Why do we fear a nuclear Iran? Are our fears rational or misplaced?
Most analysis starts from the assumption that a nuclear Iran would be dangerous. It follows that the international community should use a range of policy options, even possibly the use of military force, to stop such an eventuality. Such analysis may well prove to be right, but it tells us little about what drives the international community’s policy.
Although last year will go down as the end of the 9/11 era – death of Bin Laden and withdrawal from Iraq etc… – our thinking on Iran continues to be influenced by the era just passed. Iran continues to be seen as a rogue regime determined to export its Islamic revolution worldwide with the goal of destroying liberal dominions. Its active support of terrorist organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah has caused considerable human suffering and contributed to the general malaise affecting the Middle East Peace Process.
The fear aroused by the nexus of rogue regime, terrorism and WMD proliferation reflects very much a 9/11 security agenda and a preoccupation with the threat posed by radicalism and technology. This agenda has it own inbuilt logic when it comes to Iran: namely, that the fundamental problem with Iran is the nature of the regime itself. Waiting until Iran crosses the nuclear threshold is not seen as an option as a line would have been crossed since Iran would then be in a terrible position to blackmail anyone who opposes its aggression.
This self-serving logic is evident in the comments made by Prime Minister Netanyahu when he urges the US and others “to stop the nuclearization of terrorist states.” Even in his first term as Prime Minister, Netanyahu warned of the dangers. Addressing a joint meeting of the US congress back in 1996, he said: “The deadline for attaining this goal is getting extremely close. Deterrence by itself may not be sufficient. Deterrence must now be reinforced with prevention. Time is running out.”
This is not to argue that Israel should not be fearful of a nuclear Iran, it should – it’s just that I’m not convinced by Netanyahu’s rhetoric that “its 1938 and Iran is Germany.” If Netanyahu really believed that Iran posed such an existential threat to Israel on the scale of the holocaust then he would have approved military strikes against Iran well before Iran’s nuclear program entered “a zone of immunity.”
The public and political rhetoric that Iran is a rogue regime, an outpost of tyranny, is as fallacious as Iran’s description of the US as the Great Satan. Such rhetoric might have ideological benefits domestically and it might help to rally international support to Israel’s cause, but it grossly simplifies the situation. In turn it marginalises more rational examination of the threat posed.
The threat of nuclear proliferation in a region so unstable as the Middle East is very real concern. It’s generally believed that should Iran militarise its nuclear technology then Saudi Arabia would purchase, if it has not already done so, a ready-made nuclear deterrent from Pakistan, while Israel would sharpen its own nuclear posture. Other countries like Turkey would in turn consider their own position.
During the Cold War, the nuclear doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) helped keep the peace between the US and Russia, but there were times, as with the Cuban Missile Crisis, when it very nearly all went belly up. Hot lines between Washington and Moscow helped to keep the peace. No such lines of communication exist in the Middle East and even if they did it is far from clear that they could manage the problems of a multipolar nuclear Middle East. With the case of Iran, you would probably need multiple hot lines. There is a very real concern then that the tradition doctrines of deterrence will be found wanting in the Middle East.
Allied to the concern of regional proliferation is the very real prospect of Iran acquiring a nuclear capability while at the same time facing serious political unrest and uncertainty at home. If as predicted the large numbers of Iranians boycott today’s Parliamentary elections then it will be yet another nail in the regime’s coffin.
Rather than pumping fresh blood into the ailing body of the Islamic Republic, as Ayatollah Khamenei wants, these Parliamentary elections, as with the Presidential elections in 2009, merely signal its death knell. It is only a matter of time before the regime collapses from within and while such an event should be warmly celebrated, there are natural anxieties as to how any regime change might manage Iran’s nuclear programme.
Should the regime crumble before violent street protests, then the ensuing anarchy could easily allow nuclear materials to be spirited away by those who bribe or steel their way into its nuclear facilities. And just as former Soviet and Iraqi scientists were headhunted when their own masters fell from power, so could destitute Iranian scientists one day also prove easy targets for foreign governments wanting their expertise.
All of this suggests that just as Iran has legitimate security concerns that drive its nuclear problems, so too does the international community have legitimate concerns regarding Iran’s behaviour. There are reasons enough to be worried by the prospects of a nuclear Iran that we don’t need to skewer the picture by framing our concerns through a 9/11 lens.
Such a lens unhelpfully leads us see the world in Manichean terms. As we put greater distance between ourselves and the 9/11 era just passed we urgently need to reclaim our critical reasoning when it comes to world events. Moving beyond a 9/11 frame of reference might help us to avoid making the wrong decisions when it comes to Iran. It might also help us to have a more sensible conversation as to the safeguards that are needed to prevent wider proliferation in the Middle East.
