U.S., Iran move closer to the brink of battle
THE ECONOMIST -
Published 12:00 am PST Sunday, February 11, 2007
Story appeared in FORUM section, Page E1
"We are not planning for a war with Iran." So said Robert Gates,
America's new defense secretary, on Feb. 2. You cannot be much clearer
than that. With a weak and isolated president, and an Army bogged down
in the misery of Iraq, the American people and Congress are hardly in
a fighting mood.
Nonetheless, and despite Gates' calming words, Iran and America are
heading for a collision. Although the risk is hard to quantify, there
exists a real possibility that President Bush will order a military
strike on Iran some time before he leaves the White House two years
from now.
America and Iran have been at loggerheads ever since Ayatollah
Khomeini's revolution of 1979. But four things are making this old
antagonism newly dangerous.
One is Iran's apparent determination to build nuclear weapons, and a
fear that it is nearing the point where its nuclear program will be
impossible to stop. The second is the advent of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a
populist president who denies the Holocaust and calls openly for
Israel's destruction: His apocalyptic speeches have convinced many
people in Israel and America that the world is facing a new Hitler
with genocidal intent.
The third is a recent tendency inside the Bush administration to blame
Iran for many of America's troubles not just in Iraq but throughout
the Middle East.
Any one of these would be destabilizing enough on its own.
Added together, they make the possibility of miscalculation and a
slide into war a great deal more likely. That is all the more so when
they are combined with a fourth new source of friction between America
and Iran.
This is the predicament of Bush. A president who is now detached from
electoral considerations knows that his place in history is going to
be defined by the tests he himself chose to put at the center of his
foreign policy: bringing democracy to the Middle East and preventing
rogue regimes from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.
Given his excessive willingness to blame Iran for blocking America's
noble aims in the Middle East, he may come to see a preemptive strike
on its nuclear program as a fitting way to redeem his presidency. That
would be a mistake.
Even if it became clear that Iran was on the threshold of acquiring an
atomic bomb, an American strike on its nuclear facilities would be a
reckless gamble.
Without America invading and occupying Iran -- unthinkable after Iraq
-- such a strike would at best delay rather than end Iran's nuclear
ambitions. It might very well rally support behind a regime that is at
present not conspicuously popular at home, emboldening it to retaliate
inside Iraq, against Israel and perhaps against the United States
itself.
Besides, it is far from clear exactly how dangerous a nuclear-armed
Iran would be. Unlike Iraq under Saddam, Iran has a complex power
structure with elements of pluralism and many checks and balances. For
all its proclaimed religiosity, it has behaved since the revolution
like a rational actor.
To be sure, some of its regional aims are mischievous, and in pursuing
them it has adopted foul means, including terrorism. But the
ayatollahs have so far been shrewd calculators of consequences.
There are already small signs of a backlash against the attention-
seeking Ahmadinejad. Like the Soviet Union, a nuclear Iran could
probably be deterred.
All of this suggests that in present circumstances it would be wrong
for America to launch a military strike against Iran. But it would be
the height of self-deception for anyone to jump to the conclusion that
a nuclear-armed Iran would not be dangerous at all. It would be very
dangerous indeed.
For a start, there is a danger that Iran's nuclear efforts will
provoke a preemptive strike by Israel, which is already a nuclear
power, albeit an undeclared one. For Israelis, whose country
Ahmadinejad says he wants to wipe off the map, it is not all that
reassuring to hear that Iran can "probably" be deterred.
Even if Israel were to decide against such a strike, Iran's going
nuclear could destroy what is left of the international
nonproliferation regime. It has proved hard enough for Arab states
such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia to live with Israel's undeclared bomb;
if their Iranian rival got one too, the race to copy might soon be on.
On top of this is the danger that a nuclear Iran would feel safe to
ramp up attempts to spread its revolution violently beyond its own
borders.
Every effort should be made to stop an Iranian bomb. But there is a
better way than an armed strike. In 2002 Bush consigned Iran along
with Iraq and North Korea to an "axis of evil." Since 2004, for lack
of good alternatives, he has been helping the efforts of Britain,
France and Germany to talk rather than bludgeon Iran into nuclear
compliance.
Iran claims that its nuclear program is for civil purposes only. Last
year, the Europeans called its bluff by offering trade, civil-nuclear
assistance and a promise of talks with America if it stopped enriching
the uranium that could produce the fuel for a bomb.
When Iran refused, diplomacy led in December to the imposition of
economic sanctions by the U.N. Security Council.
This is a promising approach. The diplomacy at the United Nations
proceeds at a glacial pace. But Iran is thought to be several years
from a bomb. And meanwhile the Americans, Europeans, Russians and
Chinese have at last all lined up on the same side of the argument.
What is required now is a further tightening of the economic squeeze
coupled with some sort of an incentive -- most usefully an unambiguous
promise from Bush that if Iran returns to compliance with the nuclear
rules it will face no attempt by America to overthrow the regime. Even
then, America and Iran may be fated to lock horns in the Middle East.
But the region, and the world, will be a good deal safer without the
shadow of an Iranian bomb.
http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/121278.html
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