Israel nears decision on Iran attack

[seanobr]

One thing that has become apparent to me over the past year is that Israel developed its nuclear arsenal without the strategic maturity to appreciate what that might mean for its security over the long term, except for suddenly having the ability to inflict total destruction on an adversary.  While America's ubiquitous nuclear umbrella and the technological difficulty of acquiring a deterrent has helped prevent the cascade style proliferation that some once thought possible, Israel should have known from the moment it began its nuclear development that, simply as a result of its environment, its nuclear monopoly was tenuous, and every one of its potentially antagonistic neighbors could recognize the value of following Israel along the nuclear path and succeed in that endeavor.  Furthermore, if Israel is going to continue with the charade of an undeclared nuclear program, it will by definition preclude the type of arrangements that helped America and the Soviet Union maintain geopolitical stability during the Cold War, which I believe is actually the greatest danger of a hypothetical Iranian nuclear weapon.  Iran, however, is only a symptom of Israel's strategic conundrum; once you acquire a credible nuclear arsenal, its logic is inescapable, and if Israel cannot accept that it might have to one day engage in M.A.D. and nominally relinquish control over its fate, it should have never opened the pandora's box to begin with.  Israel's problem is ultimately psychological, a result of the historical legacy embedded in its identity, and not genuinely rational.  I would go even farther and observe that, if Ronan Bergman's February account was accurate and not effrontery, I came away convinced the Israeli leadership has a pathological need to be in control of a country on the verge of extermination.

Israel is a sovereign state, and as such has the right to act in its perceived national interest.  That description is a form of obfuscation, however, because Israel is also a security dependent of America, and its behavior has a disproportionate impact on our credibility and diplomatic agility.  Its only tangible value to America is whether or not it can contribute to the realization of our foreign policy; it is incumbent on Israel to harmonize its policy to accommodate that agenda.  If Israel is unwilling or incapable of fulfilling that, the relationship is nothing more than a heart warming burden for a superpower to adopt at its peril.  More broadly, the Libyan intervention elicited a substantial amount of discussion, most of it trite and predictable, about the nature of American leadership, accusing Obama of a reluctance to fulfill our pre-ordained role at the center of every international development, unfurling the flag for some principle or another.  In actuality, the only abrogation of American leadership occurs when we subordinate our interests to those of another government, which happened with increasing frequency under Obama's predecessor, as in Georgia.  No matter how essential the relationship may be portrayed by some, all of the impassioned sophistry at their command cannot obviate the reality that America and Israel have progressively divergent national interests, and while Israel may be able to rationalize a strike on Iran, it has the potential to be quite harmful to us irrespective of the outcome.  If Israel cannot respect a core interest of its patron, it should be held accountable.  Unfortunately, I doubt that will happen.

[seanobr]

Whereas, the only chance North Korea will use its bomb is if South Korea invades the North, and that ain't gonna happen.  North Korea is a vile regime, and its leadership should be sent to the gallows for their crimes, but their reasons for developing a bomb are those of national pride and self-preservation of their regime.  To a large degree that is motivating Iran as well, but Iran has other reasons as well, reasons that could lead Iran to use the bomb as something other than as a threat of mutual assured destruction.

The North Korean situation is relevant, to the extent that Pyongyang's nuclear program has continued to expand in sophistication and magnitude despite its self-induced international isolation, and it, like Iran, has a legitimate security rationale for acquiring a nuclear deterrent.  As with Iran, the D.P.R.K. is a regime that is frequently portrayed as inscrutable, mercurial, and ideological, a perception it has deliberately cultivated, probably to its advantage.  But North Korea, unlike Iran, actually engaged in a conflict with America that is still formally ongoing, its southern neighbor had a nascent nuclear program under Park Chung-hee that only ended after American diplomatic intervention, and Kim Il-sung's policy of equidistance from the Soviet Union and China meant that he never felt comfortable accepting the protective embrace of either patron.  What I object to is your attempt to emphasize Iran's theology as an unquantifiable factor while implying that North Korea is somehow a more rational actor, which is risible, because the role of identity is just as critical in dictating the D.P.R.K.'s behavior as it has been for Iran.  As I have mentioned here before, North Korea was Kim Il-sung's attempt at rectification; at the core of the D.P.R.K. is a visceral loathing of every circumstance that has harmed the Korean people in the past.  The North's perpetual anxiety, along with the nature of its political system, rendered Pyongyang's decision to acquire a nuclear arsenal inevitable -- indeed, if Jonathan Pollack's 'No Exit' is accurate, Kim Il-sung began contempating it soon after the Soviet Union, from his perspective, capitulated over Cuba.  For all of the concern about Israel being rhetorically threatened with destruction, the D.P.R.K. has repeatedly claimed it will start a war with the South, its invective against Lee Myung-bak over the past month has been grotesque, and only eighteen months have elapsed since the Yeonpyeong incident.  In fact, while our natural inclination might be to connect the D.P.R.K. and Iran, a far more intriguing comparison is between North Korea and Israel, in the sense that both were created out of extreme trauma inflicted upon a nation deprived of statehood and dignity, a legacy that has colored every action both have taken since.  North Korea is the product of a unique Korean experience and culture coupled with an external belief system in a fashion functionally similar to the transformation of Iran after its revolution.  If you believe that Iran might use a hypothetical nuclear arsenal against Israel, then the North, inaugurating an exhortatory Chollima march in response to a devastating famine, is irrational enough to start a conflict with the South.  

