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Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Nuking Iran, Or Just Bombing: Will They Or Won't They?

Sy Hersh's article about the Iran War planning this weekend has set the Kremlinologists of the blogosphere and the online media to speculating already on the possibilities.

Jim Lobe (Psy-War or Serious? Washington Mulls Iran Attack Inter Press Service 04/10/06) breaks out the three basic ones: it's a bluff to get movement on diplomatic solutions; they're seriously intending to do it; or, Iran hawks are pressuring the administration hard but Bush is committed to war yet.

He quotes Iran expert Gary Sick:

"Although they may be reckless with the security of the United States, I think they are utterly cold-blooded realists when it comes to political power," noted Gary Sick, an Iran policy expert at Columbia University, who sees the latest reports and threats by senior administration officials as an effort to intimidate Tehran.

"(O)ne of their strongest negotiating tools is the widespread belief that they are irrational and capable of the most irresponsible actions. That is their record, so they have no need to invent it. If they can use that reputation to keep Iran - and everybody else - off balance, so much the better," he added, noting, however, that if that analysis is correct, "there is always the huge danger of miscalculation and accident".

On the other hand, that "cold-blooded realism" badly miscalculated on questions of political power in Iraq, and on the United States ability to impose it's will on Iraq and the international community. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon in their 2005 book The Next Attack wrote about that very paradox.

They observed:

One of the enduring mysteries about the postwar period in Iraq is why experienced, unsentimental practitioners of international politics such as Dick Cheney would believe that postwar Iraq would be a calm, relatively problematic place.

The persuasiveness of the Iraqi scamster and embezzler and Iranian spy Ahmed Chalabi is certainly one big reason, as they explain. The lack of sentimentality among Cheney and the rest of the Bush crew does not necessarily translate into pragmatic realism in foreign affairs. We can hope it will in the case of Iran.

But I tend to react to Hersh's report like Eric Alterman did:

Isn’t it about time we all stopped underestimating these people? Bush called [Hersh's report] "wild speculation." What was it called when anyone speculated that Cheney, much less Bush might be behind the anti-Plame leak ...?

And I was talking to a former Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East (under a Republican administration) last night at a cocktail party and his position on Hersh was, "Who the hell knows with these people?" It could be a bluff, as it would be with any sensible, remotely responsible administration, but then again, if they want to inspire countless terrorist attacks against the United States and kill all these people, a little thing like reality is not going to stop them. (I paraphrase.)

Fred Kaplan in Slate (Are We Really Going To Nuke Iran? Decoding our options 04/10/06) breaks down the possible interpretations into more variations than Jim Lobe does. Kaplan frames the issue this way:

Is this for real? Is President Bush or anyone else in a position of power truly, seriously thinking about dropping nuclear bombs on a country that poses no direct threat to the United States, possesses no nuclear weapons of its own, and isn't likely to for at least a few years? Pre-emptive war—attacking a country to keep it from attacking us or an ally — is sometimes justifiable. Preventive war — attacking a country to keep it from developing a capability to attack an ally sometime in the future — almost never is. And preventive war waged with nuclear weapons is (not to put too fine a spin on it) crazy.

Although it's a useful way to frame the issue, he seems to be a little careless on the terms, which are more than political labels. "Pre-emptive" war in international law is a legitimate act to forestall and imminent threat. "Preventive" war is a war of aggression against a nation that is no imminent threat. To say "preventive" war "almost never" is justified is not wrong; but the only way it can be legitimate in international law is if it's authorized by the UN Security Council. I know today's Republicans take pride in sneering at international law. But it's part of the reality of our world, one that the Bush Doctrine takes far too little account of.

Would Bush be crazy enough to attack Iran now? Paul Krugman in his latest column says, Yes He Would New York Times 04/10/06. He writes:

"But he wouldn't do that." That sentiment is what made it possible for President Bush to stampede America into the Iraq war and to fend off hard questions about the reasons for that war until after the 2004 election. Many people just didn't want to believe that an American president would deliberately mislead the nation on matters of war and peace.

