Nobody Believes Iran Crazy or Israel Existentially Threatened

An excellent and concise piece by Michael Young in the National, covering all angles of the debate surrounding Iran and Israel's push for a strike.  Below is the article in full:

A procession of American officials has been visiting Israel lately, to persuade the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to bomb Iran before international sanctions have had time to take hold. The arguments against an operation are familiar, but they also speak to an underlying malaise in how the world views Israel. 

By striking Iranian nuclear facilities, Israel could provoke dire consequences. Iran would be likely to retaliate, perhaps with missiles, while instructing Hizbollah to fire rockets into Israel from Lebanon. Conceivably, Syria would get involved, if only to neutralise protests against the Assad regime. Iran could block the Strait of Hormuz for a time, pushing oil prices up and harming fragile western economies. 

This catalogue of horrors is not improbable, despite reported Israeli assessments that Iran and Hizbollah might not react in spectacular ways. True, none of the parties relishes the prospect of war. Iran's regime is wary that if the Americans were to enter the fray, they might destroy Iranian military infrastructure. Hizbollah gains little by turning its Shiite supporters once again into Tehran's cannon-fodder. As for Syria, a devastating Israeli riposte against its army could actually be the straw that breaks the Assads' back. 

Several negative outcomes could ensue for Israel as well. Not only might the country find itself in a war on several fronts; if it were to drag a reluctant Obama administration into a regional conflagration that it does not want, this could severely strain an already uneasy relationship with the United States. That's because the backlash of higher oil prices could plausibly lose Mr Obama his re-election, while undermining shaky financial recoveries globally. 

But once initiated, a war could lead to this worst-case scenario. That is why few countries are willing to risk paying an onerous price for Israel's security. Even less so when the chances are that the Israelis can, at best, delay Iran's nuclear programme and unify a self-destructively divided leadership in Tehran. 

This tells us something more profound. Whether the Netanyahu government likes it or not, its uncompromising behaviour in negotiations with the Palestinians in recent years has lost Israel much goodwill internationally. Notwithstanding the ineffectiveness of the Palestinians, themselves split between Fatah and Hamas, Mr Netanyahu has never been able to live down his refusal to indefinitely suspend settlement construction in the West Bank. 

Israel's prime minister outmanoeuvred Mr Obama on peace negotiations last year, but to what end? Never has Israeli policy seemed so futile. The country evidently cannot make even minimal concessions to facilitate peace. It hasn't a clue about what to do with the millions of Palestinians whose destiny it controls directly or indirectly. Israel's own Arab citizens are increasingly alienated. The country is moving rightward. And Mr Netanyahu's government has had deep misgivings about the Arab uprisings, implicitly affirming that Israel feels secure only in the presence of Arab dictatorships. 

Israeli leaders are agitated because so few governments accept that Iran poses an existential menace to Israel. If Iran were to build nuclear weapons, this would generate considerable regional instability. An arms race would ensue. A reinvigorated, nuclear Iran, especially one that is isolated internationally and insecure at home, might seek out foreign quarrels to bolster its domestic cohesion. But would such a country threaten Israel existentially? Not when Israel can obliterate Iran several times over. 

A decision has not yet been taken in Washington on what happens if the latest sanctions on Iran fail to halt its nuclear programme. But the unprecedented force of the sanctions shows how little the Americans want a clash. And that reluctance makes me legitimately wonder whether the US would not, in the end, prefer to contain a nuclear Iran rather than endorse precarious military action that could expand into a regional war and aggravate the world economy in the process. 

When the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey, described Iran as a "rational actor" last weekend while in Israel, he was saying something else: that he did not buy the contention that Iran would beyond doubt employ nuclear weapons against Israel on the basis of the Islamic Republic's religious ideology. That may be obvious to many, but purported Iranian irrationality, a product of the regime's Islamic messianism, has been at the heart of the rationale for why the "the mullahs must not get the bomb". 

