Dennis Ross: A "No" Vote on Syria Makes a Military Strike on Iran Both Less Likely and Almost Inevitable

Dennis Ross, the man who helped engineer the catastrophic failure of President Clinton's last ditch efforts to secure an Israel-Palestine peace deal, was given space in the Washington Post to bring the same special brand of help to the crisis in Syria. His central thesis is that if Congress blocks the President from bombing Syria, it becomes more likely that military action will be taken against Iran. He thus urges Congress to abandon its concerns over whether the bombing would accomplish anything constructive, whether it would suck the U.S. into a protracted conflict, or consider the extent to which U.S. interests are implicated by events in Syria, and authorize military action.

After telling Congress to ignore the slippery slope argument, in which military action in Syria "suck[s] us into a conflict that we cannot win", Ross offers a slippery slope of his own:

President Obama and Secretary Kerry have pointed out that there will be a great cost to international norms that prohibit the use of terror weapons such as chemical weapons. And surely they are right that if Bashar al-Assad can gas his own people and elicit only harsh words but no punitive action, he will use the weapons again. The price in Syria and the potential for spillover in the region are certain to be high. Additionally, other rogue actors may also draw the conclusion that chemical weapons are not only usable but that there are no circumstances, no outrages, no genocidal actions that would trigger a meaningful reaction from the so-called civilized world.

I think that's utter nonsense. First, in relation to Syria, Assad has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons, and the few nations that back him are hanging their hats on that denial. If Assad were to now announce, "Hah! Now that Congress has voted, I admit it - it was me!", it would be extremely difficult for him to avoid a Security Council resolution authorizing use of force. Putin may be a stubborn man, but after making repeated denials about Assad's involvement in the attack, it is difficult to believe he would have much interest in protecting Assad by vetoing the resolution. Second, were Assad to engage in additional attacks, any plausible deniability that remains from the prior incident would evaporate. It is difficult to believe that Congress would vote against military action, and even more difficult to believe that the President would sit and wait for approval from Congress if he believed it would not be immediately forthcoming. I don't think Ross believes what he suggests.

Second, in relation to the rest of the world, Ross is pushing the nonsensical idea that despots are eager to use chemical weapons against their own populations, but are held back by fear of military reprisal by the world's powers. With a whopping two significant uses of chemical weapons since World War II, the first (and more significant) use being the repeated use of chemical weapons by Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and the second being this attack by Assad, it's difficult to see why Ross would imagine that despots are in fear of reprisal. If Syria is not attacked, that would be in keeping with the precedent seen in Iraq. Also, if despots are so eager to use chemical weapons, why weren't they emboldened by Hussein's use of those weapons? Perhaps Ross seriously believes that despots around the world would respond to a military strike by thinking, "Dang, just as I was about to add chemical weapons to my use of torture, imprisonment without trial, summary execution, military strikes, collective punishments, internment camps, starvation, and occasional genocide, the world has made clear that I can't use them. Now I have no choice but to stick with my tried and true methods of perpetuating my regime," but again I doubt that he believes a word of what he said.

After mocking those who emphasize that military strikes should be used only against "threats that are immediate and directly affect us" as regarding other concerns as "abstractions", Ross introduces his argument about Iran:

Leaving aside the argument that when the threats become immediate, we will be far more likely to have to use our military in a bigger way and under worse conditions, there is another argument to consider: should opponents block authorization and should the president then feel he cannot employ military strikes against Syria, this will almost certainly guarantee that there will be no diplomatic outcome to our conflict with Iran over its nuclear weapons.

Note his use of language: "...over its nuclear weapons." Iran has no nuclear weapons.

I say this for two reasons. First, Iran’s President Rouhani, who continues to send signals that he wants to make a deal on the nuclear program, will inevitably be weakened once it becomes clear that the U.S. cannot use force against Syria. At that point, paradoxically, the hard-liners in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and around the Supreme Leader will be able to claim that there is only an economic cost to pursuing nuclear weapons but no military danger. Their argument will be: Once Iran has nuclear weapons, it will build its leverage in the region; its deterrent will be enhanced; and, most importantly, the rest of the world will see that sanctions have failed, and that it is time to come to terms with Iran.

First, President Rouhani has been in office for what? A month ago? Yet we are to believe that it is his voice of reason that keeps Iran from developing nuclear weapons? Does Ross want us to believe, then, that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged similar restraint and that it was his calming influence that prevented Iran from developing nuclear weapons during his eight years in office? That Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is going to suddenly declare, "I know I've been arguing for years that nuclear weapons are a sin, are forbidden in Islam, and should be eliminated from the planet, but I've changed my mind!"

Ross then argues, without explanation, that "Under those circumstances, the sanctions will wither". Why would he believe that? I don't think he does believe that and, once again, he feels no need to substantiate the claim. He instead insists that if the U.S. is blocked from using force in Syria, a different country involving different facts and different weapons, Iran will decide it will never be attacked and acquire nuclear weapons. He then contradicts himself,

Israel, however, is not prepared to accept such an eventuality, and that is the second reason that not authorizing strikes against Syria will likely result in the use of force against Iran. Indeed, Israel will feel that it has no reason to wait, no reason to give diplomacy a chance and no reason to believe that the United States will take care of the problem.

As should be needless to say, if a military strike becomes more likely if the U.S. votes "no" on striking Syria, the government of Iran is not going to conclude that it is not going to be attacked and forge ahead, full speed, with its nuclear weapons program.

Does Ross believe that Iran has never heard of Israel? That Iran is unaware of Israel's military power? That Iran is unaware of Israel's position on other nations developing nuclear weapons? That it somehow passed beneath Iran's notice that Israel has launched military strikes against nuclear facilities in both Iraq and Syria when it decided those nations were too close to developing nuclear weapons? Apparently so, given his expressed certitude on how Iran would react to a "no" vote in Congress on the use of force in Syria.

Ross makes a cryptic statement,

Ironically, if these opponent [sic] succeed, they may prevent a conflict that President Obama has been determined to keep limited and has the means to do so.

Is Ross speaking about Congressional opponents of a military strike - those are the only people otherwise described in Ross's editorial as "opponents"? If so, and their "no" vote prevents a conflict that the President is trying to limit, wouldn't that be a good thing? Or is it that Ross thinks the President is wrong to want to keep that conflict limited? Based upon his next statement,

After all, even after Israel acted militarily to enforce its red line and prevent Syria’s transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Assad, Iran and Hezbollah have been careful to avoid responding. They have little interest in provoking Israeli attacks that would weaken Syrian forces and make them vulnerable to the opposition.

