Iran, Its Nukes, and Iraq
Jeffrey Lewis argues persuasively that the end of Iran’s nuclear program was an act of bureaucratic sabotage by regime moderates — he even made the case back in 2005. According to his “death by reorg” theory, ongoing negotiations with the EU allowed Iranian moderates to put nuclear decisions into a new institutional framework where hardliners lacked power.
If I were to hit my head on something and wake up with a newfound respect for the competence and good faith of my fellow humans, I might infer that the bureaucratic obstructionists on each side had carried the day in a semi-coordinated maneuver. It sounds like the new estimate evolved over time, and that the administration has had time to think through how to play this revelation, and how to turn it into leverage in Iraq:
One of the senior U.S. intelligence officials who discussed the matter cautioned against concluding that a single piece of information, or “Rosetta stone,” had surfaced. Instead, the officials pointed to a number of developments, including Tehran’s decision to allow foreign journalists to visit the country’s nuclear facility at Natanz last summer.
In a DOD briefing from Iraq yesterday, the briefing officer was asked about the nature of IEDs that his unit has faced, and how many were EFPs of possible Iranian origin. He unequivocally denied encountering any, and described the enemy’s munitions as leftovers from the Saddam era.
If the forces of inertia on each side have actually engineered progress on Iranian nukes and Iraq at the same time, my hat is off to them.
It hasn’t.
Iran has been engaged in low-level to high-level warfare with us since 1979. This includes “moderates” like Rafsanjani who personally approved Khobar Towers and the Buenos Aires bombings.
Iran probably already HAS nukes (bought off the shelf from North Korea) and will likely have more. It’s easy to spot the Hanford Reactor raw material production systems (like Natanz). It’s almost impossible without go-anywhere inspectors to spot production of nuclear weapons (ala Los Alamos). Gun type uranium nukes (aka Little Boy) are easy to manufacture, Oppenheimer did not even bother to test. They don’t fit on ICBMs though and are inefficient and fragile. The plutonium type (Fat Man) bombs require difficult precision machining of deadly toxic plutonium (which undergoes 17 phase state changes) and precision explosive “lenses” to focus the implosion. Plus of course precision fuses.
These are difficult things to do, but not impossible and you don’t need huge facilities to make them. A couple of warehouses will do.
The raw materials Iran already has through it’s “civilian” program — and has turned down Russian offers of fuel that cannot be used for nuclear weapons.
To think that Iran would turn down nuclear weapons (stated policy of Khomeni onwards for nearly 30 years) is foolish. Particularly when it’s advantages — it can do what it wants without any US leverage whatsoever — are clear. Iran need not fear the US at all if it say, gives Hezbollah nukes to attack Tel Aviv. Or Washington DC. Or threatens Paris with nukes on behalf of French Muslims. Or invades Iraq or Afghanistan or across the Gulf. Nukes give the regime a shield from which they can operate on any aggressive level.
Plus there are no downsides to nukes. North Korea, Pakistan, India, Israel, and South Africa did not suffer at all from having them. To the contrary it made them “un-defeatable” in that no matter what, they never faced complete military disaster.
I’m afraid you’re engaging in wishful thinking. The NIE is all about providing cover for weak-on-Iran Dems. Iran is constantly boasting of wiping Israel off the Map, and attacking America. They certainly would not do so if they did not already have nukes. Very likely their first test of their own devices will come 18-24 mos out at most.
[CIA predicted India would be decades away a few months before their first test, repeated that fiasco with Pakistan.]
— Jim Rockford · Dec 5, 12:35 AM · #
“Iran has been engaged in low-level to high-level warfare with us since 1979. “
Ah.
And when the United States deposed the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran in 1953, was that an act of war? When we supplied Saddam Hussein with massive amounts of munitions and abetted his vicious invasion of Iran, were we waging war on them, then? The United States is responsible for the second reign of the Shah, a horrifically brutal dictator. The crimes he visited against his people are massive, and we are responsible for them. Is that warfare?
It is a principal of the most basic morality that you should concentrate on your own sins before you concentrate on those of others.
— Freddie · Dec 5, 01:30 AM · #
If Matt’s right, today was an incredibly good day for the world.
— Reihan · Dec 5, 04:22 AM · #
We assisted middle class merchant elements, who were ticked off at Mossadeq’s really stupid nationalization gambit, and religious elements
who found the pure secularism of Mossadeq’s allies in the Tudeh off putting. That was why Kim Roosevelt’s plan worked. Ironically, under pressure from Kennedy, the Shah embarked on the “White revolution” of
land reform, which undermined those same merchants, and other aspects
that ticked off those same religious authorities. The turnstile succession of regimes in 1970s Afghanistan faced the same problems, leading to the resistance by the likes of Ismail Khan that ultimately provoked the Russina intervention. I ask you a question Freddie, when one seizes a foreign embassy, which is in point of fact, that country’s own territory ; is that an act of war? When one contracts another party like
Hezbollah to blow up an Embassy in another country is that na act of war.?