If the Iranians are rational, then presumably they are as receptive to the principles of deterrence as anybody else. The United States and the Soviet Union embraced deterrence for four decades during the Cold War. Israel can do the same, many in Washington believe, not least when it holds a decisive military edge over Iran and will benefit from an American nuclear umbrella as further consolation. 

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton irritated the Israelis in July 2009 when she declared that the US would extend a "defensive umbrella" over the Gulf if Iran acquired nuclear weapons. The phrase implied that the US could live with that eventuality, as it has in India, Pakistan and North Korea. Ms Clinton backtracked, but that seemed more a tactical than a strategic retreat. Mr Obama hasn't issued a final word on Iran, but he apparently does not regard preservation of Israel's nuclear monopoly in the Middle East as a vital American aim. 

 Israel may yet strike Iran, but at its own peril if Washington disapproves. This makes an assault far less likely, Israeli bluster aside. Mr Netanyahu has simply failed to convince anybody that Israel makes a believable victim. Not with him in charge anyway.

Heroes in Japan

Iran Can Produce Two Nuclear Warheads

This according to the IAEA's latest report.  More here from the NYTimes:

In their last report before the United Nations Security Council votes on sanctions against Iran, international nuclear inspectors declared Monday that Iran has now produced a stockpile of nuclear fuel that experts say would be enough, with further enrichment, to make two nuclear weapons.

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When Iran tentatively agreed eight months ago to ship some of its nuclear material out of the country, the White House said the deal would temporarily deprive Iran of enough fuel to make even a single weapon.

But Iran delayed for months, and the figures contained in the inspectors’ report on Monday indicated that even if Iran now shipped the agreed-upon amount of nuclear material out of the country, it would retain enough for a single weapon, undercutting the American rationale for the deal.

The toughly worded report says that Iran has expanded work at one of its nuclear sites. It also describes, step by step, how inspectors have been denied access to a series of facilities, and how Iran has refused to answer inspectors’ questions on a variety of activities, including what the agency called the “possible existence” of “activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”

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The inspectors reported Monday that Iran has now produced over 5,300 pounds of low-enriched uranium, all of which would have to undergo further enrichment before it could be converted to bomb fuel.

The inspectors reported that Iran had expanded work at its sprawling Natanz site in the desert, where it is raising the level of uranium enrichment up to 20 percent — the level needed for the Tehran Research Reactor, which produces medical isotopes for cancer patients. But it is unclear why Iran is making that investment if it plans to obtain the fuel for the reactor from abroad, as it would under its new agreement with Turkey and Brazil.

Until recently, all of Iran’s uranium had been enriched to only 4 percent, the level needed to run nuclear power reactors. While increasing that to 20 percent purity does not allow Iran to build a weapon, it gets the country closer to that goal. The inspectors reported that Iran had installed a second group of centrifuges — machines that spin incredibly fast to enrich, or purify, uranium for use in bombs or reactors — which could improve its production of the 20 percent fuel.

The inspectors also noted that the agency had finally succeeded in setting up a good monitoring system for the 20 percent work after a rocky start in February, when Iran began raising the enrichment levels. “A new safeguards approach is now being implemented,” the report said.

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Last fall, President Obama, along with the leaders of Britain and France, denounced Iran for secretly building a second enrichment plant near the city of Qum, without alerting inspectors until just before the three leaders’ countries announced they had discovered the facility. But curiously, the report suggested that now, with its existence revealed, Iran might be losing interest in it. The report said that Iran had installed no centrifuges in the half-built enrichment facility, which is located inside a mountain near a military base.

Iran has sought to locate many of its nuclear facilities in underground sites so as to lessen their vulnerability to aerial attacks. In the new report, the inspectors said that the Iranians disclosed that a new analytical laboratory planned for construction amid a warren of tunnels at Isfahan “would have the same functions as the existing” unprotected laboratory there.

Related Posts:

• Iran-Turkey-Brazil Sign Nuclear Deal 
• Are Brazil and Turkey Simply Buying Time for Iran?
• Iran's Real Goal is the Gulf