Perhaps Ross means to suggest that if no strike is made against Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah will continue to show restraint rather than trying to widen the conflict? Does Ross believe that those factions would respond to a U.S. strike by engaging in acts that would invite a massive U.S. or Israeli military response? If Ross seriously believes that Hamas and Hezbollah will launch attacks in Lebanon, Israel and perhaps around the world in response to a strike on Assad, isn't that a solid argument for restraint? Ross undermines any such suggestion, admitting, "the Syrian and Iranian interest in an escalation with the United States is also limited". He continues,

Can the same be said if Israel feels that it has no choice but to attack the Iranian nuclear infrastructure? Maybe the Iranians will seek to keep that conflict limited; maybe they won’t. Maybe an Israeli strike against the Iranian nuclear program will not inevitably involve the United States, but maybe it will — and maybe it should.

Maybe Ross will attempt to do more than toss out mutually inconsistent alternative scenarios about what the future might hold; maybe he won't. Maybe Ross will provide a coherent, logical argument; maybe he won't - but maybe he should.

To summarize... If the U.S. doesn't strike Syria, Iran will conclude that the U.S. won't strike it's nuclear facilities, demolishing the credibility of the new Iranian president who has spent a full month advocating a diplomatic resolution of the controversy over its nuclear program, and inspiring Iran's Supreme Leader to abandon his stated views on Islamic law and seek to immediately acquire nuclear weapons. This will happen even though Israel, a nation with a decades-long history of using espionage and military strikes (and is rumored to have used assassinations) to stop other nations in the region from developing nuclear weapons, will almost certainly strike Iran's nuclear facilities if it senses that Iran has not abandoned its nuclear weapons program. This will result in a regional conflict that may or may not involve the United States, but that Ross apparently believes should involve the United States.

And this argument is supposed to... convince Members of Congress to support a strike?

When Will Israel Attack Iran

The question keeps being asked, but I think the answer remains pretty much the same: Israel is not going to attack Iran. If it were going to do so, we would be having the same sort of after-the-fact discussion we had when Israel bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor back in 1981, or Syria's under-construction reactor in 2007. Instead we are seeing an odd form of lobbying and advocacy - to the effect of, "We're going to bomb Iran soon, perhaps within weeks or even days, but we'll refrain from bombing Iran if you (the U.S.) promise to do the job for us at a fixed point in time in the future."

Let's also recall that we've been warned that Iran is only a few years away from developing nuclear weapons for roughly twenty years - by the same guy who's presently pressing for war. Let's also remember that an attack means at best a delay of two, three, five years before we're either back to war or confronting a nuclear-armed Iran. That is, assuming everything goes perfectly, the day after we successfully obliterate Iran's entire nuclear weapons program it will remain accurate to say that Iran could have nuclear weapons in two or three years. And things won't go perfectly.

So far, President Obama appears to have outmaneuvered Netanyahu, imposing sanctions that (like most sanctions) are probably counter-productive but make it look like the west is "doing something", engineering a probable new round of negotiations with Iran with a possibility of weapons inspections, giving Israel some new bunker-busters (again) that it can use should it decide to bomb Iran (and work out the logistics of getting its jets there and back - easier said than done), and made the Republican candidates' demagoguery sound pretty childish. (Unilateral sanctions, anyone?) Perhaps, though, it's more accurate to say that Obama has outmaneuvered the voices in the Republican Party and his own that are pushing for yet another war, with Netanyahu being more of the spokesperson for that mindset than the driving force behind the "war now" crowd.

Pat Buchanan cynically imagines that an October showdown or war with Iran that "will mean the nation rallies around [President Obama] and he wins a second term". I think it's pretty obvious that's not either how the President sees things, nor is it consistent with reality. Again, if we were talking Syria in 2007 or Iraq in 1981, this would be a done deal. We're talking instead about a nation that could cause real problems for the U.S. in its continuing missions in the Middle East, and could cause problems for Israel around the globe. The last thing the President needs is for gas prices to spike and the economy to tank, right before an election, even if he could thump his chest and say "We're at war." Any showdown short of war will look pretty much like the status quo.

Two big issues that don't seem to get enough attention in the coverage of the push for war are what the war would look like, and what would be the likely result or benefit. If we assume that Iran's nuclear program could be mostly eliminated exclusively through a sustained bombing campaign, I suspect that we would be hitting enough nuclear and nuclear-related sites in civilian centers that the pictures of collateral damage coming out of Iran would be highly inflammatory and harmful to U.S. interests. A land war? Some may want it, but given recent history I don't think that there's a high probability of that type of multi-trillion dollar war of choice. I've heard a number of accounts suggesting that there is strong opposition to an attack on Iran from within the U.S. military - and I can't say I find that surprising. National security writer Thomas Ricks shares his perspective,

A nuclear Iran is not good, and not preferable, but it is not the end of the world. To bomb makes little sense and may be the policy equivalent of committing suicide out of the fear of death.

Ricks compares containment to what we face with Pakistan and North Korea, but I suspect that it would actually be easier to contain Iran, as it's my impression that Iran's goal is to be at the point that it can assemble and test a nuclear weapon at any time it chooses, but that it does not actually intend to do so (for religious and practical reasons) unless its hand is forced. Before Iran is a meaningful threat to the region it not only needs to successfully test a nuclear device, it needs to have a viable means of delivering that device into another nation's territory. Iran knows that there's a substantial chance that a successful nuclear test will trigger an immediate war with the U.S., whereas being the turn of a key away from producing a weapon would allow it to demonstrate a nuclear deterrent should a foreign nation start to mobilize for attack.

Tom Engelhardt sees the President's position as unduly hawkish,

The president had offered a new definition of “aggression” against this country and a new war doctrine to go with it. He would, he insisted, take the U.S. to war not to stop another nation from attacking us or even threatening to do so, but simply to stop it from building a nuclear weapon - and he would act even if that country were incapable of targeting the United States. That should have been news.

But it's not news, because the same thing has been implied for the past twenty years. Also, I expect that the U.S. would (continue to) justify its actions under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and would push hard for UN approval of any military action. Beyond that, rhetoric about nations that are "our enemies" has been at times over-the-top pretty much since the time we started to have Presidents.

Our Enemies Are Crazy... Our Allies?

