Unconventional Wisdom on Iran
Fareed Zakaria points out that much of what “everyone knows” about Iran may be wrong:
Everything you know about Iran is wrong, or at least more complicated than you think. Take the bomb. The regime wants to be a nuclear power but could well be happy with a peaceful civilian program (which could make the challenge it poses more complex). What’s the evidence? Well, over the last five years, senior Iranian officials at every level have repeatedly asserted that they do not intend to build nuclear weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has quoted the regime’s founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who asserted that such weapons were “un-Islamic.” The country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa in 2004 describing the use of nuclear weapons as immoral. In a subsequent sermon, he declared that “developing, producing or stockpiling nuclear weapons is forbidden under Islam.” Last year Khamenei reiterated all these points after meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei. Now, of course, they could all be lying. But it seems odd for a regime that derives its legitimacy from its fidelity to Islam to declare constantly that these weapons are un-Islamic if it intends to develop them. It would be far shrewder to stop reminding people of Khomeini’s statements and stop issuing new fatwas against nukes.
Following a civilian nuclear strategy has big benefits. The country would remain within international law, simply asserting its rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a position that has much support across the world. That would make comprehensive sanctions against Iran impossible. And if Tehran’s aim is to expand its regional influence, it doesn’t need a bomb to do so. Simply having a clear “breakout” capacity—the ability to weaponize within a few months—would allow it to operate with much greater latitude and impunity in the Middle East and Central Asia.
Of course it would be silly to be naive and just base our policy on the assumption that the Iranians are telling the truth about all this. But by the same token, we should recognize that they might be telling the truth. Or, perhaps most realistically of all, that “they” may disagree about this.
48 Responses to “Unconventional Wisdom on Iran”
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May 25th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
I’m not sure how credible I find the idea of Iran pursuing a civilian nuclear power only strategy. I mean the energy they have in the form of natural gas reserves is so much cheaper than nuclear energy would be and will continue to be so for a much longer than even the most farsighted governments make plans for. I don’t it would make sense for Iran to allocate it’s resources to nuclear power without it having some kind of nuclear weapon related goal in mind.
May 25th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Micheal Foody,
Two points:
1)You could make the same economic case for space programs. Yet like space programs, nuclear programs create a lot of high paying jobs, build a scientific industrial base, and create prestige.
2) Even without nuclear capability, the ability to develop nuclear weapons within a couple of months(an ability enjoyed by countries like Brazil and Japan), would serve as a very valuable deterrent.
May 25th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
The timing of this blog post is funny, in light of yesterday’s nuclear detonation by North Korea. I’m sure one could find some “reassuring” statements from the North Koreans.
Even forgetting all about Israel, it shouldn’t be all that mysterious why, say, Saudi Arabia’s rulers would be scared to death of a Shiite nuclear bomb.
Of course, no one may be able to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear arsenal. I don’t know what can be done, but it seems unfortunate that “conservatives” by and large are the only people who actually seems concerned about this.
May 25th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Yeah. Good luck with more bullshit lectures on how those awesome, proficient, foreign policy success conservatives are “concerned” with nuclear proliferation. I’m especially fond of remembering John Bolton’s approach to deterring North Korean nuclear weapons success.
But, yeah, you’re right in that conservatives have no idea what actually could be done, but they darn sure know how to posture as sage foreign policy types who assume that irrational tough guy talk means something.
May 25th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Hillary has been pretty quite in the opening phase of this administration.
I say let her make a big splash by sending her to Tehran to have direct talks with the Mullahs. Let’s see if the old girl can find out what the hell those dastardly Persians are up to.
May 25th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Let us know what you find.
I think you’re dead wrong. The North Koreans have been loudly saber-rattling about their nuclear program for years.
Since you’re sure one could find such statements, it shouldn’t be too tough to prove me wrong.
May 25th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
That would be a more impressive argument if (a) you actually found those reassuring statements (North Korea was not, as far as I recall, in the habit of reassuring its neighbors about its peaceful intentions); AND (b) if North Korea were a theocracy which could be shown to have violated its own religious law in developing its weapons. Since I suspect you can’t do (a), and (b) is in any case certainly false, my conclusion is that you are another person desperately seeking to find a reason to act as aggressively as possible towards Iran, even when the actual evidence does not support you.
May 25th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Max424,
When it comes to the Secretary of State, no news is good news. I hope Hillary Clinton is the most boring Secretary of State we’ve ever had.
May 25th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Since when has Iran shown any interest in operating with impunity in the Middle East and Central Asia?
Wasn’t the last aggressive war they launched in the 1600s?
