Let’s Think Rationally About Iran

We all need to take a deep breath when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program.

I’ve been alarmed at all the belligerence ever since the revelations about Iran’s hidden nuclear facility. It’s not just the obviously far-out cases like Bush’s Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, who is pretty much calling for an Israeli strike on Iran. It appears that the American public as a whole is resigned to the inevitability of military action against Iran, in spite of the Obama Administration’s current negotiating posture.

“Despite strong support for diplomatic engagement with Iran, most U.S. citizens believe such efforts will ultimately fail and that Washington should be prepared to use military force to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, according to a new poll released in the U.S. on Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press,” Jim Lobe reports for the Inter Press Service. “Sixty-four percent of respondents said they did not believe direct negotiations would work, while a somewhat smaller 56 percent doubted that tougher economic sanctions would have the desired effect.”

Such feelings are generated by the notions—stoked by incendiary analysis in the media—that a) Iran is going to have a bomb really soon and b) Iran is crazy enough to use it. Both assumptions need to be examined.

Gary Sick, a Ford and Carter Administration official, questions the certainty surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, pointing out that similar predictions were made about Saddam. He believes, convincingly in my view, that Iran will stop just short of building a weapon.

Gareth Porter, a historian and policy analyst, is even more dismissive.

"This is very far from a smoking gun, certainly with regard to Iranian intentions as far as nuclear weapons are concerned and also to the capability of manufacturing a nuclear weapon,” he says about the recent revelations.

Let us be the most cynical, however, and assume that Iran is indeed on its way to building a nuclear arsenal. Does that mean it is necessarily going to launch a nuclear strike? A lot of people think so, based on Ahmadinejad’s erratic views—particularly his millenarian belief in the coming of the Mahdi (messiah)—and his threats toward Israel.

Now, Ahmadinejad is a bit of a nut job, and his pronouncements about Israel and the Holocaust are repulsive.

But Ronald Reagan also had millenarian notions. In 1971, he proclaimed to a dinner companion, “For the first time ever, everything is in place for the battle of Armageddon and the second coming of Christ." In 1980, he told evangelist Jim Bakker on his television program, “We may be the generation that sees Armageddon.” We all got through having such a man’s finger on the nuclear button.

Besides, with the multiple power centers in Iran, how much does Ahmadinejad determine Iran’s nuclear policy? Iran’s head cleric Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supposedly the most powerful man in the country, has called nuclear weapons immoral and has said that "developing, producing or stockpiling nuclear weapons is forbidden under Islam." Now, he may be lying, but this would really be laying the credibility on the line of a regime that derives its legitimacy from religion.

Fareed Zakaria—no progressive he—details the multiple fallout that would result from an assault on Iran. The regime’s popularity—under severe assault after the recent dubious elections—would soar. Iran would engage in a number of planned retaliatory attacks. And the entire Middle East would be awash in anger. Zakaria favors “sustained containment and deterrence,” a route I’m unsure about, but at least he’s not chomping at the bit.

Iran has legitimate security reasons to acquire nuclear weapons, if it is indeed on that path. Israel has a secret stash of nuclear bombs that reportedly reaches 200. The United States, Iran’s chief adversary, has an arsenal of thousands. The latest moves of the regime—no matter how distressing—should not be mistakenly portrayed as a threat to the United States. Nor should they be used to legitimize an assault on Iran.