Iran is reviving its nuclear-enrichment program. Again. The U.S. and its European allies want the matter referred to the UN Security Council. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060116/ap_on_re_mi_ea/europe_iran_15 Iran threatens if this is done, it will no longer allow UN inspections of its nuclear program. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060117/wl_afp/iranpoliticsnucleariaeaun_060117115437
What, if anything, can the Security Council actually do about this situation?
In reality, nothing much without Russian and Chinese support. Both are pretty darn annoyed with Iran right now over this issue, so it’s not really farfetched that they would go along with something. The only real option for the Security Council is economic sanctions. The Iranian economy is still hugely reliant on oil exports for cash, so even just a boycott of Iranian oil would be very effective if we were willing to go through the pain of the higher oil prices.
Not only would it cause huge pain for Iran economically, it would also be a shot at their pride. Iran’s ruling elite have taken a huge amount of pride in their growing economic and political contact around the world and want the sort of recognition they feel their regional status deserves, especially after Bush’s “Axis of Evil” remark, even if their president seems comfortable with being condemned by pretty much everyone.
With what’s going on in Iraq, military action is pretty much out of the question, especially given how Iran has spread out and fortified their nuclear research labs. That makes an Osirak-type strike very difficult to pull off - especially without causing huge numbers of civilian casualties.
Somehow, I don’t think that’s in the cards. For obvious reasons.
Hmm, would this be a better target for one of those smart missles?
Israel is in deep discussions with Russia. Right now. If the UN won’t… I’m pretty sure they will.
They will what? They’ll do absolutely squat. Israel doesn’t have the capability to seriously derail Iran’s nuclear program. Iran figured out pretty quickly after the Osirak reactor incident that it would have to guard against that sort of action. So they have completely decentralized and fortified a whole chunk of its nuclear facilities. Natanz is 75 feet underground. Besides the few main facilities, they also have over 100 other sites doing chunks of the reseach and we don’t even know where they all are.
The most Israel could hope to do would be to attack the Natanz and Bushehr sites, and settle for only damaging the facilities rather than destroy them outright. The best case scenario for that action is that Iran’s nuclear research is delayed by two or three years. Of course, you’ll have also made the ruling regime more belligerent than ever and likely done them a favor by causing the “rally round the flag” attitude that usually accompanies a foreign attack.
CAN they do something? Probably not. Anything they could do to Iran would be harmful to themselves (except perhaps politically). If they impose sanctions on Iran (IF they could get both the Russians AND the Chinese on board :dubious: ), Iran could always retaliate by lowering their own oil output…which would essentially hurt everyone (especially the Chinese and Russians). Not going to happen (though what they are going to do now that the Euro’s have made it a major issue will be interesting to see).
SHOULD they do something? Probably. I think that, at least in theory, keeping the nuclear club as small as possible is a good thing…especially for less stable nations like Iran. Iran agreed to the NPT after all…they should be kept to it.
In practice though I think Iran has the world over an (oil) barrel and it would probably have been better had the Euro’s just let the US make the noise and down play things…so they could more easily puss out or let the US take the heat for being the bad guy with Iran. Now…god knows what will happen. Probably nothing good.
-XT
No, the most Israel could do–barring inadvertently precipitating World War III–is to launch a half-assed decapitation strike against Iran, trigger a half-assed Iranian counterattack, and then dump the whole sack of $#%@ on Bush’s lap, leaving him the Big Decision as to whether the US military completes the job or leaves Iran to rebound and then even the score.
Europe, of course, will stand at the ready with its ace diplomatic corps.
I thought the goal of an Osirak type attack is not to destroy research labs but to destroy the ability to make the fuel for nuclear weapons. IIRC the technology behind a nuclear bomb is not all that complicated. Certainly advanced designs and perfecting maximum yield from a given amount of fuel may be technically challenging but cobbling together a nuke that will give a satisfying boom is within the grasp of most physics/engineering graduate students. I thought the really tricky part lay in the refining of the fuel to get the material in the first place. As such I thought the point of Osirak was to destroy the reactor that makes the raw materials for a bomb. No raw material, nothing to refine, no bomb.