The Iranian theocracy is a pretty nasty piece of work, but they don’t seem to be expansionist or hegemony-seeking. They seem to be more or less content to squat on their own patch. Not to mention, Shia Islam doesn’t put much emphasis on the need to spread the faith by the sword, like certain brands of Sunni Islam or Christianity.
May 25th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
I don’t know what can be done, but it seems unfortunate that “conservatives” by and large are the only people who actually seems concerned about this.
“Oil? Who said anything about oil? You cookin’ something, bitch?”
May 25th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
joe from Lowell
You know Hillary is coming, Joe, whether we like it or not. She is a locomotive. She is just warming up her boilers and getting up some steam.
May 25th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Actually, Michael Foody, a civilian nuclear energy program makes sense once you understand the energy politics at work.
Yes, Iran has lots of oil and natural gas, that is very true. On the other hand, the energy policy of any significant oil producing nation is to provide energy at home at subsidized or significantly below market prices. This is in part an effort to spur economic development or preserve social stability by subsidising and reducing the costs below world market rates.
You will find this true in Iraq, in Iran, in Kuwait, in Venezuala, and even for nuclear power or for hydro-electric generating utilities. The prices for export are significantly greater than the prices for home consumption.
What this means generally, and what it means domestically in Iran’s case, is that consumption substitution strategies can be extremely valuable.
Consider it this way: X amount of Oil and Natural Gas is consumed domestically at a subsidised below market price or BM. If the fuel had been available to sell at Market price or M, there would have been a dramatically greater profit. Thus, domestic sales of oil and gas represents a net economic loss, call it B.
If, on the other hand, nuclear power can substitute for the sales of oil and gas, well, that will be paid for internally. So you’re still making BM. However, now you’ve got all this extra oil and gas that you can sell on the open market at world market prices, or M. Which means, potentially, you are making money coming and going, and selling twice.
In short, a serious nuclear power program that meets domestic needs and is supported by a domestic economy, that frees up lots more oil and gas for foreign sale at world prices, is a very desirable thing for Iran.
May 25th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Maybe if we had an intelligence agency dedicated to protecting America, instead of torturing people or overthrowing left-wing democracies, then maybe we would actually know.
May 25th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Whether or why Iran should believe our ObaFuhrer is a far more interesting question; the world has already learned that his promises, his words, mean nothing.
Having seen the ObaFuhrer throw so many of his own supporters under the bus for narrow political gain Iran would be mad to trust in his word.
After all, and by any measure, Iran has proven itself a vastly more pacific world citizen than has the US.
May 25th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
> I’m not sure how credible I find the idea of Iran
> pursuing a civilian nuclear power only strategy. I
> mean the energy they have in the form of natural gas
> reserves is so much cheaper than nuclear energy would be and
> will continue to be so for a much longer than even the most
> farsighted governments make plans for. I don’t it would make
> sense for Iran to allocate it’s resources to nuclear power
> without it having some kind of nuclear weapon related goal in
> mind.
Yeah, because Iran’s politicians, academics, etc. are too stupid to have ever read _Peak Oil_ or bothered to check in at The Oil Drum from time to time. Iran’s oil and gas reserves are going to grow exponentially more valuable over the next 10 years much less the long term. Burning those reserves to make domestic electricity when the West is willing to pay them vastly more for the oil to use in automobiles and they have plenty of desert to site nuclear generation plants is foolish.
Cranky
May 25th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
You can say Iran is lying, but based on what, assumptions? Where’s the evidence? Where’s the proof?
The 2007 NIE report, the IAEA and 25 surprise, unexpected inspections have rendered the same conclusion: Iran is not building a nuclear weapon nor do they have a nuclear weapons programme. Furthermore Iran is a signatory on the NPT.
Why would Iran build a nuclear weapon? It certainly would not be because they want to use it on Israel. The Iranians are not stupid. They know it would be instant suicide.
Bush and Cheney’s sabre rattling and bellicose rhetoric against Iran was a ruse. They wanted regime change. It is not as if 2-wars in Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t enough to keep them busy. They even sent agents into Iran on covert ops to start trouble. Any altercation, if serious enough, might have been enough to set-off another war. I think we probably came close, too close to that. Otherwise it is doubtful that the American people would be fooled into supporting another bogus war. Plus the military was dead set against it, too.
We cannot just assume Iran is lying. We need solid evidence. Until that has been provided, assumptions are not enough to convince us otherwise.
May 25th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
About those reassurances from North Korea… gee, America actually GAVE North Korea nuclear materials, and I think helped them build a nuclear reactor! Someone in the American government must have felt North Korea wasn’t a great danger.
