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Iran and the Threat of Not Having Future Wars
The conventional understanding you get from the media is that Israel is worried that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a serious threat to the country's existence.
Israel War on Lebanon: 2006
Is that really what's happening, though? Another interpretation is that Iran might want nuclear weapons not to launch any such an attack but to prevent an attack on its country--nuclear deterrence, in other words. (Of course, it's important to note that there is currently no evidence that Iran is pursuing a weapons program.)
I was struck when I heard Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman bring up some of these ideas on NPR's Talk of the Nation on January 30. Bergman is no outsider critic of Israeli policy; when he appeared recently on the NewsHour (1/12/12) and was asked about the assassination of Iranian scientists, his answer was: "I don't know. And even if I knew, I would tell you that I don't know."
Here's what he said on NPR, appearing to talk about his New York Times magazine piece on Israel and Iran:
NEAL CONAN: Chris, thanks very much for the call. Israel itself possesses, what, 300 nuclear weapons we believe, maybe more? Why does not deterrence work? Israel, of course, would retaliate if Iran were to use a nuclear weapon.
BERGMAN: I would assume that--oh, I know that most of Israel's leaders do not believe that Iran is going to use nuclear weapons against Israel. The problem is not the nuclear threat. The Iranians are not stupid. They want to live.... And I think that most leaders, and me personally as well, see that there are only a few people who believe that Iran would be hesitant enough to--sorry, brutal enough and stupid enough to use nuclear weapon against Israel.
The problem is that once Iran acquires this ability, it would change the balance of power in the Middle East. And a country that possesses nuclear weapon is a different country when it comes to support proxy jihadist movement. And these Israeli leaders afraid would significantly narrow down the variety of options from the point of view of Israel, just to quote one example coming from Minister of Defense Barak, when he said, just imagine--he told me in a meeting we had on the 13th of January in his house--said, just imagine, Ronen, that tomorrow we go into another war with Hezbollah in Lebanon like we did in 2006, and this time we are determined to take them out. But Iran comes forward and say, to attack Hezbollah is like attacking Iran, and we threaten you with nuclear weaponry.
Now, Minister of Defense Barak says it's not necessarily that we would be threatened not to attack, and we would decide to cancel the war, but it would certainly make us think twice.
In other words, Israel's position might be that an nuclear-armed Iran could make it harder to have future wars. That's a very different discussion from the one we're having now.
20 Comments so far
Show All"Ronen, that tomorrow we go into another war with Hezbollah in Lebanon like we did in 2006, and this time we are determined to take them out. But Iran comes forward and say, to attack Hezbollah is like attacking Iran, and we threaten you with nuclear weaponry."
So this is all about allowing Israel to do to Lebanon what they did in the past without justification again? They bombed Lebanon back at least ten years. In response to what?
I vote NO! In fact I would vote to allow any small nation willing to stand up to Israel the right to arm itself. I vote for cutting off aid to Israel and sending it to these countries instead. Iran doesn't even want our money it just wants nuclear power for it's citizens. And this is a crime?
Enduring Peace is the greatest threat to the military-industrial complex. The military-industrial complex controls the American government and its surrogates. Therefore, Enduring Peace is the greatest threat to the American government and its surrogates. Thank you Peter Hart for helping to establish an obvious - and completely ignored - logical truth.
The nuclear issue is a smokescreen behind which Israel is furtively annexing the entire West Bank for good. Loud claims about Iranian threats are always accompanied by big land grabs and other vile measures in the West Bank as is happening right now. Why now? To tell the world "too late; come and get it if you dare because the Yankees will blast you" should most of the world ever accept a Palestinian state.
It is greatly disturbing that President Obama has not publicly warned Israel with dire consequences if it really attacks Iran but Obama is no Eisenhower who did not lose a bit of national support when he ordered Great Britain and Israel to stop their attack on Egypt and withdraw their armed forces from Egypt. In fact he was widely praised for his statesmanship.
"Obama is no Eisenhower who did not lose a bit of national support when he ordered Great Britain and Israel to stop their attack on Egypt and withdraw their armed forces from Egypt. In fact he was widely praised for his statesmanship."
That was just prior to his reelection in 1956 as well, so Ike had to face the voters immediately after that decision, and the voters approved, even as the crisis was ongoing in early November ...
I disagree. The principal reason for Eisenhower's action was that the Suez Canal at that time was still in the main oil-shipping route from the Middle East to Europe. Eisenhower correctly concluded that it would be better to have the canal in Egyptian hands than to have reprisal attacks on ships in the canal in the hands of the UK and Israel. It was about oil then and is about oil today.
Not sure what you disagree with. That the voters approved his decision when they reelected him? They did reelect him in a landslide close to the end of the crisis, after he'd made his stand. I'm sure Obama's advisers would predict the opposite result to him today, yet the history of 1956 suggests the opposite might occur ...
If I recall rightly, the two main attacker nations were Britain and France. Further, Khruschev was making noises about using nuclear missiles on London and Paris. So Eisenhower was considering more than just the maintenance of shipping lanes. I often had a feeling that the American run on the British pound was to save Britain's face - it gave the British a plausible reason not to continue with the war against the Egyptians (compared with the more unpalatable - or "shameful" - reason of backing down in the face of Soviet nuclear threats).
It's hard to figure out what Israel is playing at, since it's hard to get inside the mind of an idiot - the sort of person who's a danger to himself and everyone around him.
But I do think one of their goals is regime change (in the USA).
Two crazy Nations with nuclear weapons in the Middle East is enough. What does Saudi Arabia have to say about it? They have the swing vote.