I may be way off in my understanding however.
It was my understanding that the enrichment program doesn’t violate the NPT.
The issue at stake here really is one of sovereignty. The European colonial powers want a special kind of power that others aren’t allowed to enjoy. There are some very good reasons, that are understandable, but Muslims are very tired of living at the whim of European powers.
I don’t think there is anything the Security Council can or should do. All the old orientalist tactics need to be re-evaluated. Certainly it is worrisome that Iranian nukes could land in the wrong hands, but this was a scare when the Soviet Union collapsed when India and Pakistan got nukes, and it’s going to be the same scare every time a nascent nuclear state emerges. There just isn’t that much that can be done. We need to scale back hostilities, because what’s a stake here is a global war that no one wants.
The problem here is that America and Europe don’t have the political capital to justify that they are responsible enough to have nuclear weapons due to the way we have treated this people as colonial powers for the past couple hundred years.
It doesn’t…and if Iran took Russia’s offer to enrich it for them (lower than weapons grade) then everything would be fine. The problem is…IS Iran only trying to enrich for power or are they going to go further and enrich to weapons grade? The way Iran has gone about things I’d have to say that it LOOKS like thats exactly what they are trying to do. And of course that DOES violate the NPT.
Perhaps (hell, preaching to the choir talking to me about European excesses of the past)…but Iran DID sign the NPT and it behooves them to do things that don’t make other nations suspicious of them.
Europe doesn’t have the will…and the US doesn’t have the political capital. And Iran has the oil trump card. I disagree with you that the US and Europe don’t hold the moral high ground as far as nuclear weapons goes…or that Iran DOES have the stability to have the damn things. We do and they don’t…but the reality of the situation seems to lean towards there being nothing substantial that can or will be done to stop Iran from marching down the road they are currently marching down.
-XT
That half-assed Iranian counterattack will quite probably include missile attacks on American positions in Iraq and a nice big wave of Iranian-sponsored terrorism attacks in Israel.
And if the US military tries to “complete the job”, the Iranian government might just decide to go out with a bang by shutting down the straight of Hormuz. Won’t that be fun?
That, of course, is if the US military can “complete the job”. Aren’t there already a lot of troops busy in that Iraq place? You know, the one with a large Shiite population that probably won’t be too pleased with any US military action against Iran? And if not troops, then what? Lots of airstrikes against nuclear facilities, many of which are undoubtably close to civilian population centres?
Article III of the NPT requires signatories to “accept safeguards, as set forth in an agreement to be negotiated and concluded with the International Atomic Energy Agency in accordance with the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Agencys safeguards system, for the exclusive purpose of verification of the fulfillment of its obligations assumed under this Treaty with a view to preventing diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.”
So enrichment violates the NPT if you can’t convince the IAEA that the enriched uranium won’t be used for weapons. Wonderfully broad, isn’t it?
Why do we assume a strike would be at the nuclear facilities?
What if Israel strikes at Iranian leadership, either with assassination teams or bombing?
It seems to me that before deciding what ‘should’ be done, it’s important to define the consequences of not doing something.
If you believe that the consequence of not doing something is merely another Pakistan, a nuclear nation that, however unstable, seems to be bearing the responsibility rather well, then perhaps the answer is that we don’t do very much.
On the other hand, if you think that the end result of a nuclear Iran is a nuclear war in the Middle East, then everything up to and including a large scale war is preferable.
My guess is that the best case scenario of a nuclear Iran is a regime that feels invulnerable, and therefore will become increasingly belligerant, especially with regards to Israel, and perhaps with Iraq. Nuclear blackmail against the west doesn’t seem out of the question. Would a nuclear Iran invade Iraq in five years after the Americans are largely gone, and threaten nuclear retaliation if anyone does anything to stop them?