Iran was instrumental in reaching the Bonn Agreement immediately after America's invasion of Afghanistan, purportedly made an overture to the Bush administration to normalize relations (although I don't know whether that is believable), and was rewarded for its cooperation by being included in that farcical 'axis of evil' construct.  The behavior most frequently cited as evidence of Iran's irrationality or inherent malevolence, its employment of children in its war against Iraq, actually showed the depths of the regime's desire to survive, not simply an appetite for wanton brutality.  The reason why North Korea has continued to take the South right to the edge, but never beyond, just like Pakistan and India's mutual dance of danger, is because all of them are motivated by the desire for self-preservation, and there is no reason to assume that characteristic is not applicable to Iran as well.

If Iran gets the bomb then it becomes the most likely country to have a bomb and use it.  I'd rate the chance of Iran using an atomic bomb within a decade after it has a bomb and the means to deliver it as being in the 1 to 5% range.  Still not very likely, but enough to trigger the doctrine of preemptive war to prevent it.

With all due respect, and being rather blunt, nonsense.  I don't think that unfounded and inherently subjective statistical assertions are conductive to the discussion of this subject.

[seanobr]

As usual good post, Sean. However, don't you think the latter half of your second paragraph explains the reasoning behind what you deem the myopic strategy in the first.  As we know the Israel nuclear program was started during the Cold War.  How was Israel to know that any given US administration was to intervene on Israel's behalf in the event of a full scale invasion by combined Arab forces? The thinking that maybe Israel would be abandoned by the US rather than risk a larger war with the Soviet bloc.

Secondly, while it would be more drawn out Israel could be destroyed conventionally-were the US to turn the blind eye.  The US has been selling top of the line equipment to Arab states for several decades now.  While Israel also has their own (small scale) advanced defense industry,  they really don't have much of a technological edge anymore. Really they probably only have the edge in training, tactics and leadership. Their one technological edge and trump card is The Bomb. The strategy from the beginning of the founding of the state has been similar to M.A.D..  That if attacked and pushed to the brink- they will at least bring people down with them this time. This indeed is psychologically ingrained and a direct by-product of a post holocaust state.

I completely agree that Israel's nuclear arsenal is a result of the state's desire to depend solely on itself for security, and even if we discount the historical narrative Eisenhower's intervention during the Suez affair would have taught Israel that it can be abandoned by its ostensible protector at any time.  The constant reiteration of the importance of Israel to America and Israel's need for affirmation is undoubtedly a manifestation of that fundamental insecurity.  There is no question that Israel has a legitimate use for a nuclear arsenal, just as North Korea and Iran both do (and theoretically Saudi Arabia, Vietnam or Japan as well); the problem is that its nuclear hegemony should never have been seen as immutable.  While it would have been very difficult for a state in Israel's strategic environment to exercise such introspection, if Israel's inherent nature will not allow it to comfortably accommodate a potentially hostile nuclear power, then maybe so eagerly pursuing a nuclear arsenal, despite granting it the capability you describe, was an error.  I don't question Israel's logic; indeed, Israel's virtue is to be the only country in its immediate vicinity to have successfully acquired nuclear weaponry.  Even if it had abjured a deterrent, it may at some point have been forced to develop one.  What I do not believe is sustainable is Israel allotting a single use for that arsenal -- to inflict punishment on a conventional adversary -- or its repudiation of nuclear strategy as has been practiced since the Soviet Union declared itself a nuclear state.  

Those of us who are against the use of force with respect to Iran have a tendency to minimize the danger it presents in discussing the subject, which is unfair, because it has engaged in behavior that is extremely destabilizing to the region since we made it clear that we see it as an implacable foe before the Iraq project began.  Having made that admission, if Iran's nuclear program was somehow eliminated from consideration, Turkey, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia all could plausibly confront Israel with the same dilemma: of either accepting that another state can arbitrarily inflict destruction upon it, or taking action that is harmful to everyone concerned and may accelerate the very phenomenon that it would like to prevent.  Israel, correctly in my view, will never relinquish its nuclear weaponry, but if its perception of security is predicated on a nuclear monopoly, I do not believe that can be indefinitely guaranteed.  Israel's nuclear arsenal has become woven into its identity as the region's preeminent qualitative power, and I think it will eventually have to accept the full implications of that status.

I think Iran is rational enough not to launch a preemptive attack on Israel out of the blue.  But it's possible to take this logic too far.  Would you say that because both the US and USSR had rational leaders during the Cold War, that there was never any risk of nuclear war whatsoever, and we had nothing to worry about?

I don't think anyone would dispute the danger of miscalculation or escalation as a result of Iran becoming a nuclear power -- no such balance is completely safe -- but I also believe that is distinct from the proposition that Iran will use its weaponry in fulfillment of its rhetorical pledge to eliminate Israel, or whatever it claimed.  It's also why I noted that, as long as Israel is intent on shrouding its nuclear arsenal in secrecy, it could inhibit Israel from institutionalizing mechanisms with Iran or any other state that could provide the situation with greater stability.