One of the pretty constant lines of rhetorical attack you see, often from people who would prefer to shift from words to military action, is that the enemy state is "crazy". Its leaders are irrational, cannot be reasoned with, and will do terrible, apocalyptic things if we don't take dramatic action. Within this context, "crazy" often means "Behaves in pretty much the same manner as other despots and tyrants, but isn't on our team." The Shah of Iran treated his people terribly, reminiscent of Saddam Hussein, and lusted for western military weapons including nuclear weapons, and that was fine with us. Then Iran had a revolution, its new government was overtly hostile to the U.S., and Saddam Hussein seemed like somebody we could work with. Then the war he started with Iran came to an end, he invaded Kuwait, and... nutty as a fruitcake. Moammar Gadhafi was a terrible man, sponsoring terrorism, hostile to western interests, then he became a supposed "victory" in the "war on terror" by renouncing his "WMD programs", but after a few years of posing for pictures with world leaders who, no doubt, now regret the documentary evidence of their claims that he had reformed, he once again became a crazy enemy.

The point isn't that these tyrants aren't, to one extent or another, crazy. It's that "crazy" is rarely considered to be a significant issue until our nations' leaders decide it's a problem, and all of the quirks and bad acts that aren't worthy of notice or mention suddenly become evidence of irredeemable insanity. (Sort of irredeemable - as previously mentioned, Gadahfi, one of the nuttier despots of our time, did enjoy a few years of "redemption".)

One of the better aspects of democracy is that when elected leaders do prove to be nutty, they typically either don't rise to the highest offices or don't stay there for line. We may treat our Presidents and Prime Ministers as if they're monarchs, granting them mansions, gourmet personal chefs, personal jets, huge staffs... but we require an element of humility, the willingness for a peaceful transition at the end of the elected official's term of office. Some of our leaders do engage in over-the-top rhetoric about foreign states and leaders, but the leaders of "enemy states" generally take their anti-western rhetoric to a much higher level - volume, frequency and intensity all turned up to 11.

One of the over-the-top claims about Iran is that, if they are able to develop a nuclear weapon, they will immediately be itching to use it against another state. We're told that, unlike any other nuclear state in the world, Iran's leadership is so crazy that they won't be deterred by the fact that any nuclear attack that can be laid at their feet would trigger the annihilation of their nation. We don't talk that way about our allies. At least, most people don't.

Former Bush Administration official Bennett Ramberg is actually using an "Israel is nuts" argument to support... who knows? Invading Iran to stop it from developing nuclear weapons?

If Jerusalem really believes that a nuclear-armed Tehran poses an existential threat — and cannot be contained by a conventional military attack, sanctions, deterrence or regime change — there remains one option to end the threat that people fear to talk about: Israel’s use of nuclear weapons.

At any level, Ramberg's analysis would place Israel's government somewhere between "irrational" and "insane". I'll give him enough credit to assume that he's imagining a future in which Iran is not invaded, develops nuclear weapons, and can use small arsenal to deter any land-based invasion. Does Ramberg believe that Iran would keep all of its weapons and production facilities in one nice, consolidated, non-fortified location, far away from its civilian population such that Israel could swoop in with a nuke or two and eliminate the entire program? He couldn't possibly be that ignorant. So really, what he's proposing is that if Iran has any nuclear capacity, Israel will perceive as its only option a massive nuclear attack against Iran, devastating its urban centers and murdering tens of millions of civilians. There's an ugly word for that type of military action. And you know what? If Iran did have a few small nukes it could be counted on to try to launch them against Israel. So Ramberg is literally telling us that Israel's leadership is irrational, genocidal and willing to risk the annihilation of its own people in order to wipe an enemy off of the map. Which is pretty much exactly what other people in the "we must invade Iran" camp say about a nuclear Iran.

I disagree with Ramberg's analysis. They're at least as self-serving and prone to demagoguery as the leaders of any other nation and, yes, Israel's form of democracy results in some pretty extreme members within the Knesset. And like every other military power they tend to overestimate what they can accomplish through force and underestimate the benefits of resolving conflicts through negotiation - a peril of democracy: when times are good, voters don't want to change anything, and when times are bad, voters don't want to give anything to "the enemy". But they're not insane, they're not genocidal, and they're not going to kill tens of millions of people and send a cloud of radioactive fallout around the globe if Iran successfully tests a nuclear weapon, even if they believe the losses on their own side would be "acceptable".

I don't think Ramberg believes his own argument. If he actually believed that Israel, a nation that has shown past restraint with its nuclear weapons when faced with an actual land invasion, has joined the ranks of nations with "insane" leaders who can't be trusted with nuclear weapons, he should be advocating for the west to join Iran's proposal for a completely nuclear-free Middle East, backed up with thorough inspections of both Iran and Israel to ensure compliance. The most charitable explanation I can offer is that he's tossing this scenario out either as one more reason the west "has to" invade Iran and remove its leadership, or in the hope that over-the-top rhetoric about "crazy Israel" will somehow lead to a cowed and pliant Iran, and thus doesn't care that his argument is detached from reality.

The Purpose of Sanctions Against Iran is.... What?

I know, I know. Sanctions are supposedly going to convince the Iranian government to give up a nuclear weapons program that it claims it's not pursuing. Nobody believes Iran, so I guess the theory is that if economic sanctions keep piling up Iran will eventually have to deal with corrupt individuals and nations to export its oil despite the sanctions give up its nuclear weapons program. And we'll know that the sanctions worked because of their long and consistent record of failure because Iran will announce that it will have given up its nuclear weapons program and, when that time comes, for some reason its denials will suddenly seem credible. Or something like that.

I'm reminded of another nation which, after many years of economic sanctions, a militarily imposed "no fly zone", and the like, was the subject of an invasion to end its quest for "weapons of mass destruction". For a number of reasons, some quite valid, the invading nations had discounted the nation's denials of having WMD's and engaged in demagoguery about the risk posed by their non-existent weapons and non-existent delivery vehicles. After invasion we learned that the nation had abandoned its programs to develop such weapons but, you know, why worry about a wasted $trillion or two and a decade of occupation, or whether eventual blowback might make the nation or region even more dangerous - we found out for sure.

That situation was, of course, completely different. The nation's name ended with a q.