By the way, I don’t mean to say I think North Korea is less dangerous than Iran. I think both North Korea and Iran may well end up causing great harm.
May 25th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Building a nuclear weapon is an incredibly wasteful use of uranium. If Iran is smart (and they seem to be), they’d use their uranium for electricity while encouraging people to believe they have a nuclear weapon. Nuclear weapons are really only useful for deterrence, nobody actually wants to use them. As long as people think you have them, you don’t actually have to have them. A bluff is good enough. And the bluff seems to be working just fine for them already. It’s pretty obvious that they don’t have a weapons program, but everyone seems to believe otherwise. The only reason for Iran to start a weapons program is if people stop believing they have one.
May 25th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
It’s better to think of Iran’s quest for nuclear power as an economic confrontation rather than a military one.
The economics of nuclear power have traditionally been a chancy proposition in my view. Basically, all nuclear power is state subsidized, and if it were forced to compete in the marketplace on even terms with other forms of power – and to eat its own disposal and waste costs, the just about any other form of power generation including oil, natural gas, hydo-electric, geothermal, wind and solar would beat nuclear hands down.
However, nuclear power produces electricity at steady long term industrial levels and quantities, rather than on an ebb and flow or erratic cycle, as with hydro and wind. So its not quite a dead letter.
The thing with nuclear power, and what often sells nuclear power, is the industrial spin offs. We’re talking a huge construction project, elaborate and high tech investments at every level, all of which have spin offs into the civilian population (there’s an ironic comment here, but I’m not touching it). We’re talking bricks and mortar, concrete and steel, we’re talking massive investments in waterworks, plumbing, electronics, electrical grids, etc.
Nuclear power as an infrastructure investment, theoretically, can be one of those driving or base industries that potentially creates and becomes an engine of industrialisation. Providing that critical mass that turns a third world country into something up and coming and approaching first world status. Lots of construction and lots of trained personnel, lots of markets, lots of spin offs, which generate new development etc.
Iran wants the whole enchilada. ie, it wants all the industrial and economic benefits that it can accrue from nuclear infrastructure, including the fuel cycle. Who knows, its long term economic plans might include participating in and selling fuel to reactors throughout the Persian Gulf.
We in the United States or the West would prefer an Iran that eats hand to mouth. One that sustains itself by being forced to sell us their oil. We’re not actually interested in Iran as a potential economic force, something with an economy on the way to being comparable to say South Korea.
Let’s face it, right now American car makers are going into bankruptcy, all our consumer electronics is made in Japan, we’re pretty screwed. The last thing we want is another competitor in the world market – do we really want to compete with Iranian Car makers, given that the Japanese, French, South Koreans, Swedes, Italians, Brazilians, Indians, Germans, Russians, former Yugos, etc. etc. are kicking our ass all over the marketplaces? Hell, its going to be bad enough when Chinese and Indian Car makers start pushing into the market.
If Iran has nuclear power, we’d like to see it have as little impact as possible on Iran’s economy and economic potential. Ideally, we’d not like to see it at all.
May 25th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
You know the Shah responded like Michael Foody, when Rumsfeld first pitched nuclear power. Why do we need nuclear power? We have all this oil. Good salesman that Rumsfeld is, the Shah signed on and built the Bushehr power plant. Saddam Hussein bombed it before it went on-line.
Later, Rumsfeld says something to the effect of I don’t know why they would want a nuclear power plant with all the oil that they have.
May 25th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Iran has two excellent reasons to want the Bomb: (1) Israel and (2) the U.S. At the very least, defensively.
So long as Israel is Iran’s enemy and has nukes, Iran would be crazy not to want nukes.
So long as the U.S. can invade “preemptively” a country like Iraq, while tolerating a regime like North Korea’s, Iran would be crazy not to want nukes.
Step Number One in deterring Iran from a nuke program is this: make it NOT CRAZY for Iran to refrain from developing nukes. Because so long as you’re urging someone to do something grossly counter-productive, you’re going to urge in vain. (Unless you’re Ahmad Chalabi, arguing to Cheney et al. that the U.S. should invade Iraq. And the mullahs are not as foolish as Dick Cheney.)
Not an easy step, but an essential one.
May 25th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
You have to take Khameini seriously. He’s the Supreme Leader, and his word literally is law. Based on his fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons, if Ahmedinejad were to develop nuclear weapons, it would be incumbent on all Muslims who follow the mullah to depose him.
May 25th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
I’m less interested in what the Iranian government, the US government or the Israeli governments have to say than I am in what the IAEA has to say. The latter are the ones with a track record of accuracy and professionalism.
