Iran Not Going for the Bomb

This story has been floating around the blogosphere quite a bit: it appears that the Iranian government abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003. While the American intelligence community has been pretty damaged by the Iraq fiasco, but the pressure was undoubtedly on the CIA et cetera to show that there was a bomb being built.

Here's some speculation: 2003 was the invasion of Iraq, could it be that once the American military did away with Iran's greatest existential threat, Saddam and his alleged weapons programs, there was no good reason to develop a deterrent.

Words from Iranian clerics you probably won't see on TV

Juan Cole found this gem:

"...our eminent Leader [Ali Khamenei] -- has made it abundantly clear, as have others, that the destruction of nations, any nation, women and children, large or small -- the massacre of innocents is wrong. The same is true of the atomic bomb and atomic weapons. The very idea of an atom bomb is forbidden, the very deed is a sin."

These are the words of Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani who, being a member of the Assembly of Experts is probably as well connected to government thinking as Ahmadinejad. Could this be a ruse? Maybe. But so could some of the more bellicose statements that have emanated from Iran.

Yes I know that the neo-cons love to use 1937 as their model for everything, but what if this is 1962? Kennedy had conflicting messages from the Kremlin, he chose to respond to the more conciliatory ones and not the belligerent ones. Perhaps this should be our model now.

It is the stated position of the U.S. Air Force that their safeguards would prevent the occurence of such events

When I heard about this event on the radio, I wasn't exactly heartened. It's heartening to know that this is how secure the world's most advanced nuclear arsenal really is. No word on whether fluoridation was a cause of this mishap.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Used in war no less:

HT: Juan Cole

The US must attack Iran to save Israel's tourism sector!

That is the assertion from Noah Pollack. Or at least that's what it seems to be if you endeavour to unpack his lengthy post on what to do about Iran. Here's the money quote:

"A nuclear Iran allied with Hezbollah to the north and Hamas and Islamic Jihad to the Southwest and East would dramatically embolden Israel's enemies, suppress foreign investment and tourism in Israel, and over time would cause the economic and psychological attrition of the Jewish state -- with no bombing runs over Tel Aviv necessary."

Well, I suppose if you work in the Israeli tourism industry, this is a concern. It is probably not the sort of problem that requires an airstrike. As for Israel's economy, my impression was that it was generally focused on arms production, so, um, wouldn't this help that sector?

Moreover, having a nuclear backer in the form of the Soviet Union really didn't help Israel's enemies in the 1960s or 1970s, did it? Pollack concedes there will be no "bombing run" over Tel Aviv, yet thinks potential damage to Israel's economy or tourism should warrant a mass assault to attempt to cripple Iran's nuclear program.

Pollack goes on about the delicate balance that the US has constructed in the region. It is of course the atomic equivalent of two fat kids sitting on one end of the teeter-totter. Oops, well, I mean one has a paper bag on his head since Israel doesn't "officially" have nukes.

I am not a fan of more states going nuclear but I do not think it any more possible to stop Iran than it was to stop Pakistan and India. The attempt to stop Iran though would unleash hell in one way or another. In Iran you have an extremely ideological regime that is not terribly well supported by the public (though many would be reflexively patriotic in the face of a serious international threat) and an economic policy that is not working out terribly well.

Is it not time to think in terms of a stern, credible but ultimately peaceful engagement in the mold of engaging the Warsaw Pact nations in the 1980s instead of the psychotic, demand-an-immediate-showdown mode of the Iraq debacle?

Oh! What a Lovely War!

It's really very difficult to grasp tone online. I hope I am wrong here, but I fear that I detected a note of excitement in Jason Cherniak's reporting of this incident as being an act of war. When he adds in the comments section of the post that maybe the British will respond with a strike against nuclear targets, it sounds again like he's hoping that will - or ought to be - the solution.

As others point out, the waterway where this all happened is disputed territory. Additionally, if you read the original CTV posting, you'll find that a similar incident had happened in the past. I suppose I should add that the US-led coalition in Iraq has no problem with arresting members of the Iranian diplomatic corps. Nor does the IDF - since we're talking about the middle east - have a problem with murdering sort of inadvertently yet somehow deliberately firing missiles at Canadian soldiers. Iran's actions, unpleasant as they may be, are more or less par for the course in this region and hardly a reason to touch off widespread airstrikes. Why would anyone want them to be a reason to do that?

I had thought that we had learned our lesson about finding flimsy pretexts for military attacks. Either way I suspect there will be a week of intense negotiations, followed by the release of the British soldiers. So I like I said, I hope I misread Jason's tone, if not that of some of those in his comments section. Iran wouldn't be any more of a pleasant place to attack than Iraq.

Edit: I'm not sure why the comments don't work on this post.
Edit: Fixed it!

Actual Nuclear Powers

While everyone is panicked over Iran's possible eventual acquisition of a nuclear weapon, Eric Margolis points out that Russia, a state that actually possesses nukes, is upset. We're all so busy watching the Middle East that we may wake up one day and wonder why the West's long-forgotten foe is acting so belligerent.

What if Pakistan was Iran?

It seems as though Pakistan is getting a fairly free ride on the issue of capturing Al Qaeda (remember those guys, with the airplanes and the buildings and stuff). What I wonder is, what if Bin Laden made Iran his home at least part of the time? (Something he is almost certainly doing with Pakistan.)

This would undoubtedly be used in the current attempts at building war fever. So to recap, Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and is probably the home of Bin Laden's tree fort or whatever he lives in. Iran is years away from a bomb and none of the terror groups they support can hold a candle to Al Qaeda. (Remember kids, Iran does NOT support Al Qaeda, it's a Sunni-Shi'a thing.)