What might keep Iran's nuclear weapons from being used?

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

So we're back to debating whether Israel - or the United States - ought to attack Iran because Iran is trying to build nuclear bombs.
Iran learned from the 2007 Israeli aerial attack on Syria's half-built nuclear weapons manufacturing site. Syria built it in the open desert, probably hoping that nobody would discern its purpose until too late. The Israeli attack was a success. And Syria couldn't retaliate for fear of provoking a nuclear Israeli counter-response.
Iran's nuclear program materials and staff are nowhere near as vulnerable to an attack - and even a non-nuclear response from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas would kill tens of thousands of Israelis. Israel, of course, would fight back, and millions could die in the bloodbath.
That includes Americans. And it includes Americans living in and around DuBois. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, show that we can be targeted. There is a huge difference in capabilities between the terrorists of Al Qaeda and a full-fledged nation-state of some 75 million people.
So ... if an attack is launched, would it be successful?
What is success?
Success is not delay. We ought to have learned that lesson from the "peace in our time" capitulation over Czechoslovakia that emboldened the Nazi Germans to launch World War II.
From our perspective, success through use of military force could only be achieved by flat-out conquering Iran. Even then, as we found out when we conquered Iraq militarily, the attackers would be viewed as foreign occupiers, who would need to withdraw sooner or later, leaving the mindset unchanged. Yes, Iran's government is unpopular among Iranians. Saddam Hussein was detested by Iraqis, too, but Americans were viewed as occupiers, not to be trusted, to be attacked. So if we use military force, we need to be prepared to occupy Iran for a generation while we inculcate regime change by cultural change. Can that succeed? Well, Yugoslavia ruled Serbs, Bosnians and Croats with an iron hand for a half-century - and after its dissolution, the previous attitudes, prejudices and hatreds were unchanged. War ensued.
What then?
Mutual assured destruction.
That is the only strategy since the dawn of the nuclear age that has worked.
Since 1945, no nuclear weapon has been used in war, because the retaliatory consequences are too grave.
If a country's leaders embrace mass suicide - and that, too, is not far-fetched, given the religious fanaticism of cult leaders David Koresh and Jim Jones - then we will have nuclear war.
In our view, a pre-emptive strike with conventional weapons, killing thousands of one's countrymen, is not a sensible tactic intended to dissuade religious fanatics from thinking, "They're killing us anyway; might as well go nuclear and take them with us."
Mutual assured destruction might not work, either.
But it kept the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and China and their allies, from nuclear destruction for a half-century.
To us, it seems a less risky tactic than a pre-emptive military strike that cannot be certain of success, and will surely prompt a horrific war of regional, or perhaps global, possibly nuclear proportions.
- Denny Bonavita