At the same time, it is absurd that we have a government that refuses to establish a straightforward diplomatic relationship with Iran, and then encourages all of this blind wonderment and speculation about what mischief the Iranians are up to. We could close the information gap at least a little with some diplomatic exchanges aided by intelligence analysis. If you are wondering what the neighbors in the old house on the corner are up to, you can start by walking over, knocking on the door and introducing yourself.
May 25th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
1) The space program: Creating high paying jobs is meaningless when the government is just paying people a lot. The government could pay people six figures to sew quilts if they could get away with it. The space program does create prestige and maybe nuclear power does too, but I’m not sure how well this applies.
2) Yes the ability to rapidly produce nuclear weapons is valuable and entirely in the scope of what I think is plausible as a best case scenario for an Iranian nuclear program.
3) I have a really good idea of how the energy market works, but you’re argument assumes that the Iranian government is far sighted to a much higher degree than any other nation in the world. I don’t think this is credible. It doesn’t make sense to use nuclear energy that’s many times more expensive than the extraction cost of natural gas when you have abundant natural gas. You can choose to either use the gas yourself, or sell it at a profit, and then use those profits to pay three times as much for nuclear electricity. If you want exponential growth you can invest the huge savings. It’s one of those things that is exactly how it looks and depends on you convincing yourself of things that really don’t make much sense.
I am not advocating any particular military action and am not so terribly troubled by the idea of Iran with a nuclear weapon, but at the same time I don’t think it is credible to credit the Iranian government with acting against their own economic interests because of intergenerational stewardship.
May 25th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
You really think it’s just a matter of whether the Iranians are telling the truth or not? That this whole thing couldn’t be solved tomorrow if the U.S. and Israel would simply cease their existential threats against them?
Iran has chosen not to be a U.S. lapdog as have so many other regimes in the region. The U.S. can choose to live with that and we’ll have a relatively peaceful and stable middle east, or they can continue to cast the issue in the propaganda terms that you seem to be implicitly accepting.
May 25th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
What Den said.
You can store, and export, gas and oil. You can’t easily store electricity, and exports of electricity are limited by geography.
Given the current and likely future resource situation, it makes sense to invest in domestic nuclear power in order to free up gas and oil from power generation so they can be sold on world markets as supplies drop and prices rise in the future.
May 25th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
The 2007 NIE report, the IAEA and 25 surprise, unexpected inspections have rendered the same conclusion: Iran is not building a nuclear weapon nor do they have a nuclear weapons programme. Furthermore Iran is a signatory on the NPT.
The fact that Obama is contradicting the 2007 NIE and the IAEA infuriates me. What intelligence is he basing his belligerent statements on? Or is he lying to the American people just like George Bush did about Iraq?
May 25th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Ironically, the conservatives for years have been sayingnwe have to take the Iranian’s at their word when it comes to wanting Israel wipped off the map.
May 25th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
“Nuclear weapon capability” is vastly different from “nuclear weapon”
“Nuclear ambitions” and “prohibited nuclear program” are other slightly less commonly used phrases to elide over the fact that while Iran has an obligation not to build a weapon, Israeli strategists feel threatened by Iran having the capability to create a weapon even if it does not.
Iran has a right to a nuclear program that could in theory be redirected towards a weapon. Japan’s program could as could Brazil’s and those of several other good-standing NPT-non weapons signatories.
Iran is willing to impose the most stringent non-diversion inspections possible on its nuclear program, as long as it has domestic enrichment, which is its right. Until now, the United States has refused and insisted that Iran renounce its right to enrich uranium domestically.
Admiral Mullen on Sunday said that he believes Iran wants to build a weapon. I think by “weapon” he means “weapon capability”. US policymakers and officials routinely switch these terms around in deliberate attempts to mislead.
He also said that as a military issue, he has no problem with Iran having a program like Japan’s. If that is the case, then the US will offer domestic enrichment and the nuclear issue may possibly be resolved this year. The US also wants Iran to renounce the part of the NPT that allows signatories to exit. Iran won’t go for that either, but the main sticking point was the insistence, that may be about to be dropped, that Iran renounce its right to enrich uranium.
Iran, if it ramps up to industrial scale enrichment, probably can supply enriched uranium to countries like South Africa and other middle-income or NAM countries on better terms than their current first world suppliers. And if the price is about the same, it isn’t hard to imagine Venezuela when it eventually decides to build nuclear power, or other countries buying from Iran out of solidarity.
Iran also welcomes a region full of nuclear-capable (careful, nuclear capable does not mean nuclear armed) Muslim states. Together they degrade the value of Israel’s monopoly on actual weapons. Iran has offered to share its technology with any Muslim country that asks. This is a problem only for Israel which depends on having a nuclear last resort means of intimidation.