Seriously, what is Iran to conclude from the behavior of western nations? The principal lesson seems to be that if they claim to have abandoned a nuclear weapons program they won't be believed, that if they allow massive inspections of their territory they will be accused of having secret sites that they have not disclosed, and that sanctions will continue to pile up until the western world announces that the burden of maintaining the sanctions is too high and it's time to invade. (If Iran has a nuclear weapons program, it's difficult to imagine that anything short of an invasion will give any amount of certainty that it has been eliminated.) Or they can act like North Korea - develop an actual nuclear weapon. You may not get rid of the sanctions but you will significantly reduce and eventually all-but-eliminate the threat of military action. (If there's a different lesson they are likely to draw, not from the theory of sanctions but from the past behavior of western nations, please feel free to share it in the comments.)

I guess I'm just not seeing the benefit of pushing Iran to the point that it has nothing to lose by building nuclear weapons and demonstrating that it is a nuclear power. That's not the purpose of the sanctions, and I'm sure the proponents of layering misery upon misery on the Iranian people have somehow convinced themselves that "this time truly is different" and that the sanctions will "work", but at a certain point Iran will be left with nothing to lose by becoming a nuclear power - and potentially a lot to gain if it can remove a military threat from the equation. And I'm not sure how far we presently are away from that point.

Stating (And Missing) The Obvious

In an unsigned editorial, Fred Hiatt and his crew share this insight about North Korea:

There's debate over whether [inducements from China] would be useful in restarting diplomacy or unhelpful in easing the pressure that alone might someday spur a deal [on denuclearization of North Korea]. What's most likely is that it doesn't matter: that the North Korean regime will never give up its nuclear weapons, because it has nothing else -- no legitimacy at home or abroad. As in Iran, the problem is the regime more than the weapons. That's not an argument against engagement with Kim Jong Il any more than with the mullahs. It is an argument for clear-eyed engagement, though -- with a recognition that in the long run only a change in the nature of North Korea's government is likely to solve this problem.

And thus we create a circle - absent regime change, nations like North Korea and Iran will continue their nuclear weapons programs... because the possession of nuclear weapons pretty much ensures that they won't be invaded by the nations seeking to effect regime change. It's easy to cheer for regime change when you are speaking of one of the worst governments on the planet, but its not realistic to expect that sabre rattling will inspire North Korea to give up its nuclear program (or its chemical weapons, or its fortified conventional arsenal that's positioned to devastate Seoul in the event of a western attack).

But what if we achieve regime change? As Dan Larison frequently points out in relation to Iran, there's no reason to take on faith that a new regime will be any less interested in pursuing a nuclear weapons program, and there are plenty of reasons that have nothing to do with being "evil" that might impel a successor regime to continue its program.

Does Anne Applebaum Own a Map?

Seriously, Anne Applebaum posits the following:

The defining moment of [Barack Obama's] presidency may well come at 2 a.m. some day when he picks up the phone and is told that the Israeli prime minister is on the line: Israel has just carried out a raid on Iranian nuclear sites. What then?

Well, if his next move isn't to fire a whole lot of people who didn't wake him up sooner, I'm not sure what it would be. Seriously, is Applebaum picturing a Middle East with a vastly different geographic layout than the one she might find if she looked at a map, and also imagining an alternative history where the U.S. has no military presence in the Middle East or Persian Gulf?

Does Applebaum imagine that the Israeli bombers would get permission from Turkey to fly through its airspace for the bombing run, without the U.S. learning of the plan? Does she imagine fighter jets trying to fly to the north of Turkey, over the Black Sea, without the Russians noticing and with the permission of... say, Greece, Bulgaria, Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan... again securing the consent of those nations and without the U.S. finding out? Does she imagine that they'll fly over Jordan or Saudi Arabia, without the consent of those nations, then through Iraq, without the massive U.S. military force in Iraq looking up in the sky and saying, "Hey, those aren't our jets!" I can almost picture the pillow talk at the Applebaum mansion.

"Radoslaw, honey, is it realistic that Israel could bomb multiple targets in Iran, with the President not being able to do anything about it and not finding out until after the fact?"

"Anne, sweetie, that would be impossible - a neocon fantasy."

"I'm going to run with it anyway. Good thing that I write for the Washington Post editorial page."

Also, while I acknowledge that it's fun to imagine that every crisis in the world happens at 2:00 AM, Eastern Standard Time, you would think that by now Applebaum would be cognizant of the fact that the world has more than one time zone. Operation Opera, Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's nuclear facility, was launched at 8:55 AM EST, allowing President Reagan ample time to finish his breakfast and coffee before getting "the call".

No, the tough decision for the President would be to determine what U.S. fighter jets, scrambled to intercept Israel's bombers, should do.

It's fair to note that Applebaum isn't entirely ignorant of the 1981 raid, noting that Israel "had no qualms about sending eight jets to take out Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981". That, for what amounted to an unobstructed raid on a single, highly visible facility. How many fighter jets does she imagine Israel will deploy to strike only the most significant Iranian targets (that we know about) to bring about a significant setback in Iran's nuclear ambitions?

Good grief, if it were as simple as taking out a single, effectively undefended site in pre-war Iraq or Syria, with the worst consequence being a public lecture, it would be done already. Instead, again, take a look at that map. To Iran's immediate east, one country in which we're at war. To Iran's immediate west, another country with which we're at war. Applebaum is not so clueless that she doesn't hint at the consequence to the U.S. of an Israeli attack.

If that ever happened, then the 2 a.m. phone call would be followed by retaliation, some of which would be directed at us, our troops in Iraq, our ships at sea. I don't want this to happen - but I do want us to be prepared if it does.

So... she wants the U.S. fighter jets, scrambled in response to Israel's massive bombing run - probably half or more of Israel's air force overflying a NATO country or U.S.-controlled airspace without permission - to shoot down Israel's bombers? Or is she calling for a resigned acceptance - "If Israel sends 80 or more fighters and bombers across U.S.-controlled airspace, we have to let them through, even though it will severely undermine all of our diplomatic and military actions in the region, so let's plan for the post-attack world in which Iran is arming insurgent groups in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, is turning a blind eye to cross-border raids that severely strain or break the supply lines we use to support our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the possibility of other retaliation against U.S. targets around the world and the likelihood of having to invade Iran." No, what Applebaum appears to want is for the U.S. to first permit the attack and then to follow up by invading Iran.

But I do hope that this administration is ready, militarily and psychologically, not for a war of choice but for an unwanted war of necessity.