Now people with contacts in the administration and the military warn that Mr. Bush may be planning another war. The most alarming of the warnings come from Seymour Hersh, the veteran investigative journalist who broke the Abu Ghraib scandal. Writing in The New Yorker, Mr. Hersh suggests that administration officials believe that a bombing campaign could lead to desirable regime change in Iran - and that they refuse to rule out the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

"But he wouldn't do that," say people who think they're being sensible. Given what we now know about the origins of the Iraq war, however, discounting the possibility that Mr. Bush will start another ill-conceived and unnecessary war isn't sensible. It's wishful thinking. ...

Does this sound far-fetched? It shouldn't. Given the combination of recklessness and dishonesty Mr. Bush displayed in launching the Iraq war, why should we assume that he wouldn't do it again?

Military analyst William Arkin is clearly taking it seriously:

If truth be told, the nuclear impossibilities identified a decade ago still hold: There is no plausible scenario to describe nuclear use, there is no way to incorporate nuclear weapons into military strategies, nuclear weapons might appear to be trump cards but in limited use they in fact have little influence on outcomes on the ground.

Iran war gaming [during the Clinton administration] faded as Bosnia and Kosovo and other, um, issues, took more of the Clinton administration's attention. But to think today that the gamers put nukes away is naïve, and to think that nuclear weapons don't play a role in the Bush administration's strategy is wildly wrong. (my emphasis)

What Arkin refers to in the first paragraph I just quoted is the sane conclusion that virtually all nuclear strategists and theorists have come to since Hiroshima and Nagasaki: there is no plausible scenarios that make nukes usuable at an acceptable risk level. The problem is that the neoconservative, the Richard Perles of the world, come from the tiny school of thought among those theorists who refused to give up on the dream of using nukes.

Arkin also wrote prior to the Hersh article:

Isn't it just a little transparent that a drumbeat of stories about the Iranian "threat" has begun?

In the world of threat manufacture, Iran has all the ingredients: a WMD-seeking, terrorist-sponsoring, military threat of a regime. With its torpedoes and naval mines and small boats and coastal artillery, Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz where a fifth of the world's oil transits daily. Iran could shoot its missiles at U.S. bases and oil refineries in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. Iran's agents would attack at home. Iran is thought to already possess chemical and biological weapons. Iranian nuclear weapons, or so the story goes, lurk in the future.

No wonder to many in the administration, in the military, and in the Washington world of brilliant minds, armed confrontation with Iran is the necessary next step in the war against terrorism.

Finally, Josh Marshall, who backed the idea of going to war again Iraq almost the beginning of the invasion in 2003, seems to be in a "won't get fooled again" mode. Referring to Hersh's article, he writes:

But if true, it suggests that our nation's fate is again in the grip of George W. Bush's grandiosity. And if so, no eventuality is too far-fetched. Nothing can be ruled out.

And in an earlier post, he said of the idea that it might be a bluff to back up peaceful diplomacy:

With any other administration, I'd agree with that. Hinting at a potential military option would actually make sense as a backdrop to serious diplomatic discussions. It would make sense for an administration that wanted a diplomatic solution.

But this isn't any administration. This is an administration that demonstrated in a fairly analogous situation a preference for war over diplomatic solutions. So the 'threats as a way to spur diplomatic flexibility' argument makes perfect sense in the abstract. But there's no reason to assume it applies to this situation.

For myself, I still find it really, really hard to believe that the adminstration is seriously considering military action against Iran. At one level, I don't believe it. But I've thought the same thing with these guys too many times and been wrong. It's a situation where I set logical analysis aside and rely on experience and the administration's track record.

We know these guys. Why get fooled again?

A very good question.

posted at 10:43:00 PM by Bruce Miller

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