The Devastating Consequences of an Attack on Iran

Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today: Thursday September 2, 2010.

Stop the War Talk - Reza Aslan and Bernard Avashai in the International Herald Tribune [link]

• Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is in Washington, purportedly to be part of the Obama administration’s relaunch of peace negotiations. But the urgent talk is of war, thanks to Jeffrey Goldberg’s much-discussed Atlantic Monthly cover article, which faithfully reproduced the logic of Israeli military and political leaders.
• An Israeli attack on Iran would almost certainly precipitate a devastating regional war with unforeseeable global consequences.
• Iran is not Syria, with no immediate capacity to retaliate against a surprise attack on its nuclear sites. Iran is a country of 70 million people, and its commanders, battle-hardened by a brutal eight-year stand-off with Iraq, have the ability and will to engage in a long, protracted war against Israel and American interests.
• Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard has extended its reach from southern Lebanon to South America and maintains proxy forces — again, Hezbollah and Hamas — positioned in Israel’s back yard. They’ll force Israel to fight a war of attrition on multiple fronts.
• Israel would likely be compelled to extend its military operations to include Lebanon. That would instantly plunge the entire region into war
• Clearly, an Iranian bomb would cause irreparable damage to the global anti-proliferation regime, add a threat to Israel and complicate American foreign policy. All nonviolent diplomatic means should be used to prevent this. But if a year from now we are confronted by an Iran crossing the nuclear threshold, that would be a lesser evil than what we will confront in the wake of an attack to prevent this.
• Reza Aslan serves on Ploughshares Fund's Board of Directors

US Non-Committal on Resuming North Korea Nuclear Talks - AFP [link]

• The United States said Wednesday it planned more consultations with its partners after hearing China's perspective on reviving stalled six-party nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea.
• The Chinese "shared their perspective on where we are, their interpretation of what needs to be done based on their high-level conversations with North Korean leaders," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.
• "We have our own ideas. We'll be consulting further. We'll be sharing our ideas at some point with our partners in this process," Crowley said, adding the group would "chart a way forward" together.

The Nuclear Domino Myth - Johan Bergenas in Foreign Affairs [link]

• According to nearly everyone, if Iran develops nuclear weapons, its neighbors will inevitably do so, too.
• But there's one problem with this "nuclear domino" scenario: the historical record does not support it. Since the dawn of the nuclear age, many have feared rapid and widespread nuclear proliferation; 65 years later, only nine countries have developed nuclear weapons.
• It has now been four years since North Korea became a nuclear weapons state, yet South Korea and Japan have not followed suit…These countries' decisions to not go nuclear are largely thanks to extensive U.S. efforts to dissuade them.
• In the Middle East, there are no signs that the nuclear dominos will fall anytime soon. Although many governments believe that Iran could be one to three years away from developing a nuclear bomb, all other Middle Eastern countries (besides Israel) are at least 10 to 15 years away from reaching such a capability.
• There is no question that the world would be better off if Iran did not obtain nuclear weapons, and the international community must use all appropriate measures to prevent Iran -- or any other country -- from doing so. But the case against a nuclear Iran is strong enough without a nuclear domino myth.
• Johan Bergenas is a Research Associate at the Stimson Center - a Ploughshares Grantee.

2002 Throwback: Rehashing Claims of WMD in Iraq

If Saddam Had Stayed - Daniel Henninger in The Wall Street Journal [link]

• Let us assume that we had left Saddam in power in Iraq. What would the world look like today?
• Mr. Obama and others believe that Saddam and his nuclear ambitions could have been contained. I think exactly the opposite was likely.
• At the time of Mr. Obama's 2002 antiwar speech, three other significant, non-Iraqi events were occurring: Iran and North Korea were commencing toward a nuclear break-out, and A.Q. Khan was on the move.
• In short, the nuclear bad boys club was on the move in 2002. Can anyone seriously believe that amidst all this Saddam Hussein would have contented himself with administering his torture chambers? This is fanciful.
• Yes, the Duelfer Report concluded that Saddam didn't have active WMD. But at numerous points in the 1,000-page document, it asserted that Saddam's goal was to free himself of U.N. sanctions and restart his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and other WMD.
• The march across the nuclear threshold by lunatic regimes is a clear and present danger. The sacrifice made by the United States in Iraq took one of these nuclear-obsessed madmen off the table and gave the world more margin to deal with the threat that remains, if the world's leadership is up to it.