It's fair to ask, if Applebaum imagines that the invasion of Iran, which would be ruinous for our current war efforts and for the U.S. economy, is an inevitable consequence of what she admits will be a hit-or-miss Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites, what world does she live in where Israel's attack could be regarded as sane?

Meanwhile, a few column inches to the left, Richard Cohen ponders his navel lint and asks, "Is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad crazy like Adolf Hitler, or is he crazy like, of all people, Richard Nixon?" Typical of people who are either ignorant of Iran or who are dishonest about Iran, Cohen implies that Ahmadinejad somehow has his finger on a nuclear trigger - never mind that Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons or that Ahmadinejad has no control over the military. Since we're talking about Richard Cohen, I'm going to assume ignorance.

Let's skip right past the fact that the U.S. routinely attempts to paint as "crazy" the leaders of foreign nations that it wants to depose, or would otherwise prefer to be deposed. Which is not to say that we don't occasionally encounter world leaders who exhibit signs of mental illness or megalomania. Heck - over the centuries we've elected a few. Let's ignore the fact that there are politicians in this country, right now, who attempt to make political hay out of threats to attack Iran, and that Iranians could reasonably ask, "Was that old man, standing on a stage and signing 'bomb bomb bomb Iran' crazy, or merely pretending to be crazy?" What's his conclusion to his ramble on "Iran and the crazy factor"?

I have no idea whether Ahmadinejad merely acts crazy or is crazy.

Then why the [bleep] are you writing a column on the issue, rather than leaving the subject to somebody who actually knows something about Iran?

I do know, though, that Iran seems intent on getting nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. I also know that nothing the United States and its allies have done has dissuaded Ahmadinejad (or the mullahs or the Revolutionary Guard Corps) from his goal.

If you bypass Cohen's confusion about the power structure in Iran, his keen gift for stating the obvious shines through, once again. Yes, Iran is intent upon getting a nuclear weapon. Their investment in their nuclear program, and the manner in which they've spread the program out among numerous hardened sites, should clue pretty much anybody in to that fact. The most we can accomplish without going to war is to convince Iran not to have an overt nuclear weapons program - but they will continue their "nuclear energy" program and even a lawful, peaceful program will lead to a point where they're able to produce weapons grade uranium pretty much at will.

It's also obvious that two successive U.S. administrations have looked at the costs and benefits and have decided that the cost of a military intervention sufficient to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program vastly outweighs the benefit of such an attack. Cohen and Applebaum ask us to see the situation through Israeli eyes. Fair enough. But the U.S. and Israel are different countries with different goals for the region. It's easy for Cohen to sneer out an insult at those who recognize that fact:

Former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski even suggested that if Israel tried such a thing, the United States might have to back it down with force. The Brzezinski Doctrine is refreshing in its perverse boldness: We shoot our friends to defend our enemies.

Good grief, Richard, talk to your colleague. Is Cohen so stupid that he believes the U.S. is better served by potentially being drawn into a third war in the Middle East, against a much stronger enemy than we face in either Iraq or Afghanistan, with the likely consequence being that a decade of military and diplomatic efforts in the Middle East are wasted, than by making it clear to Israel that it won't permit an attack that could bring about that consequence? Because the only significant distinction between what Brzezinski suggests and what Applebaum concludes is that Brzezinski recognizes that the U.S. could prevent the Israeli attack, whereas Applebaum prefers to pretend that it could not while recognizing the parade of horribles that could easily follow the attack. Of the three, only Brzezinski addresses the reality of the situation. No, Richard, you moron: It's not about "shoot[ing] our friends to defend our enemies" - it's about forcing a friend to stand down when the consequence of its actions would be devastating to our military and diplomatic goals for the region, and potentially crippling to our economy if Applebaum is correct about the inevitability of expanding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars into Iran.
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Update: Brzezinski responds to Cohen:

I hope that Richard Cohen's characterization of my opposition to Israel's use of U.S.-controlled airspace over Iraq as a policy of "we shoot our friends to defend our enemies" is a case of unintentional or exuberant distortion. What I have said repeatedly is that an Israeli attack on Iran through U.S.-controlled airspace would make the United States complicit, and the United States would then become the target of Iranian retaliation.

That is why the United States should make it clear that its airspace is not available for a unilateral Israeli attack, and that a violation of it could lead to an incident reminiscent of the attack on the USS Liberty, about which I added "it is nothing to be wished for."

Exuberance would be an odd explanation. But unintentional? If there's an error, it would be in Cohen's reading of Brzezinski as suggesting that the U.S. might have a military alternative to allowing an Israeli attack to proceed, unimpeded, leading to his taking great offense at the U.S.S. Liberty reference.

The reference to the U.S.S. Liberty is unambiguously about a possible U.S.-Israel military confrontation - given the history of that incident, I don't see that any other interpretation is possible. It's possible that Brzezinski was worrying about what the U.S. might do if Israeli fighters lock radar on U.S. jets sent to intercept their bombers - does the U.S. stand down or do things potentially escalate into shooting. But the possibility of shooting appears to be what inspires his conclusion "it is nothing to be wished for."

This part could also be applied to Applebaum:

One should not lose sight of the larger issue involved in loose advocacy of an Israeli attack on Iran that would implicate the United States in an act of war. Those advocating such an attack not only overlook the fact that such an incident might be designed to draw the United States into war with Iran but, even worse, the fact that U.S. acquiescence would mean nothing less than abdicating to Israel the decision on whether to go to war. Such an abdication is hardly in America's interest, and it is not the way that decisions involving American lives should be made.

While We're Talking About Insults Directed at Obama....

Robert Kagan suggests that Obama is being "played" by Iran. The thesis here appears to be that we have three tools to use with Iran: diplomacy, sanctions, and war. And although Kagan is presently directing his insults at Obama, I expect he was equally derisive of Bush's choice of diplomacy. That said, Kagan's argument is silly.

Kagan doesn't believe that diplomacy will work, or in the alternative doesn't believe that a diplomatic solution will prevent Iran from continuing to advance a nuclear weapons program. I suspect that he's correct - that Iran will continue to work to develop nuclear weapons even if slowed by a diplomatic solution. But Kagan is willfully blind to the fact that sanctions could have a more pronounced effect - even if we could convince the rest of the world to go along with them - causing Iran to cast off any pretense that its nuclear program is about peaceful energy generation and to accelerate its nuclear weapons program.