The story is forming that a large part of the Nixon’s urgency to resupply Israel in 1973 was the implicit threat that Israel would resort to nuclear weapons on the battlefield. 5 nuclear capable neighbors would negate that threat. But that would pose no problem for Iran.
Anyway, if the US was to offer a Japan-like status for Iran, Iran would accept it and the dispute would end – which would mean the sanctions the US has been able to get others to impose on Iran would be reduced which would mean Iran would have more resources to support Hezbollah, Hamas and other groups. It would also mean the one thing the Saudi’s can claim as a benefit for being quisling supporters of the US – improved relative economic opportunities – would be lost.
Nothing has been announced, but the indications are that the Obama administration is preparing to drop the nuclear issue as a item of contention between the US and Iran. Once that happens, if the Israelis have not yet made visible progress towards peace with the Palestinians, the “moderate” states are going to feel even more pressure to join Iran’s side, since Iran’s side no longer implies vehement opposition from the US.
Does Iran want a nuclear weapon? Beyond the fact that fatwas forbid them, there is no answer. Does Japan want a nuclear weapon? The NPT was never designed to guarantee that a nation would not have or “want” a nuclear weapon at some point in the future. The NPT guarantees that Japan does not have a weapon now, even though Japan has the technology to make on if it chose. Iran, by ratifying the NPT, made the same guarantee Japan made. Which by the language of the NPT is to be applied “without discrimination”.
If the US allows Iran its rights under the NPT, which now seems like a distinct possibility, it signifies a huge shift in US policy and a realignment of the regional power balance away from Israel.
May 25th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Michael Foody, I’ve given your response some careful thought, and I have the following responses:
Creating high paying jobs is meaningless when the government is just paying people a lot. The government could pay people six figures to sew quilts if they could get away with it. The space program does create prestige and maybe nuclear power does too, but I’m not sure how well this applies.
On a larger sense, this appears to be a rejection of Keynesian economics, in which public investment can and is applied to stimulate and drive the economy, or even to stimulate specific sectors. We have the examples of recovery from the Depression, and we have substantial examples of state directed and subsidised economic development in Japan and a number of other European and Asian nations.
I recognize that modern conservative ideologues hold to the belief that ‘Government can’t do anything.’ and that ‘Government created jobs aren’t real and don’t contribute to an economy’. But frankly, the results are in, the results have been in for generations, and the Conservative ideology on this point is pure tinfoil hat stuff.
I have a really good idea of how the energy market works,
I’m not actually sure that you do.
but you’re argument assumes that the Iranian government is far sighted to a much higher degree than any other nation in the world.
I don’t think that this is necessarily the case. Energy production and distribution is not based on a Wal-Mart model. You don’t go down and buy it as you need it. Rather, investment in Energy infrastructure is a long term commitment and in certain cases, that timeline stretches across several decades. I know, for instance, that hydro-electric generation planning can be scaled out over a century.
For instance, I can tell you about a situation in Canada where land negotiations in respect of a series of Islands in 1930 were influenced by the Provincial plans in respect of Future Hydro-Electric dam development, dams whose constructions were not commenced until the 1970’s, and future projects along the stream still scheduled for 2020’s.
In short, extreme long term planning is not unusual in the field of energy infrastructure.
I don’t think this is credible. It doesn’t make sense to use nuclear energy that’s many times more expensive than the extraction cost of natural gas when you have abundant natural gas. You can choose to either use the gas yourself, or sell it at a profit, and then use those profits to pay three times as much for nuclear electricity.
You’re assuming an infinite supply of natural gas accessible for those purposes, a stable market price and no inbuilt costs for choices. None of these really hold up on examination.
As one example, you suggest that Iran is free to sell its natural gas or to use it domestically. But frankly, no one volunteers to starve to death. Iranians will likely not let their cities, their hospitals, the homes and vehicles go dark in order to maximise their foreign exchange. That’s a non-starter. You model is spurious at this point.
The better question is, what are the available or effective substitutes for Iran, should it attempt to maximize its foreign revenue. Having exported all its natural gas, does it then import oil or processed fuel at world prices? If so, that’s pretty disastrous economics. Should it go out and invest heavily in windmills? Hook up the faithful to giant treadmills? Import coal. Pursue hydro-electric?
And discussion of Iran’s export/import must also be balanced against
You’re also making assumptions that the economics of nuclear power that the planners may not share on a long term basis. I believe that Nuclear Power plants economics are amortized over the lifetime of the plant versus the ongoing costs of operations.