When that same government directs a hit against a Jewish community center
and a foreign embassy in a third country to the conflict, is that an act
of war?
— narciso · Dec 5, 04:31 AM · #
“If Matt’s right, today was an incredibly good day for the world.”
Damn straight.
— Freddie · Dec 5, 01:18 PM · #
“I ask you a question Freddie, when one seizes a foreign embassy, which is in point of fact, that country’s own territory ; is that an act of war?”
Sure. This is another element of basic morality that is lost on people like yourself: the fact that other people do bad things does not end your moral obligation. Same thing with nations. See?
— Freddie · Dec 5, 01:22 PM · #
The games of state are the games of state and have nothing to do with some immature-naive view of the world-if I spent ten minutes describing the awesome horrors the US performed in WWII it would make a grown man cry-but we won and that in the end-in this world-is what matters.
In starting and waging wars it is not right that matters-but victory-Adolf Hitler. How do you win a conflict against a man like this?— E Johnson · Dec 5, 03:14 PM · #
Freddy’s main problem, and Reihan’s also, is a fundamentally flawed view of the world. If I had to guess, I would imagine they think the entire world is like an Aaron Sorkin TV show, where people walk around importantly, with lots of quips, and make a big speech at the end that solves everything.
The world is not like that. Most of it is made up of violent men who take what they want by killing people. Among them, Ahmadinejad who has been fingered as one of the torturers by the Embassy Hostages, and executioners by Iranian exiles. For what it is worth, the most genuine and spot-on intel out of Iran has come from the MEK. Who are hard-core Iranian Communists and terrorists themselves.
Freddy argues that since America is without sin, it should be “punished” by forever remaining passive. Now that is a policy born out of luxury and security, where rich and safe people can worry about morality. A man who has only a narrow margin, from paycheck to paycheck, wants to protect what’s his and doesn’t much care about morality. Only keeping what he has.
Security-wise, the US has gone from luxury (the Cold War had an aging, combat-addled populace and leaders in Brezhnev and the Soviet Union, interested only in keeping what it had) to middle-class uncertainty (Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, AQ, various other Islamists are lean, hungry, and ambitious). 9/11 is proof positive that when the planes hit the towers, it is too late to do anything.
Dr. Fingar of State Dept. was the one who wrote the NIE. In July of this year he testified under oath to Congress that Iran was judged to be developing nuclear weapons.
What changed? From July of this year? I.E. five months ago.
Was it political ambitions to make Obama and Dems (‘let’s talk to Iran! They are no threat!’) the acceptable candidate? Embarrass GWB? Derail any attack on Iran? Undercount a threat after overcounting in Iraq? Or as suggested a SINGLE INTERCEPT from an Iranian General?
We ought to see the declassified NIE to judge for ourselves if it’s “peace in our time” i.e. an exercise in Wishful Thinking or a genuine (but completely reversible) change in course. Please note the NIE makes a political judgment that Iran has decided to suspend nuclear weapons production. Israel of course has said the NIE is bunk.
What if Israel decides it must either nuke first or be nuked? What then? Already there is no support for any sanctions anymore and the result will likely be enhanced Iranian aggressiveness. War is more likely not less, since Israel faces annihilation from a surprise attack via Lebanon/Syria if Iran has enough nukes.
Buried in the NIE is the admission that Iran spent 1980-2003 developing nuclear weapons, spending billions. How likely is this sunk cost which represents much of Iran’s military spending to be abandoned by Aaron Sorkin magical thinking? Not much IMHO.
— Jim Rockford · Dec 5, 11:15 PM · #
“but we won and that in the end-in this world-is what matters.”
A man rapes and murders your wife. He is tried, but is not convicted. He walks away scott free, and as he leaves the courtroom whispers to you “I won, and that, in the end, in this world, is what matters.” Do you have a moral objection? Or don’t you? The assumption that the wheels of power move according to profoundly different moral principals than individuals do is responsible for an incredible amount of suffering in the world.
“What if Israel decides it must either nuke first or be nuked? What then?”
The result, eventually, would be the utter destruction of Israel, and so much the worse for our world.
“War is more likely not less, since Israel faces annihilation from a surprise attack via Lebanon/Syria if Iran has enough nukes.”
Asserted with no support. Mutually assured destruction, while a terrible way to live, does seem to work. Bombing Israel would lead to the immediate and total elimination of the current Iranian regime. Our enemies, however you may not like them, are not irrational to the point of lunacy.
— Freddie · Dec 5, 11:42 PM · #
And what do you think of the very popular view by a leading Israeli analyst Obadiah Shoher? He argues (here, for example, www. samsonblinded.org/blog/america-arranges-a-peace-deal-with-iran.htm ) that the Bush Administration made a deal with Iran: nuclear program in exchange for curtailing the Iranian support for Iraqi terrorists. His story seems plausible, isn’t it?
— Alex · Dec 12, 10:05 PM · #