But more to the point, as Kagan concedes, Russia is part of the game. How does Kagan propose that the U.S. could effectively sanction Iran without the cooperation of a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council? Unilaterally? By trying to get other nations to voluntarily team up with us, even as goods continue to flow into Iran through nations that are not cooperating?

Meanwhile, Iran plays an important role in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and as difficult as they can be they can make important contributions to stabilizing or destabilizing our efforts in those nations. If we cast aside diplomacy and unilaterally impose what amount to toothless sanctions, we not only risk making Iran seem tough - unafraid to stand up to the U.S., and unfazed by our sanctions - but we may jeopardize our progress in two major wars.

But really, Kagan is less interested with succeeding with non-military options than he is with forcing military action. He would be profoundly disappointed with a diplomatic success, but he would be ecstatic with a failure of sanctions - a failure that would take our two non-military options off the table. We would then be left with the choice of looking weak - folding our cards and walking away - or bombing Iran. Never mind that few think that bombing Iran will succeed in eliminating its nuclear program - while again allowing it to claim to have stood up to U.S. aggression.

The question is thus much less "Is Obama being played [by Iran]" than it is whether Kagan and friends can successfully play Obama. So far, despite considerable effort, they appear to have failed. I somehow don't think that Obama's so insecure that Kagan's swipe at him will have any effect. And, despite the possibility that Iran will continue to develop nuclear weapons despite the present round of agreements, that's a good thing. (For goodness sake, if this type of attack by the likes of Kagan didn't work on Bush, why would he expect them to work on Obama?)

But What About North Korea?

A contributor to the Times is concerned that the Bush Administration is dropping the ball on North Korea:

For a while, the drumbeat in Washington has been that the so-called six-party talks are going well and the North Korean nuclear program is well on its way to being contained. If only that were true.

In fact, the Kim Jong-il regime is getting exactly what it wants and using American hunger for diplomatic success to split us from our most important regional allies in the process. If this were high-stakes poker, the North Koreans would be biting their lips to hide their smiles at the cards in their hands.

The Bush Administration has "hunger for diplomatic success"? If anything, they're looking for cover for their Iran strategy - an answer to the question, "Why Iran, and not North Korea?"

Nuclear Pandering

Our government has a tendency to inflate petty despots into insane megalomaniacs who pose an immediate threat to the United States. This phenomenon isn't unique to the U.S.. When the facts are finally known, the "dangerous madmen" depicted in Congressional hearings and the media usually turn out to be far less fearsome.

One of our current "madmen" is Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom we pretend is in full control of the country and itching to attack Israel. We're supposedly not sure that the Iranians are rational or deterrable¹ - never mind that the nation has no contemporary history of aggressive war against its neighbors. Their actual contribution to regional instability? They fund terrorist organizations and seek to expand Shia Islam in the Arab world.

But they have a nuclear weapons program, and they desire nuclear weapons. Is that, of itself, "insane"? Hardly. It's entirely rational to want nuclear weapons when your global and regional adversaries have nuclear weapons. It's entirely rational to want nuclear weapons when you are being threatened with attack or invasion. It's entirely rational to want nuclear weapons when they will elevate your status as a regional power. From our standpoint, to put it mildly, the outcome is undesirable, but can you truly pretend that you don't understand why Iran would view a nuclear arsenal as a very good thing to possess?²

What benefits would nuclear weapons offer to Iran in an aggressive war? Let's look at Iran's neighbors. Turkey? Even if we were to dream up some sort of benefit in their trying, they're not going to invade a NATO member state. Iraq? Right now, "that's us" - they're not going to attack U.S. occupied Iraq, and it appears that by the time we leave (assuming we ever do) they will by all appearances enjoy a friendly, Shiite government in Baghdad. Pakistan? Again, to what end. And Pakistan's already a nuclear power, so getting nukes doesn't give Iran any special advantage. Afghanistan? As with Iraq, "that's us." Well, gee... I guess that leaves the oh-so-desirable targets of Turkmenistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan? Or will anti-Iranian hawks soon be dreaming up "the Iranian Armada", comprised of thousands of ships ready to set sail for Saudi Arabia?

But we live in an age of pandering, and that's not advanced by defeating the idea that Iranians are not wholly irrational beings, bent on self-destruction, and intending to launch a nuclear attack on Israel the moment they have their first low-yield nuclear bomb. That image of Iran also provides candidates with the opportunity for a bit of chest-thumping, "I'm so ready to 'push the button'" machismo. Case in point? Hillary Clinton.

Clinton’s remarks, made in an interview on MSNBC’s “Countdown With Keith Olbermann,” clarified a statement she made last week in a Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia. In that debate, Clinton, D-N.Y., said an Iranian attack on Israel would bring “massive retaliation,” without defining what the phrase meant.

In the interview Monday, Clinton affirmed that she would warn Iran’s leaders that “their use of nuclear weapons against Israel would provoke a nuclear response from the United States.”

I recognize that there are people who lap this sort of stuff up, and I apologize in advance to you if you're one of them. This is reckless, shameful pandering. First, its idiotic to presuppose that Israel needs the U.S. to provide nuclear deterrence. Israel has been a nuclear power for decades, and is generally regarded as having about two hundred high yield nuclear weapons. There aren't even two hundred viable nuclear targets in Iran. While nuclear nutters like to giggle about "turning the desert to glass", once you hit Iran's thirty or so population centers (and that includes some cities barely above 100,000 people) that's pretty much all that's left to do.

So, following the fanciful, suicidal attack by Iran we have two scenarios - Israel demonstrates nuclear restraint in response to an attack, perhaps focusing on military targets and infrastructure while avoiding civilian centers, and Clinton nonetheless cries, "Let loose the missiles!" Or Israel destroys every population center in Iran and Clinton cries, "Everybody's dead, but some of that desert isn't glass yet! Let the missiles fly!" Which of those images does Clinton believe makes her look good?

Oh, I know, we're not actually supposed to think it through.

The funny part? (And I mean "funny sad" not "funny ha ha".) She didn't even stop there. Now we're also threatening Iran with attack if it attacks another nation in the region. Now she may correct me, but I'm not aware of an actual Iranian armada, so as discussed above it's a bit hard to imagine what nation Iran might suddenly decide to invade. Or is it nuke? "It's been such a boring week - let's nuke somebody... Hey, what about Jordan?"

Clinton said it was vital that the United States create a new “security umbrella” to reassure Israel and its other allies in the region that they would not be threatened by Iran. She said she would tell them that “if you were the subject of an unprovoked nuclear attack by Iran, the United States, and hopefully our NATO allies, would respond to that.”

