Alternative to Attacking Iran

[Sanat-e-naft]

The alternative to an Israeli attack on Iran

Serious diplomacy, not military action, will bring regional security.

By Shlomo Ben-Ami and Trita Parsifrom the July 2, 2008 edition
Washington and Jerusalem - Is war between Israel and Iran inevitable? To listen to Iran's radical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Israel's Iranian-born transportation minister Shaul Mofaz, or even recent reports that Israel carried out a major military training mission over the Mediterranean to rehearse an attack on Iran, you might be left with that impression.
Mr. Mofaz's comments last month indicating he would attack Iran didn't help perceptions either. The immediate effect of his statement was a record increase in oil prices – giving Mofaz's Iranian nemeses a windfall of several million dollars.
Mofaz and Mr. Ahmadinejad are wrong. Israel and Iran are not destined to be enemies, nor does the military option present a real way out of the current impasse. In reality, it doesn't offer a solution at all.
Logistical challenges of hitting Iran's nuclear facilities and regional consequences of war aside, military strikes wouldn't destroy any potential clandestine facilities in Iran nor Iran's knowledge of the enrichment process.
Even the most successful bombing raid would leave Iran with some nuclear capability. At best, proponents of this option admit, bombing would set back the program five years. During that time the expectation is that the Iranian people miraculously would unseat the country's ruling clergy and dismantle the nuclear program permanently.
This unjustified expectation underlines a central flaw in the outlook of both Jerusalem and Washington: the tendency to treat the risks and repercussions of military operations with extreme optimism, while treating the diplomacy challenges with extreme skepticism.
A much more probable scenario: Tehran would use the attack to invoke Article 10 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and withdraw from the treaty altogether. This article gives each party the right to withdraw if it decides that extraordinary events "have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country." Iran would cease all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, expel all UN inspectors, and by that, deprive the international community of much-needed transparency and insight.
More ominously, the attack could prompt the Iranian leadership to make the crucial decision to seek an actual nuclear bomb and not just the capability to build one, while accentuating Iran's role as a power against the status quo.
Consequently, a successful bombing campaign by either the US or Israel would simply guarantee a nuclear armed and vengeful Iran five years down the road. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, said recently that if Iran left the NPT, it could build a nuclear weapon within a year.
To make matters worse, any military attack would reduce rather than increase the likelihood of a democratic takeover. As unpopular as the Iranian government is, the expectation that a secular democratic government would emerge in the aftermath of a bombing campaign is wildly optimistic and reminiscent of the Bush administration's miscalculations going into Iraq. War with Iran would be the death knell and not the savior of the Iranian democracy movement.
Any serious effort to address the Iranian challenge must recognize the true nature of the conflict. There is nothing apocalyptic about the nuclear stand-off or the Israeli-Iranian rivalry. Rather, these are strategically driven conflicts that can be managed and even resolved through the appropriate level of diplomacy.
A give and take is needed between Iran and Israel in which Iran must end its support for violent groups and acknowledge Israel's legitimate security concerns. Israel and the US must accommodate an Iranian role commensurate with its geopolitical weight and use Iran's inclusion into regional political and economic structures to tame Iran's revolutionary impulses.
That said, Israeli-Iranian enmity is not entirely dissociated from the Arab-Israeli dispute. The latter definitely facilitates and enhances Iran's strategy of regional destabilization. A regional system of security and cooperation in the Middle East cannot be established without an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. And it is equally important to address the question of nuclear disarmament.
For regional security to be possible it is not only necessary for Iran, Israel, and the US to grant one another minimum levels of recognition, it would also be necessary that Israel discard the notion that the regional order should be based on its nuclear monopoly.
The real choice in the long run is not between suspension of enrichment or war – it is between a verifiably nuclear-free Middle East or uncontrolled proliferation.
• Shlomo Ben-Ami is vice president of the Toledo International Center for Peace and former foreign minister of Israel. Trita Parsi is president of the National Iranian American Council and author of "Treacherous Alliance – The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the US."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0702/p09s01-coop.html

[budgie]

At this stage there are a hundred alternatives to attacking Iran. Force should never be ruled out but should only be the last resort.

[Marshall_Nord]

I envision a more direct diplomatic approach. The US needs to sit down across the table with the government of Iran and say the following:

“We have come to realize that no military action will ever stop the Islamic Republic of Iran from developing nuclear weapons, if they ever so choose. It is your decision and, I emphasize, responsibility; for having possession of nuclear weapons carries with it a great burden that I hope the Islamic Republic has considered.

