{"id":1003,"date":"2006-02-16T01:15:54","date_gmt":"2006-02-16T01:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:09:34","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:09:34","slug":"iran_2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=1003","title":{"rendered":"Iran ^2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trent is positive that Iran has or will shortly have<\/a> one or more working nuclear weapons, and that they will test them soon (within months) and then blackmail us with those tests.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll skip over the notion that his position represents the absolute-worst case possibility, and that there are much higher-probability states for the situation, that no one who is likely to know is acting like this is true, and that the actors most likely to know \u2013 and act \u2013 the Israelis \u2013 haven\u2019t acted.<\/p>\n

So I don\u2019t see a lot of evidence that supports his case.His specific claim as I read it is that Iran has bought fissile materials, or a working bomb from the Norks, and that they are likely to test it this spring or summer.<\/p>\n

Again, a possibility, but not a probability much less a certainty, and I\u2019d suggest that we\u2019d see Israeli action \u2013 diplomatic and military \u2013 if they believed it to be the case.<\/p>\n

So I don\u2019t think it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

Having said that, let me take it to another level \u2013 what difference does it make?<\/p>\n

Trent doesn\u2019t have a specific set of actions he proposes in his post, so I\u2019m assuming he\u2019s simply echoing what Tom H or Joe suggested a while ago \u2013 that we invade or bomb Iran.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ll reply now, as I did then \u2013 \u2018then what?\u2019 Because the issue simply isn\u2019t going to solved by defeating Iran alone, and alone we don\u2019t have the power to defeat \u2013 as opposed to kill \u2013 everyone we\u2019d have to defeat in order to make the problem go away.<\/p>\n

We know for a fact that the Iranians have an interest in getting a bomb; they have said so<\/a>. We believe that they are taking actions in the direction of researching and developing<\/a> nuclear weapons capability. We know for a fact that they are taking actions<\/a> that would support making a bomb \u2013 in the form of enrichment, at minimum.<\/p>\n

So pretty much anyone reasonable is aware of the direction things are taking. I\u2019m going to put aside the folks who take the Iranian claims at face value \u2013 I flat don\u2019t believe that they are entering into a nuclear enrichment program solely for peaceful purposes. There are substantial differences between the \u201cit doesn\u2019t matter if they get a bomb” group and the \u201cit\u2019s better to go to war than let them get a bomb” group, and those differences are well worth exploring \u2013 another time.<\/p>\n

Right now, the issue is what to do to keep from getting to that crossroads, and there\u2019s a simple question I\u2019ll toss out. If you were Iran, and you had three nuclear weapons, what would you do with them?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I\u2019d do.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d put them in cargo containers, after a lot of driving and shuffling around, and ship them to Rotterdam, Haifa, and Los Angeles. And I\u2019d set them off.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019d do it while there\u2019s still a lot of doubt about my ability to build a bomb, so I could deny it.<\/p>\n

Iran gets nothing for a test except a war. What else would Europe, Israel, and the US do? And Saudi Arabia would be happy to see it happen \u2013 just as they were happy to see the US invade Iraq.<\/p>\n

The only defendable position (i.e. position that leads to stalemate) for Iran is one where, like France, they acquire a nuclear weapons capability strong enough to really sting an opponent \u2013 France\u2019s \u2018force de frappe<\/i>\u2019 was meant to allow them to deter a Soviet invasion by plausibly hitting the Soviet Union with 10 or more hydrogen bombs \u2013 on a mix of manned bombers and SLBM\u2019s. At that point, they have the equivalent of the Israeli \u2018Samson option.\u2019 Until Iran gets that capability, they can\u2019t realistically deter foreign invasion with a conventional nuclear capability. By conventional, I mean \u2018acknowledged\u2019 as in the French nuclear forces which are acknowledged to be a part of the French military. <\/p>\n

An unconventional nuclear capability \u2013 one that can put hard-to-trace nukes in shipping containers or trucks that can be driven across borders \u2013 is a time-limited opportunity for them as well, because once you obviously appear have the capability to build bombs, you\u2019ll get blamed for them anyway. If nukes go off in Red Hook next week, it\u2019s not out of the realm of possibility that they\u2019ll be going off in North Korea and possibly Iran shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n

So the wall they have to climb to get to \u2018stalemate\u2019 is a tall and steep one. They\u2019re not nearly there yet, and won\u2019t be this year.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not suggesting that this problem \u2013 of a hostile theocracy working to obtain nuclear weapons \u2013 isn\u2019t incredibly serious. I\u2019m not suggesting that the click isn\u2019t ticking. I am suggesting that it unlikely that the breakout will consist of saber-rattling in the form of a test, followed by demands (and I\u2019ll suggest that the war in Iraq is part of the reason why \u2013 they know we have the will to invade), and most of all what I\u2019m suggesting is that the actions we need to take in a matter of months don\u2019t involve mobilizing troops, but recruiting and training them.<\/p>\n

Today, we only have five levels of options: diplomacy, sanctions, bombing, invasion, and nuclear attack.<\/p>\n

Trent, Tom<\/a>, and Joe<\/a> are pushing for moving ahead toward levels 3 & 4. I\u2019m suggesting we move up option no. 5, put some clear tripwires around it in the sense of \u2018if a bomb goes off in New York, you\u2019re getting bombed\u2019 while we work hard on 1 and 2 and build a stronger base for 3 & 4.<\/p>\n

We have to deter them \u2013 if that\u2019s possible \u2013 from a nuclear terrorist strike, not prevent a nuclear test.<\/p>\n

This is a scary time, for sure.<\/p>\n

But, to recap what I said<\/a> when we discussed this before:<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s remember that Iran is 30 minutes away from becoming a sheet of glass at our command. That power is real, and gives us both the space to maneuver and the responsibility to use it wisely.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Armed Liberal is doubtful about Trent’s claim that we’ll see a test in Iran this spring or summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}