That's a more sensible policy than Clinton gave for an attack on Israel. If Iran were to attack one of our allies, Iran could expect a broad military response with "all options" implicitly on the table. Yet it further highlights the absurdity of her position in relation to Israel - we'll threaten Iran with nuclear annihilation if it attacks a country that has at least a generational lead on Iran's military, and that can presently turn Iran into a smear? But we're going to be more circumspect if Iran launches a nuclear attack against one of our other regional allies? Without asking if Iran might do that, exploring why Iran might do that, or whether getting involved in the conflict would serve our strategic interests?

With due respect to Clinton's nominal goal of assuring other states in the region that they don't need their own nuclear weapons programs, we can persuade our allies in the region of that by continuing arms sales and threatening to stop those sales or cut back on aid money if they initiate nuclear weapons programs. The other nations in the Middle East probably won't be listening to us.
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1. On the question, Hillary Clinton notes that some believe Iran is "not deterrable, that they somehow have a different mindset and a worldview that might very well lead the leadership to be willing to become martyrs. I don't buy that, but I think we have to test it." I'll give her credit for her qualified rejection of that belief, although it makes you wonder why she finds it necessary to articulate her "nuke 'em 'till they glow" policy.

2. I am giving due consideration to the NIE assessment suggesting that Iran has no active nuclear weapons program. But they nonetheless have an expanding nuclear program and by all appearances aspire to possess nuclear weapons.

Non-Proliferation Silliness

Charles Krauthammer today suggests how we can keep North Korea from proliferating nuclear weapons:

This is how you keep Kim Jong Il from proliferating. Make him understand that his survival would be hostage to the actions of whatever terrorist group he sold his weapons to. Any terrorist detonation would be assumed to have his address on it. The United States would then return postage. Automaticity of this kind concentrates the mind.

This policy has a hitch, however. It works only in a world where there is but a single rogue nuclear state. Once that club expands to two, the policy evaporates, because a nuclear terror attack would no longer have a single automatic return address.

Given Pakistan's proliferation of nuclear technology, including the sale of technology to North Korea, doesn't that caveat make this proposal a non-starter? (Would he have us assume that such technology sales will never happen again?)

Further, why should we automatically assume North Korean involvement when our technology allows us to pinpoint the source of plutonium used even after a nuclear blast? Attacking North Korea for a different nation's carelessness with or sale of its nuclear technology offers no deterrent value whatsoever.

Also, what are we going to do to North Korea? There are perfectly valid reasons why, as Krauthammer previously acknowledged, the U.S. doesn't want to launch "a second Korean War", let alone one which would "presumably [involve] in-kind nuclear retaliation". I'm sure South Korea and China would be thrilled with that proposal.

Am I the only one who scratches his head a bit when people who tell us how horrible it would be if a "rogue nation" obtained nuclear weapons don't even take a breath before arguing that it would be an appropriate military response to "nuke the desert to glass" or "nuke their country into a parking lot" if they cross certain lines? I didn't hear that particular argument from Krauthammer in response to "what if Iraq uses biological weapons or poison gas against U.S. troops" - apparently for him somebody must actually use nuclear weapons before a nuclear response should be "presumed". But I still have this vision of him sitting on the bomb as it falls from the sky, waving his cowboy hat in the air.

Even a Flat Earth Has Speedbumps

Today, safely behind the firewall, Thomas Friedman laments that the "post-cold war" seemingly ended two days ago, with North Korea's test of a nuclear bomb. Dare I ask, where has he been for the last five years?

This post-post-cold-war era will be defined by three new features — if things continue as they are. First is a nuclear Asia, triggered by North Korea’s flaunting of its nuclear weapons. How long will Japan, Taiwan and South Korea remain nonnuclear with Kim Jong-il brandishing his bomb? Second is a nuclear Middle East. Iran is almost certain to follow North Korea’s lead, and once the Shiite Persians in Iran have the bomb, how long will it be before the Sunni Arabs in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, even Syria have one too? Third is a disintegrating Iraq in the heart of the Arab world, with its destabilizing impact on oil prices and terrorism.

Okay... for that "first" thing, giving all due consideration to the fact that I may have been looking at a globe as opposed to a flat map, to this point I had been under the impression that India and Pakistan were in Asia. That India went nuclear first, inspiring Pakistan to follow its lead. And in terms of nuclear proliferation, I had been under the impression that Pakistan has had a thing or two to do with the spread of nuclear weapons technology, including to North Korea. So in the post-cold war area in which Friedman sees India as a leader in peaceful economic development, he should also consider its role in expanding the "nuclear club" and in undermining non-proliferation. It's not a question of whether we trust India with the bomb, are suspicious of Pakistan, and are aghast at the notion of of a nuclear-armed North Korea. It's a matter of whether or not we truly stand for nuclear non-proliferation.

That's where point two comes in. If Iran develops nuclear arms, Friedman argues, it's only a matter of time before the other Arab states get them as well. As if it's that easy, particularly now that Pakistan's leading nuclear scientist no longer selling its arms technology. Friedman neglects to mention the elephant in the living room - the one nation in the Middle East with nuclear weapons technology - or the complicity of the U.S. in helping it become a nuclear power with some of the most advanced nuclear weapons in the world. But no... it couldn't be that Iran, Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia would want nuclear weapons because Israel has them. I'm sure that doesn't even occur to them - it's all about keeping up with Iran.

The point again isn't whether or not we trust Israel with nuclear weapons more than we would trust any other Middle Eastern nation with them. We obviously, and quite reasonably, do. But if we are going to pretend that a non-nuclear Middle East is necessary to maintain peace for that region and for the world, and if we're going to acknowledge that nations will attempt to develop nuclear arms if a regional adversary already possesses nuclear arms, we can't ignore Israel. Just as you can't be "a little bit pregnant", you can't be "a little bit for non-proliferation". We either have proliferation or we don't. Friedman's implicit defense to why it's okay for Israel, Pakistan and India to possess nukes, but not North Korea or Iran, seems to be "that's different". And you know what? There are very real facts which make it different, and make their possession of nuclear arms less of a present or probable future threat, but it's still proliferation.

Friedman also proposes a solution... for Iran and North Korea.

Unless China and Russia get their act together and understand that the post-post-cold-war world is a much bigger threat to their prosperity than a post-cold-war world in which U.S. power is pre-eminent. You read me right — the post-cold-war world can be preserved only if Russia and China get over their ambivalence about U.S. power and if the Bush team gets over its ambivalence about Iran and North Korea.