Saudis want to develop nuclear power and have said they are ready to start. But, they also agree with Iran's call for a Nuke-free Middle East. Yes IRAN is the country promoting that notion, not the US Empire or Israel, which are obviously against such thinking and have said so. In April 2011, Saudi was reported to be teaming with France for its nuclear power development, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-03/solar-nuclear-energy-to-reduce-saudi-oil-demand-official-says.html
Iran and other nations around the world saw how Saudi Arabia capitulated to the US in 1973, where it agreed to protection money (bribe) from the empire: the US didn't want a one-way flow of dollars into the Saudi regime in return for all their oil we bought because those dollars could soon get out of hand enriching and empowering the oil sheikhs, and only their god knows what they'd do with all that money.
So the US said invest your dollars we give you back into the US -- into our treasuries -- and on top of that, make sure you use the interest from those investments hiring American corporations for all your infrastructure needs. Saudi Arabia agreed to this knowing the US didn't really want to pay for its oil, and in turn accepted protection from the US so that other nations or non-state actors would be prevented from threatening the kingdom.
It was really the wealthy Saudi royal family that wanted the protection, they didn't care so much for the non-royals, as they pose a domestic threat to the kingdom inasmuch as foreigners might also. If it were not for the fact Saudi Arabia is a monarchy, it may not have capitulated. But it did, and other regional states fumed at the precedent.
So Iraq and Iran weren't having it, and neither is Venezuela -- they are aware the western power does not want to enrich them, empower them, and thereby shift the center of power out of the US-Euro axis. But of course the nations of the Middle East have similar ambitions as the west, and developing nukes to deter the US from forcing bribes and so-called protection money is on such ambition.
These resource-rich nations want to be paid for their materials under their own terms on a level playing field, but the US doesn't want to enrich them with all their dollars down a one-way street since, to Americans, it just looks like all our money is going up in smoke. They won't reciprocate and buy our "American" exports, which come from a culture they disdain, and they won't buy our T-bills unless we compel them to.
With a nuke, Iran can say no to any negotiation tactics when selling their natural resources on the open world market. They can choose to sell their wares in Euros, Yen, Rubles or whatever, killing the value of the US Dollar as a world-reserve currency. Losing the petrodollar hegemony would make the US a much weaker power, and no longer being able to compel Iran and other countries would surely weaken the empire so much, it would lose Superpower status, and fall to the secondary level of Brazil, Russia, India, China or Japan.
So, hell yes, the US doesn't want to lose its bargaining powers over little nations that have the natural resources we want. And so we went into Iraq after Saddam refused all deals, and Iran is next. Should Venezuela seek a nuke, they'd be targeted for creating too much of a deterrence also.
The article sets up the logic that Iran would be stupid to attack Israel with nuclear weapons, but then uses the argument counter to that logic, for the conclusion that Israel might have to "think twice", as deterrent to war.
I ask the author, to just keep his focus on how preposterous it is for Israel to propose that Iran is going to attack or threaten Israel with nuclear weapons, and that there is thus far ZERO real evidence that Iran is building nukes.
Israel and the United States are not to be trusted because they have a proven record of lying. The hunger of the US and Israeli establishment for a war with Iran will only be satisfied by war. The Americans are the biggest warmongers on earth and they are always looking for new enemies and targets and Israel wants to eliminate any and all opposition to their expansion and their unjust and hateful treatment of the Palestinians. The creation of the racist state of Israel was horrible mistake for which the world is still paying for today.
I agree. America's love of war makes it inevitable, no matter the consequences.
Nagasaki & Hiroshima August 1945. Two nuclear bombs and the war with Japan ended. The price, was immeasurable with a huge loss of life and some very ill Japanese from radiation poisoning.
The nuclear weapons of 2012 make the Japanese weapons used like light years away.
There is no question that the World does not need regimes like Syria, Iran, North Korea but killing a huge swath of innocent humanity is way more scary.
Do not read this wrong having Bombs of Really Mass Destruction works in a grand deterrence and it's called fear.
Intolerance and fear is what drives the governments of these rogue countries. The vetoes at the United Nations by Russia give me real pause and I am sure one great smile on the face of the Dictator of Fear in Syria and Iran and North Korea.
My take is that Peace trumps War but Nuclear Weapons TRUMP us all,
Your definition of Rogue regimes are countries that the MSM calls rogue? You never mentioned the biggest rogue in that neighborhood....ISRAEL. Or the biggest rogue in the world..,..the US of FCKING A.
Why can't Iran get Russian nukes in the black market?
It seems Israel is a very convenient vocal "attack dog" for the US empire. The US is likely more concerned with installing a friendlier regime who will sell their energy products exclusively in US dollars and then recycle the dollars into Treasury bills, just like Saudi Arabia and others do. Iran has begun to sell oil and gas for gold and other currencies other than USD.
Israel and the nuke BS is very convenient for the US; they could never start a war based on telling people "they must accept our worthless paper for their oil or we bomb them into the Stone Age.
It is much more effective to drag out the old lies: smoking guns and mushroom clouds and all that nonsense. The Politics of Fear is very effective.
People are so gullible they could probably say: "Iran has been visited by an advanced space-alien civilization; the Iranians will soon have the space-alien technology to blow up Israel and the US with one push of a button. Unless they are attacked soon, it will be too late and we will all be killed."
What no one ever seems to point out is that Jerusalem is holy land for Muslims. I don't think for that reason alone that Muslims are likely to bomb or irradiate Jerusalem. Tel Aviv is 60 miles from Jerusalem; maybe Tel Aviv is a realistic target, but even then rather close and the latter is conceivably downwind of the former. Would the Islamic Republic of Iran of risk nuking the Dome of the Rock?
Iran doesn't mean much of anything to Jews. It seems for that reason rather more likely to be a target.
there is some risk that an israel locked in by a nuclear Iran would be unable to respond to outside pressure from Hezbollah or Hamas.
In such as scenario that outsiders are the aggressors.