While I find such economics dubious, I do concede that the cases are made on an ongoing basis by proponents. These cases have been persuasive enough to justify development of nuclear power infrastructures in many countries in the West, notably the United States, France, Japan, Canada, etc.
If you want exponential growth you can invest the huge savings.
Unless of course, those savings are somewhat consumed by export substition. But weren’t you the one saying that government jobs weren’t real?
It’s one of those things that is exactly how it looks and depends on you convincing yourself of things that really don’t make much sense.
I have the feeling that you are looking at this through an extremely narrow ideological lens that precludes rational examination.
Enjoy your tinfoil hat.
May 25th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Hmm, looking over my prior post, I’ve left a few typos and one dangling sentence with though unresolved.
“Discussion of Iran’s Import/Export decisions must be balanced against respective costs and opportunities. For instance, some third world countries surrender their own food production capacity, ie, their ability to feed their people, in favour of cash crops such as coffee, in the belief that the revenue therefrom will permit importation of food. Sometimes thats not a good idea. But its always a balancing act.”
May 25th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Joe from Lowell,
The last period of Iranian expansionism (and they were quite brutally and aggressively expansionist) was during the mid-1700s, when they sacked Delhi. But for the most part, you’re correct.
I don’t think that Iran is territorially expansionist- they do seem to be somewhat _ideologically_ expansionist (although certainly they’re not a patch on the USA with our crusades to spread capitalism, democracy and McDonalds to the ends of the earth).
May 25th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Mary,
I don’t understand it, either. It’s clearly not a case of Obama being determined to whip up a war against Iran, the way Bush did in Iraq, because Obama has been working to cool down the rhetoric and open up talks with Iran. Remember the holiday greetings speech he gave?
If I had to guess, I’d say that Obama is holding onto his negotiating chits – in this case, the refusal to acknowledge Iran’s civilian nuclear program for what it is – in preparation for negotiations. It’s always best to go in with as strong a hand as possible, and to get something in exchange for your chits.
May 25th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
If the Iranians wanted to build a bomb, then why have they offered to open their nuclear program to multinational participation (when they’re under no obligation to do so)? It took Pakistan 5 years to build a bomb. Iran is far more technologically advanced. Had they wanted the bomb, they would have had it already.
May 25th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Lying is specifically sanctioned by Islam in this specific instance.
May 26th, 2009 at 12:30 am
The U.S. needs to pay some heed to the tri-partite meeting that took place over the wekeend just ended, too.
Iran is working to act like the regional leader it seeks to be. They do need to stop some of Ahmedinejad’s anti-Israel fulminating, but Iran has interests in the region that are not nearly as at-odds with us as it appears in the shallow-end-of-the-pool reporting on TV/Cable news and most newspapers.
Wether we like it or not, Iran is moving beyond its own self-imposed post-Shah internalism (and a long war with Iraq having been over for a while is helping them refocus).
The nuclear issue won’t go away. Iran may have a lot of oil, but they need nukes (or so I presume) to meet the electrical needs of their economy. In a post-carbon future, that plus solar (Iran has pretty good % of possible daylite) can set them up to export oil and live off clean energy.
They already have to import gas due to refinery capacity limits. It is logical that they want peaceful nukes, and our belligerent response makes it harder to get in and verify that this is the limit of their interests.
May 26th, 2009 at 1:37 am
Piscivorous,
It isn’t sanctioned by “Islam”, it’s sanctioned by one particular imam, who has about the same authority to speak for Islam as Rick Warren, Jeremiah Wright, or John Shelby Spong have to speak for Christianity.
There is enough grounds for legitimate criticism of Islam (of whom I would be the first to make them) without having to make things up.
May 26th, 2009 at 2:18 am
Iran almost certainly wants to be nuclear weapon capable, and it almost certainly does not want to build any actual nuclear weapons, yet.
Everybody assumes that all actions in the Middle East are predicated on Israel. Well Iran is not actually part of the Middle East, and its natural enemy is not Israel. The Iranians may despise Israel, but I would be very surprised if they saw it as a threat to their own existence. You need to look much closer to home for that.
When Khamenei calls nuclear weapons un-Islamic, he is not just talking to a domestic audience, he is also talking across the border to nuclear armed Sunni state named Pakistan.
It is an agressive fundamentalist Pakistan that Iran wishes to be prepared for, yet without actually alarming a neighbour state which at present cannot see past India for enemies. Something which could change very quickly.
Would a Taliban ruled Pakistan see Hindu India or Shia Iran as the most offensive neighbour? The mullahs are hedging their bets.