How so? The U.S. is sanctioned out when it comes to Iran and North Korea. We don’t have any more unilateral sanctions with which to pressure either regime to halt its nuclear adventure. The only countries that could have an impact on North Korea and Iran are China and Russia.

Unfortunately, Mr. Friedman is not able to articulate a plan to save Iraq.

In Mr. Friedman's "flat" world, it would appear that he believes national interests are also "flat" - that is, he seems to believe that all nations fear equally the prospect of a nuclear armed North Korea, and that all nations have an equal interest in preventing North Korea and Iran from gaining nuclear weapons technology. He may be pretty close to correct with regard to North Korea, but I'm not so sure about Iran. Also, while Mr. Friedman depicts Europe as spineless for not already joining the U.S. in its sanctions against Iran, exactly what is he proposing? At one moment he's lamenting that disruptions in the world's oil supply are bringing an end to the post-cold war era. In the next he seems to be proposing an embargo against Iranian oil. Or perhaps he has a clever (yet secret) plan to have the world continue to buy Iranian oil, yet somehow preventing Iran from spending its cash.

Let's give Friedman his wish - we'll pretend that diplomacy and national interests are now flat, and that Russia and China see nuclear-armed Iran and North Korea in the same light as does the United States. Mr. Friedman uses the term "sanctions" as if it represents a magic bullet - but how often do they actually work? And what sanctions could conceivably work against a nation like North Korea?

Nuclear Deterrence

Lawyers, Guns and Money points to an interesting blog post and article on the subject of nuclear deterrence - and how the U.S. military may no longer actually be deterred by the arsenals of other nuclear powers.

Attack on Iran

The Volokh Conspiracy's David Bernstein predicts that Israel will attack Iran within the next few months:

Given that the anti-Iranian consensus is so solid even on the Left, I would be very surprised if the Israeli government fails to follow through on its promise to prevent Iran from acquiring atomic weapons--assuming, of course, that Iran isn't stopped by other international forces.

If he is correct, it would seem that any such military venture would be for the benefit of popular opinion within Israel, not for any legitimate defensive purpose. And it would likely backfire.

Let me explain. Almost twenty-five years ago, Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program which Israel eliminated with a single air strike. Iran has been slower to get into the nuclear weapons game, but they paid attention to Iraq's experience and have structured a program that is by all accounts dispersed across the country (declared sites as of November, 2003). There is no single site to hit, and even successful strikes on several facilities may have little impact on the overall weapons program. I expect that Iran has also been calculating in putting some key facilities in densely populated areas, such that any strike against their weapons facility would likely result in significant casualties to civilians. (Followed, no doubt, by "video footage" of those facilities analogous to Iraq's "you attacked our baby milk factory" claims from the first Gulf War.)

Any significant loss of life to Iranian civilians would be used as a rallying cry against Israel throughout the Muslim world. Any strike at all would be used first as a basis to declare that the attack was an offensive failure (whatever the reality) and second as a justification for the necessity of a defensive nuclear weapons program.

Iran is engaged in a form of oil diplomacy, whereby it is forging economic relationships with Russia, India and China which would likely make it impossible to get any authorization for sanctions, let alone for military action, from the UN Security Council. Even if military action were authorized it is not clear how it could be effective - the U.S. is strained already in its occupation of Iraq, and no other nation is up to the task of invading, disarming, and occupying Iran (even assuming a nation were willing). Unfortunately, I am not sure that there is an answer to the problem of Iran's developing nuclear weapons.

Iran's Nuclear Intentions

Iran has now effectively made formal its determination to develop nuclear weapons. ("Not exactly a surprise.")

Going Nuclear Over Iran, Revisited

A few months ago, I wrote what I thought was pretty obvious (so no pats on the back for my prescience):

While Iran, which is high on the Bush Administration's list for "preventive" intervention, probably does fear military consequence, it is no doubt aware that the U.S. military is in no position to simultaneously occupy both Iraq and Iran. I fully expect it to exploit that fact, and to attempt to complete its nuclear weapons program under the noses of the IAEA inspectors, such that it can be relatively certain of deterring any future U.S. invasion.

If you have been following the news lately, it has become apparent that pretty much every promise Iran made about its nuclear program, and how it was peaceful and intended only for electricity, was false. Now, according to Jim Hoagland, diplomats are hoping for a resolution that might prevent Iran from assembling the pieces of its atomic arsenal, such that it only lacks nuclear weapons in the most technical of senses:

Agreeing to live with an Iran that is a screwdriver's turn away from the bomb would be a bitter pill to swallow. It would accommodate a charter member of President Bush's "axis of evil" and a sworn mortal enemy of Israel. And it would undermine the goals and terms of global nonproliferation agreements that aim at halting the spread of nuclear weapons technologies to nations that do not now possess them.

Hoagland compares this situation to Pakistan, which delayed assembling and testing its nuclear arsenal for almost ten years, at which time "exploded its first device nine years later to respond to India's nuclear testing".

Personally, I don't think that Iran will forestall assembly for a decade. I think that at best Iran will delay assembly to ensure that no military strike against its nuclear facilities is imminent, and possibly until it is relatively sure that its nuclear devices can be adequately delivered by its missiles, and then to assemble, test, and declare itself a nuclear power. I won't be patting myself on the back for that prediction, either, should it become true - I think that the hope that Iran can be convinced to abandon, scale back, or delay its nuclear weapons development in any real sense is mere wishful thinking.

Political Reality and Pakistan

So a Pakistani nuclear scientist and "national hero", who for years has openly lived in a manner far beyond his means, has "surprised" his government by admitting that he sold nuclear weapons technology to states including Iran, North Korea and Libya - but has reassured the government that he acted alone, and nobody in the government or military was aware of his actions. The Pakistani cabinet has recommended that he be pardoned, and the Bush Administration does not appear to be pressing for a full investigation or trial.

Does anybody really believe that this scandal doesn't run most of the way, if not all of the way, to the top of Pakistan's military and political hierarchies? "Wink wink, nudge nudge" is okay, if we deem the nation engaged in atrocious proliferation of the most dangerous weapons technology known to man as a "friend" in the "war on terror"? Or is it that they only sold the technology to two of the three nations in Bush's "Axis of Evil", and it only counts if you "hit the trifecta".

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