For you see, Mr. President, if we or any of our allies are the victims of a nuclear or radiological attack, you will have to be added to the list of potential attackers and/or suppliers. Granted, a process of elimination from the list will be carried out, but the more saber rattling a nation broadcasts, the longer they stay on the list. Once the list of candidates are narrowed to the few who would dare deliver such a horror upon the West and its allies, we will have to use quick judgment and decide upon the retaliatory target in a timely manner. Domestic and International pressures will force us to act.

I remind the President and his esteemed colleagues present that the United States will always have more nuclear weapons than the Islamic Republic of Iran, and ours will work.”

Thank you

[sinophile]

I remind the President and his esteemed colleagues present that the United States will always have more nuclear weapons than the Islamic Republic of Iran, and ours will work.”Thank you
I would be concerned your fictional leader might get this response:

President Obama, You had decades to engage with us, stop us by force, decrease the world's reliance on oil and natural gas, and could have prevented our nuclear ascent through 2009. You didn't and here we sit. By the way, nice tie, bet it feels a little tight around your neck about now.

My country, President Obama, supplies 14% of China's oil, 10% of Japan's and 6% of India's. We have the 3rd largest proven reserves of oil in the world and 2nd largest natural gas reserves.

Iran is too important to your allies and adversaries, all of whom will unite in opposition to any existential threat to my country - not because they like us - but out of their own economic and national interests. I would expect China, India and possibly Russia to move quickly to deter the US from a retaliatory strike.

As you know Azerbaijan, Iraq and Bahrain are Shia countries and are likely rise up in violent opposition to such threats. The straight of Hormuz through which travels 40% of world oil traffic, will be shut for a time. The world's energy supply will be cut at its knees.

We have no intention of using nuclear power for anything but peaceful means, but given the state of nuclear proliferation we cannot be held responsible for the actions of some radical group with whom we <cough> have no connection. Bottom-line: we'll do as we please.

[Hollis]

You know what is wrong, the assumption is that it is all the US choice. It takes two to tangle. Why don't you ask, "What can Iran do?"


Iran could start something, so can the US or any other country for that matter. The US maybe the most powerful country in the world, but it does not have absolute power or absolute control over every issue. Iran right now has a lot of control. So maybe ask Iran the questions too.

[jokuvaan]

This writing of Shlomo Ben-Ami and Trita Parsi talks only small to barely medium scale attack and after effects of such. Large scale(use your imagination) attack would create political and military vacuum which would most likely result a outside helped civil war. Plus under continuous air threat its darn difficult and slow to build new nuke program.

Because this nuke dispute is quite fully ideological and not rational energy matter, sadly I can see only Iran with nukes or Iran as warzone.

[Mastermind]

Lage or small scale attack on iran would plunge the world into economic chaos,which we may be headed for regardless. Iran would likely block the Straite and the ensuing conflict would probably not be easy to de-escalate.

I think this: the west is going to have to accept a nuclear Iran...whether the iranian weapons are real or imagined in effectivness...they will be a real as both sides want to make them. To accept this state of affairs, the West will have to put some unknown city up as a potential sacrifice. It is very much the circumstance a criminal faces when he takes a hostage...kill the hostage, you will be killed. Iran would be (an is) as Hollis stated above the one with all the options.

The West is not likely to bring economic destruction upon itself on the mere suspicion that Iran has or would use nuclear weapons. Iran will have to make the first move.

In my book, the best option is to do absolutely nothing...to quit feeding Irans ego by paying so much attention to her. leave her alone to do as she will...watch, listen and stand back. And, most importantly, to tell Iran with one voice...If any nation is attacked with nucelar weapon(s), from any nation, from any group, we will hold Iran totally and implicitly immediately responsibe and will respond with utter devastation on her due to her belligerant threatening postures.

Watch Iran quiet down.

[seathru]

Watch Iran quiet down.For a while, then they break the silence with a loud ban and a mushroom.

Alternative: 1. U.S. withdraws from Iraq completely and permanently. 2. Israel abandons its nuclear arsenal and commits itself to a nuclear-free middle east.

If either of the 2 is not satisfied, there is no alternative: Iran will get its nuclear weapons.

[Mastermind]

I doubt very seriously options 1 or 2 are very likley...so option 3, living with a nuclear armed Iran is the one most likley.

[budgie]

I doubt very seriously options 1 or 2 are very likley...so option 3, living with a nuclear armed Iran is the one most likley.


Starting to look that way. No nation state will pass its nuclear technology to a terrorist organisation of any stripe (though one can't speak for individuals like Dr Khan). If Hezbollah obtained and used an Iranian nuke, then Iran would be the obvious target for retaliation. The Mullahs do not seek the destruction of their nation state.