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Iran and Nuclear Weapons

Matt Steinglass tries to make sense of the obsession with Iran’s nuclear program: It seems to me that the American and Israeli obsession with Iran’s nuclear weapons programme proceeds from a misguided messianic-apocalyptic streak in both countries’ political cultures. That’s possible, but I doubt this is the main reason. The debate over Iran policy is […]

Matt Steinglass tries to make sense of the obsession with Iran’s nuclear program:

It seems to me that the American and Israeli obsession with Iran’s nuclear weapons programme proceeds from a misguided messianic-apocalyptic streak in both countries’ political cultures.

That’s possible, but I doubt this is the main reason. The debate over Iran policy is already unduly distorted by loose talk about messianic-apocalyptic worldviews. The explanation for the obsession is more straightforward. Michael Cohen touched on it in his recent exchange with Robert Farley:

But lastly, and most importantly, Farley ignores the importance that Israel applies to being the only nuclear power in the region. He says, “Israeli nuclear weapons have not granted it the ability to dominate the Middle East,” but this is simply incorrect. Israel can act practically in an unfettered manner across the region. It can bomb nuclear power plants in Iraq and Syria; it can invade its neighbors (most recently Lebanon); and it can maintain the occupation of several million Palestinians. Israel can do all these things, in part, because of a vast military superiority that includes nuclear weapons. If Iran suddenly were to have a nuclear bomb, it would not only shift the balance of military power in the region, it would limit Israel’s military flexibility and its own perception as a regional hegemon. No longer could Israel operate with virtual impunity.

The desire to retain “military flexibility and its own perception as a regional hegemon” is why Israel is obsessed with Iran’s nuclear program, and the American obsession is closely related to that, but it seems likely that everyone is exaggerating how much an Iranian nuclear arsenal would limit that flexibility. It isn’t clear that a nuclear-armed Iran would be able to stop Israel from doing any of these things. What it would almost certainly do is discourage the U.S. or Israel from launching attacks against Iran, which is the “flexibility” that some hawks in both countries want to retain. As Thomas Barnett wrote earlier this week:

Iran’s Bomb means closing the door on a U.S. invasion, but nothing else. Iran’s limited proxy wars are neither enhanced nor inhibited by possessing the Bomb, as America will stand by both Israel and the Saudis.

It isn’t wrong to say that Israel does not have the ability to dominate the Middle East. That phrase “across the region” exaggerates how much Israel can do outside its borders. Israel has enormous freedom of action in its vicinity, but despite having the only nuclear arsenal in the region it has never had the ability to dominate the entire region. Indeed, we wouldn’t be having this debate if it did. What Israel does have is the ability to use force outside its borders without fear of sparking a wider war, but this has just as much to do with its conventional superiority over all of its neighbors. It’s worth recalling that Israel could invade its neighbors before it acquired nuclear weapons (Egypt in 1956), and maintaining its occupation of Palestinian territories doesn’t require a nuclear arsenal. It is likely that Israel will still be able to do these things in the event that Iran acquires nuclear weapons.

If that is so, why do so many people overstate the importance of Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons? Farley offers an explanation in his latest column:

The answer is that everyone has a strong incentive to lie about their importance. The Iranians will lie to the world about the extent of their program and to their people about the fruits of going nuclear. The various U.S. client states in the region will lie to Washington about how terrified they are of a nuclear Iran, warning of the need for “strategic re-evaluation,” while also using the Iranian menace as an excuse for brutality against their own populations. Nonproliferation advocates will lie about the terrors of unrestrained proliferation because they do not want anyone to shift focus to the manageability of a post-nuclear Iran. The United States will lie to everyone in order to reassure its clients and maintain the cohesion of the anti-Iran block.

None of these lies are particularly dishonorable; they represent the normal course of diplomacy. But they are lies nevertheless, and serious analysts of foreign policy and international relations need to be wary of them.

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