May 26th, 2009 at 5:22 am
Iran has no interest in building a nuclear weapon because that would REDUCE its influence in the region, not increase it. The Persians are good diplomats and they would get far more benefit from not having nukes than having them.
And as usual, I have to re-iterate the known FACTS:
1) There is ZERO evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons development and deployment program.
2) There is almost ZERO evidence that Iran has ever had a nuclear weapons development and deployment program. The ONLY evidence for that is some interpreted communications intercepts and a laptop of questionable provenance which most informed individuals believe was faked by the Mossad and given to US intelligence by an anti-Iranian terrorist group.
3) It is possible that Iran has or once had a nuclear weapons DATABASE program, i.e., a program to determine how nuclear weapons could be built. Any military worth its salt which is threatened by a regional power with nuclear weapons would have such a program. Given that Israel threatens Iran with nuclear weapons, clearly Iran has every reason to have such a program.
The question is: why is Obama deliberately ignoring all these facts in his statements to the US public? The notion that he’s doing so for some unknown diplomatic purpose is questionable because he has ZERO cards to play in that area. Iran will never give up enrichment, and Obama doesn’t have the nerve to enrage AIPAC and Israel by offering enough concessions to Iran – diplomatic recognition, assistance with its nuclear energy program as is REQUIRED by the NPT, etc. – in exchange for any suspension of Iranian enrichment.
And the Iranians couldn’t care less that he and his people keep accusing them of making bombs. They’re not going to change anything they’re doing in relation to Hizballah or Hamas or Iraq or Afghanistan in exchange for his shutting up about that. So what kind of diplomatic gains does he get by continually accusing Iran of making bombs and by seeking harsher economic sanctions on Iran?
So why is he making the statements he and others in his administration are making, if not to justify future military aggression against Iran and/or support for future Israeli military aggression against Iran?
The one suggestion I’ve heard is that he’s willing to sacrifice Iran in order to get Israel to make progress on a two-state Palestinian solution. That makes zero sense. Israel is not going to change course in that regard unless Obama promises to actually attack Iran.
And Israel knows full well that Iran is not going to change its course based on anything Obama says or does with regard to sanctions on Iran.
So who expects anything to come from that approach? Neither Israel nor Iran will budge an inch. Both of them will thumb their noses at Obama and ask, “What are you gonna do now?”
And what will he do? Cut off foreign aid to Israel if they refuse to bow down to his demands? Email me when that happens.
Attack Iran? Well, either you believe he will or you don’t. He has only two options there: do it or stall for four years until the next Administration like Bush did. Four years from now when Iran STILL hasn’t made a bomb, the whole “crisis” will be ludicrous.
Will Israel wait another four years of Iranian enrichment without attacking Iran just to be exposed as an alarmist and a paper tiger?
Will Obama?
May 26th, 2009 at 7:27 am
At a time of concern about CO2 emissions, perhaps they deserve a mild pat on the back for going nuclear.
May 26th, 2009 at 8:27 am
[...] Side of a Secret Code: Leo Strauss and Neocons 2009 May 26 by Babbling Nomad A recent post by Matt Yglesias, quoting a chunk of Fareed Zakaria’s article in Newsweek, reminded me that I [...]
May 26th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Even forgetting all about Israel, it shouldn’t be all that mysterious why, say, Saudi Arabia’s rulers would be scared to death of a Shiite nuclear bomb.
Why? The Shiite world doesn’t seem all that scared of the Sunni nuclear bomb.
I mean, Pakistan is Iran’s much larger neighbor, for crying out loud. Saudis may not like the idea of an Iranian bomb but I find it hard to conceive an Iranian nuclear threat against the land of the two mosques.
May 26th, 2009 at 10:18 am
That is not so. In most countries, electricity is cheaper to generate via nuclear power than gas. While Iran has a lot of easily accessible gas, it would be more profitable to use nuclear power to generate their baseline electrical power needs and export more gas. This will become an even more profitable mode of operation as natural gas prices climb quickly in the near future.
Where the profit motive fails is in Iran’s insistance that it develop its own enrichment facilities. It would be more cost effective to just buy fuel. I suppose that their own supply would act as a hedge against an embargo, but they are not planning on enough enrichment capacity to meet their own needs. One mystery of their program has always been that it was too big for bombs but too small for fuel.
May 26th, 2009 at 10:41 am
how about basing something, at least, on the factual findings of the IAEA? when they do inspections, its not just a slumber party, you know. they weigh all of the spent fuel, making sure none has been diverted. they do this very specifically and deliberately. it is VERY EASY to tell that Iran does not have an active nuke manufacturing operation. this is not some great mystery, it is a known fact and has been for years!
do facts about Iran matter at all? why not? this isn’t blind trust in them, its about whether you think the IAEA is locked in a grand conspiracy with Iran to cover up their ‘program’. and if you believe that, then you are a flat-out nutter.
