclear strike or greenlight Israel in the interest of winning the election, or after the election if the winner is a Christian Zionist like Perry or Bachmann.
Dave K on 02 Sep 2011 at 1:40 pm #
Ron L
“Who do we blame if we start facing nuclear terrorism?” Why not blame ourselves (the US government)! The US government invented the weapon and then used them on civilians in monstrous acts of terrorism. So who are we to preach to the Iranians who hold the same position on the use of nuclear weapons as does the Vatican. If only we could convert the West and the Zionist fanatics who pull the strings.
Aaron on 02 Sep 2011 at 3:53 pm #
mpresley, I don’t think anyone believes that the state of Iran is suicidal. The fear is that some individuals in Iran subscribe to a nutty messianic creed, and that some of those individuals might have both the will and the power to order a nuclear attack, knowing that it might lead to the destruction of the state of Iran. Long-term Iranian business deals don’t really say one thing or another about that possibility.
I wonder whether those who downplay the risk would see it the same way if the shoe were on the other foot. Suppose that the President of the US were a loony Christian who believed that a major war in the Middle East could bring about Armageddon and the kingdom of God. Suppose also that the official US policy were that Iran is an illegitimate state that ought to be destroyed. Wouldn’t the Iranians be right to worry? Or would the author of this article and the commenters deny any cause for the Iranians to be concerned, by noting that the US has long-term business deals in the Middle East and that the President doesn’t have the constitutional power to start a war without congressional authorization? Admittedly, there are a thousand little ways this analogy (like any analogy) doesn’t hold, but I still think it’s valid overall.
Matt Weber on 02 Sep 2011 at 6:12 pm #
Something similar to that was the situation regarding the Soviet Union. But our policy was containment, rather than invasion and overthrow, or even sanctions or bombs. And in the end, the USSR never attacked, AFAIK because of the nuclear deterrent. I don’t expect Israel to be friendly towards Ahma-whatever-his-name-is, or to ignore the threats, but their own nuclear arsenal is as good a guarantee as anyone ever had against an attack. In order to believe that Iran is planning to attack Israel we would have to believe that Iran is suicidal, and whatever the craziness of Ahma- there are cooler heads in the Iranian government.
Even if it were wise to pre-emptively bomb Iran, it should obviously be Israel doing the bombing, not the US.
Also, the thing I’ve wondered this whole time is that, given the propensity for powerful countries like the US to attack weaker ones on the flimsiest of pretexts, is it any wonder Iran would want nukes? I’d want them too.
Kirt Higdon on 02 Sep 2011 at 6:51 pm #
“Suppose that the President of the US were a loony Christian who believed that a major war in the Middle East could bring about Armageddon and the kingdom of God. Suppose also that the official US policy were that Iran is an illegitimate state that ought to be destroyed. Wouldn’t the Iranians be right to worry?”
You mean someone like Perry or Bachmann? Of course, they’d be right to worry. Indeed they have a right to be worried now, given that the US does not hesitate to destroy states of which it disapproves, overthrow regimes of which it disapproves and slaughter civilians with a nuclear first strike – all this under supposedly sane Christian presidents. Most important of all, the US actually HAS nuclear weapons, thousands of them, and Israel has hundreds. Iran has none.
Aaron on 03 Sep 2011 at 4:57 am #
The whole point is how dissimilar Iran and the Soviet Union are. The USSR was ruled by atheists. Their actions were influenced by ideology, but they were always “rational” in the sense that they didn’t factor in any supernatural intervention.
Same with the US. While its foreign policy has historically been much more ideological than other states’, it’s always been rational, no matter how bad or immoral it’s been. That includes the atomic bombing of Japan.
A-jad apparently believes in a messianic version of Islam similar to Christian eschatology. He believes in it strongly and “irrationally” enough to be rebuked by clerics in the Iranian government. If there is, say, one chance in a hundred that he and the Revolutionary Guards would try to detonate a nuclear weapon in Israel or America, then that’s very strong cause for worry. (Yes, Israel, too: a nuclear bomb exploding in Tel Aviv would not be good for America, even [or perhaps especially] from a “paleo” perspective.)
It’s misleading to talk about “Iran” doing this. It would be an accurate way to talk about the state’s possible use of a nuclear threat to increase hegemony in the Middle East, but it’s a misleading way to talk about this nightmare nuclear scenario. It’s more accurate to talk of A-jad and/or the Revolutionary Guards, not the state of Iran, as the possible agents. Of course there are cooler heads in the government. The state of Iran is not suicidal. But in the last five years, A-jad and especially the Revolutionary Guards have strongly increased their control in military matters. That’s one fact, at least, that seems undisputed.
Regarding the fact that Iran has no nuclear weapons: that’s the whole point! That’s why many individuals and states advocate sanctions and some even advocate a military attack. There would be no point in any of that once Iran already has nukes.
Matt Weber on 06 Sep 2011 at 3:13 pm #
I think you give the USSR too much credit. It was a remarkably paranoid and insane regime bent on world domination. The unspellable Kruschschev very nearly started a nuclear war. What is it with crazy guys whose names are impossible to spell? The Soviet Union proved at the very least that removing the religion doesn’t remove the nuttiness. I don’t know why we would privilege irreligion in this manner–if A-jad has some religious idea that says Israel must die for some purpose, then he is being perfectly rational in following up with that, and it’s no less crazy than trying to bring about a worldwide proletarian revolution. It may be more implacable though, as a function of a sort-of racial hatred.
As for the million-to-one scenario, I’m not sure what analysis tool really works for such a situation. If we have a comet that has a million to one chance of striking earth and obliterating a continent or worse, what is the appropriate course of action? Well arguably nothing, as that scenario describes any number of comets currently out there. If Israel really thinks that A-jad is building nukes and gunning for them, then they should do what they feel is necessary to stop the threat, and they should accept the consequences of whatever action they take. I’m not sure what else can be done.
Just to put all the cards on the table, I’m not a mindless Israel hater at all. I defended them during the stupid flotilla thing. We’re all friends!