Today, General Petraeus is scheduled to present his report on the current state of affairs in Iraq subsequent to the beginning of the surge and his prescription for the future of the American military involvement in Iraq. There has already been a great deal of commentary in preparation for his report, much of it confirming the view that mere facts have very little sway on emotionally held opinions. I do not plan on adding to the commentary here but wold like to address the "elephant in the room", Iran.
There has been a fair amount of tumult in the Blogosphere over Iran recently, with a number of journalists and bloggers claiming that the Bush administration is preparing the ground for an attack on Iran. Daniel Drezner has a summary, with links, on the tough test of Iran.
Richard Fernandez has been discussing with Michael Ledeen the desirability of seeking regime change in Iran at this time. They differ on how ready Iran is for such a revolution but both agree with the basic premise that Iran has been and continues to be at war with us and remains the font of much of the turmoil in Iraq as well as in the greater Middle East. Ledeen who explicitly does not seek a military attack on Iran concludes:
One thing is as certain as anything can be in a world inhabited by human beings: if we do not attempt to bring them down from within, the mullahs will one day soon demonstrate they have nukes. And on that day we will be faced with two terrible choices: either accept that fact, with all its frightening geopolitical consequences, or bomb them. Sarkozy recently put it in those words, in fact. In my opinion, that would constitute a massive policy failure, and I am trying hard to convince people that there is a better way.
Richard Fernandez addresses those (including Daniel Drezner) who would suggest benign neglect as a policy toward Iran:
It may actually be useful to let Iran know that one major American political party is thinking about responding forcefully to the Ayatollah's challenges. That may have a deterrent effect and actually make war less likely. Attacking Iran may be the wrong response. But clearly it is a legitimate subject for public policy debate, one that should presumably give its opponents an opportunity to put forward their own alternative policy.
Any debate or discussion about Iran must recognize the complexity of the situation and the lack of any good solutions. The discussion in the comments section, as always is enlightening and includes a succinct summary of the base positions in contention by TigerHawk:
"Doves" tend to view Iran as weak, surrounded, and aggressive largely because so many threats are arrayed against it. In this view, Iran is reacting to a security dilemma, and if we signal and then entreat that we are not a threat Iran will feel greater security and in turn become less threatening. When doves want the United States to renounce the possibility of using military force against Iran, it is not only because they believe George W. Bush is "incompetent." It is because they believe that we have become substantially more threatening to Iran in the last five years, and that is at the root of much Iranian aggression.
Hawks, on the other hand, believe that Iran is motivated by revolutionary ambition. If I understand Michael Ledeen's position (not having yet read his current book, but having read his previous book and many of his articles and blog posts), the Islamic Republic is expansionist because it is a revolutionary Islamist regime, still filled with the ambition that has fired many other revolutionary movements in the past (from the French revolution to international Communism). Under this view, Iran wants to win, so the mullahs will take any Western concession as captured ground.
The current debate generally elides the Iranian leadership's religious beliefs. For example, Tom Barnett has called President Ahmadinejad "the Persian Newt Gingrich" and he may well be correct. In this formulation, the Persian Shia religious tradition is thought of as millenialist in concept but pragmatic in practice. This would be comforting if true. Dean Barnett has taken Tom Barnett to task for his naive optimism and challenged the assertion, in rather pithy terms:
Ahmadenijad a “crafty Persian Newt Gingrich”? Iranian “born-agains” comparable to American “born agains”? Putting aside how offensive that last notion will be to some people, the fact that no one has yet crashed an airliner into a skyscraper while screaming “Praise Jesus” seems to have escaped Tom’s attention.
I’m sure Tom will be responding to this post. Hopefully he can include in his response where he gets his information regarding Radical Islam and specifically what evidence has led him to conclude that Ahmadenijad is a crafty statesman more reminiscent of a young Newt Gingrich than a young Adolf Hitler. Because from here, Tom’s conclusions look like little more than pathetic wishful thinking.
The back and forth continues with Tom listing some of his sources in a response to Dean and amplifying his thesis in his Sunday column suggesting that Iran, as all other nuclear states have proven to be, is deterrable and that Iran's possession of a nuclear weapon will ultimately prove to moderate the Iranian's behavior:
Whether we care to admit it or not, Iran’s already achieved a sloppy, asymmetrical form of deterrence. Tehran doesn’t need to field nuclear weapons to maintain this deterrence.
Like Japan, it can simply stop its nuclear efforts at a point from which weaponization can be achieved within a short time frame — a “break this glass in the event of imminent threat” capability.
So what does Iran’s achievement mean for the world? Arguably, something very good.
Again, remember the history cited by Schelling: Soviet nukes balanced American nukes, and those powers never dared to wage war with one another, despite all the loose talk about wiping each other off the map early on. The same was true for China versus the U.S.S.R,, America versus China, China versus India, India versus Pakistan, and the French versus the Brits.
Okay, I included that last one just for historical completeness.
But the history is undeniable: highly unstable two-state standoffs were — in each instance — stabilized, no matter the nature of the “ancient hatreds” or the incendiary rhetoric flowing from leaders.
In all of this, Iran is treated as if it is a predictable adversary which can be dealt with pragmatically. Israel (and the Sunni states who are even more threatened by an expansionist Iran) can achieve a stable state of nuclear deterrence based on the MAD doctrine that worked so well for the United States and the USSR through the cold war. Eventually, once Iran is no longer feeling quite so threatened, they will become integrated back into the Core (midwifed by Chinese and Russian restraints) and the threat alleviated. I think this is a useful approach and if, as Tom suggests, Iran can be held at the "Like Japan, it can simply stop its nuclear efforts at a point from which weaponization can be achieved within a short time frame — a “break this glass in the event of imminent threat” capability" a meta-stable state can be maintained in the Middle East for quite some time, perhaps enough time for the danger to decrescendo over the course of several years.
Unfortunately, there are very serious dangers in basing one's strategy on this approach that, if not controlled for, can derail the entire agenda of those of us who desire nothing more than to shrink the Gap and enlarge the Core. However, since this post has already grown longer than I would like, I will defer such discussion until tomorrow, at which time I will describe why it is important for us to insist, with a credible threat of force, (best done through non-public and deniable channels) that Iran step back from the threshold.
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