May 26th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Richard Steven Hack,
I think you’re letting your American perspective get in the way of understanding. Iran just watched the United States bump off the governments of the country to its east, and the country to its west. We’ve had some minor military flareups over the years, and Iran has always come off the worse. We know they’re concerned enough about their security to speed up their uranium enrichment program under Bush, and spend a great deal of money to harden the facilities. Having the United States breathing down your neck is not something the Iranians want.
You’re no doubt right that they aren’t likely to cut a quid-pro-quo deal with a still-hostile America (no sanctions for cutting off Hamas, or something like that), but a grand bargain and a thaw between the countries seems very possible.
May 26th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Ironically, the conservatives for years have been sayingnwe have to take the Iranian’s at their word when it comes to wanting Israel wipped off the map.
Actually, no – conservatives have been saying we need to take the Iranians at some words they didn’t actually say but that sound pretty dramatic.
What Ahmadinejad actually said (according to people who actually speak Persian) was more like “fading from history”, which is vaguely similar, but *without the connotation of violence*.
So our foreign policy toward Iran is determined by the connotations of a figure of speech that a person who isn’t really the leader of Iran never actually said. Clearly, that carries far more evidentiary weight than weeks of inspection of Iran’s actual facilities by internationally certified experts.
May 26th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Joe: The grand bargain is only feasible if 1) Obama is prepared to go against AIPAC and Israel publicly; 2) Obama abandons his notion of “no centrifuges on Iranian soil”, which has been his stated position.
I could see him giving up the latter – but again, what does he gain from that? Maybe he can win some concessions on support of Hizballah and Hamas, but that’s about it. Iran is unlikely to, for example, recognize Israel in exchange for that because, frankly, if Obama gives up that demand, Iran has won.
In 2003, Iran proposed a grand bargain to Bush, which was rejected. Any grand bargain Obama can propose will have to allow Iran to enrich, have to re-establish full diplomatic relations, and have to lift sanctions against Iran, in exchange for Iran lifting support for Hizballah and Hamas, and ratifying the application of the Additional Protocol and intrusive IAEA inspections.
Iran would go for that.
And that’s not going to satisfy the Israelis or AIPAC or the Rethugs.
I agree that Iran doesn’t trust the US not to attack it – and definitely knows Israel would attack it at some point. But they also know that any retaliation on their part would lead to a larger scale war. Yet they’ve warned they would do just that, and pretty much everybody believes they would because really, not retaliating is not an option. If they don’t retaliate and just suck it up, Israel will hit them whenever they want. So will the US, just like Iraq. So ANY US attack on Iran means significant retaliation against both the US and Israel.
So the problem remains, what exactly can Obama do to Iran absent some sort of military attack to force them to give up enrichment? The only options he’s talked about are sanctions – which haven’t stopped them – and a blockade of their refined petroleum imports – which is also an act of war.
Again, Obama cannot do anything to Iran to stop their enrichment short of war. And a grand bargain will be politically unpalatable in Israel and the US.
We’ll see how it plays out, of course, but never underestimate the miscalculations of a US Administration.
Everybody keeps saying how Obama has this great new approach to foreign policy, but so far, none of that has panned out on the ground. All we’ve seen so far is a slowdown of withdrawal in Iraq, a hopeless escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and some hardening of attitude towards Israeli settlements – which Israel is defying – and continued threats toward Iran.
So unless we see movement on a grand bargain with Iran by the end of this year, as Obama has promised, I don’t see any such thing happening.
May 26th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
RS Hack,
I’ll be getting of the State Department’s State Sponsor’s of Terrorism list, being able to engage in international banking and transfers, and not having to worry about us closing the Straits of Hormuz would be pretty meaningful to the Iranians.
I agree that Iran would have to be allowed a civilian nuclear program as part of any deal, or they’d never go for it. I’m not certain, as you seem to be, that they’d insist on domestic enrichment vs. a reliable supply of enriched fuel, if a thaw could eliminate the reason for their desire for a deterrent (that is, American hostility).
You point out that the Iranians approached us with a grand bargain six years ago. Doesn’t that suggest to you that they’d still like one?
I think Israel would be all for a grand bargain that included a friendlier Iranian stance, and a cessation of support for anti-Israeli terrorism.
I don’t know, man, getting the Pakistanis to take on their fundie militants is a big deal. He’s still only been in office for 1/12 of one term; it seems a bit early to say his initiatives haven’t panned out.