Iran, again
I've posted before (most recently here) on the dangers of the Iranian nuclear program and the difficulty of a unified Western response.
Right on cue we have reached another impasse with the Islamic Republic, as detailed here.
Most hawkish Iran-watchers raise the very sensible concern that a nuclear Iran will be more likely to engage in military adventures, protected from attack by nuclear deterrent. In fact, Kaplan notes that Saddam Hussein regretted not obtaining a nuclear weapon prior to the invasion of Kuwait.
While I think this is a good point, I think our real concern should be that a nuclear Iran will pursue its ideological aims more aggressively.
As Nazi Germany's armed forces began to eclipse those of the western powers (c.1938), it began to assail them with calls for "self-determination." This, if you recall, was the vile logic that brought Austria and Sudeten Czechoslovakia into the Nazi orbit without a shot being fired.
The western powers feared the German military and the prospect of war, and so they negotiated away their defenses and accepted the faulty logic of self-determination for German minorities in other nations.
Why would we expect anything different from an ascendent, nuclear Iran? Would we be surprised if the Islamic Republic sought 'self-determination' of Iraqi Shi'a as the price of continued good behavior?
This, of course, will strike many in the West as reasonable, especially if it means the end to our own muddled adventures in Iraq. But I doubt it would end there. Carrying the banner of the Islamic world - in a way that nuclear Pakistan cannot, I believe - what would stop Iran from pushing for more stringent 'hate crimes' laws of the like that would stop the Danish cartoons? What would stop Iran from championing religious self-determination for European Muslims in the form of Sharia enclaves throughout their adopted homelands?
I am not optimistic that a nuclear Iran can be avoided at this point, but I still think the effort must be made. But are China and Russia willing to make it? I can't say.
Update: Hmmm.
Right on cue we have reached another impasse with the Islamic Republic, as detailed here.
Most hawkish Iran-watchers raise the very sensible concern that a nuclear Iran will be more likely to engage in military adventures, protected from attack by nuclear deterrent. In fact, Kaplan notes that Saddam Hussein regretted not obtaining a nuclear weapon prior to the invasion of Kuwait.
While I think this is a good point, I think our real concern should be that a nuclear Iran will pursue its ideological aims more aggressively.
As Nazi Germany's armed forces began to eclipse those of the western powers (c.1938), it began to assail them with calls for "self-determination." This, if you recall, was the vile logic that brought Austria and Sudeten Czechoslovakia into the Nazi orbit without a shot being fired.
The western powers feared the German military and the prospect of war, and so they negotiated away their defenses and accepted the faulty logic of self-determination for German minorities in other nations.
Why would we expect anything different from an ascendent, nuclear Iran? Would we be surprised if the Islamic Republic sought 'self-determination' of Iraqi Shi'a as the price of continued good behavior?
This, of course, will strike many in the West as reasonable, especially if it means the end to our own muddled adventures in Iraq. But I doubt it would end there. Carrying the banner of the Islamic world - in a way that nuclear Pakistan cannot, I believe - what would stop Iran from pushing for more stringent 'hate crimes' laws of the like that would stop the Danish cartoons? What would stop Iran from championing religious self-determination for European Muslims in the form of Sharia enclaves throughout their adopted homelands?
I am not optimistic that a nuclear Iran can be avoided at this point, but I still think the effort must be made. But are China and Russia willing to make it? I can't say.
Update: Hmmm.
posted by Joshua @ 10:13 AM
2 Comments:
Without thinking too much about it (still at work), I imagine that Israel will make every effort to prevent Iran's development of nukes. Whether or not Iran actually used them on Israel (which I find unlikely, at least in the near-term), Israel obviously has the most at stake with the emergence of a nuclear Iran.
Of course, while Iran laying a "nuclear option" on the table along side its rhetorical rantings for the destruction of the Israeli state is problematic in many ways, this htreat may produce, in the long-term, more of an Israeli willingness to meet at the negotiating table, which could conceivably facilitate some kind of regional compromise while requiring that Iran relax its anti-Israel stance in order to push its agenda through the process(possibly even allowing for a tenuous acceptance of Israel's statehood?). While admittedly a quite optimistic view of the whole affair, I try to remember that Israel's possesion of nuclear weapons could serve the same deterrent effect that MAD delivered during the cold war, thus possibly preventing the threat of an all-out conventional ground war as well. Then again, Iran and Israel may see a ground war as their only option in the face of the MAD that would surely follow a nuclear deployment of any kind. All of this rests on the hope that Iran's leaders do not wish to be collectively martyred through nuclear suicide.
Either way, I imagine that as we speak and the UN deliberates, Mossad is already focusing their resources to meet this threat before it really begins. I would be surprised if they were not already narrowing down their options form scenarios they have repeatedly refined from years of anticipating this very credible threat.
Of course, this all assumes that Iran's end purpose is to develop nuclear weapons and not merely the copious amounts of "renewable" energy it asserts as its purpose.
While Iran-with-a-nuke would, I believe, foster in a whole new theater of difficulties for global deplomatic efforts, I can not envision them asserting self-determination for the European Shi'a commuity. Much of what the Nazis were originally trying to "rectify" when absorbing their neighbor's lands was the reestablishment of Prussia and the Second Reich through the enveloping of satellite German population pockets. Iran has no such claim to Europe, and if they did, their one or two nukes would surely not grant them much headway in such an effort.
Regionally, however, is a much different story, especially with the current turmoil in neighboring Iraq. Notwithstanding the many ethnic differences between Iraqi and Iranian Shi'a (most notably that Iraqi's are largely Arab, while Iranians are largely Persian)I understand that many Iraqi Shi'a maintain a nationalistic streak as dominant as they are zealously religious (I realize this is a gross generalization). However, knowing little about the area, I also would not be surprised if more than a few would be game for a unified Shi'a empire harkening back to the short-lived Safavid Empire which was basically wiped out by the Ottomans (Sunni). As noted, this new reality would necessitate quite a shift in everyone's regional policy, especially as it becomes more and more difficult to monitor their development of longer-range nuclear weapons.
good luck!
B
And here we go...
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