The worst case scenario is that Iran will use the bomb to attack Israel. The leadership of that country is from an apocalyptic offshoot of Islam that believes that A) the obliteration of Israel will lead to the apocalypse, which will be followed by Muslim rule over the world, and B) that men have the ability to control when that happens, largely by spreading enough terror and misery that it forces the return of the 12th Imam. That’s an extraordinarily dangerous belief system to have if you have nuclear weapons. Furthermore, the new leadership is on record as saying that they not only want to ‘wipe Israel off the map’, but that they may be willing to accept the results of a nuclear exchange with Israel, because Israel is densely packed and can be completely obliterated while the Muslim world is widely spread out and cannot be.
Amir Taheri on what Iran’s Prime Minister Ahmadinejad and his inner circle believe:
For example, he’s not interested in a Democratic Palestinian state, or any accord at all with the Jews. He wants Israel destroyed, and sees it as his sacred duty to attempt to carry that out. And we’re going to let this guy have the bomb?
Imagine how you’d feel about all this if you were Israel. Are you really going to let Iran get the bomb? Even if military strikes are a long shot, do you take it? They may not be able to end Iran’s attempts to get a bomb, but surely they could cause enough damage to set them back a few years.
I don’t know what the answer is, but a world with a nuclear Iran in it is a far, far more dangerous world than one without a nuclear Iran.
What I hope happens is that the new bunch of lunatics leading Iran prove to be too crazy even for the Mullahs and other factions in the country, and a coup is staged. I have no idea how likely this would be. But assuming this doesn’t happen, letting this country get the bomb would be suicidal.
Well, I don’t see it as that cut and dry. I think it’s more about Iran’s sovereignty. It’s them saying “Fuck all you hypocrites in the west, we CAN do this, and we WILL do this.” I think it’s just them sticking up their big middle finger and letting us know that they don’t think that our fear is a reasonable factor in determining their domestic policy. I think they just don’t want to be dependent upon another nation in that way. They don’t want to play vassal state to Russia. I can’t blame them honestly.
They are still allowing inspections.
I am not sure that we DO have the moral highground. We have a president that is using the American military to pursue the corporate agenda of himself and his buddies. He has not ruled out the use of tactical nuclear weapons, and has shown a willingness to be the aggressor in foreign wars. Who doesn’t feel that he is accountable to the American people and that he is above the law. I am not certain that we are more stable than Iran to put it quite frankly.
Erek
You lack faith in Mossad. Not that I especially look forward to this, but I rather suspect that the Israelis have an action plan for this. Deep ground penetrators, assassination, the sort of weapons we used against mountain bunkers, whatever.
I certainly expect they don’t look forward to doing it, but if I were them, I’d be updating plans every day. And they are working with Russia. Odd enough.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1136361098257&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
I do hope this blows over. But it might not.
Why do we assume a strike would be at the nuclear facilities?
What if Israel strikes at Iranian leadership, either with assassination teams or bombing?
It seems to me that before deciding what ‘should’ be done, it’s important to define the consequences of not doing something.
If you believe that the consequence of not doing something is merely another Pakistan, a nuclear nation that, however unstable, seems to be bearing the responsibility rather well, then perhaps the answer is that we don’t do very much.
On the other hand, if you think that the end result of a nuclear Iran is a nuclear war in the Middle East, then everything up to and including a large scale war is preferable.
My guess is that the best case scenario of a nuclear Iran is a regime that feels invulnerable, and therefore will become increasingly belligerant, especially with regards to Israel, and perhaps with Iraq. Nuclear blackmail against the west doesn’t seem out of the question. Would a nuclear Iran invade Iraq in five years after the Americans are largely gone, and threaten nuclear retaliation if anyone does anything to stop them?
The worst case scenario is that Iran will use the bomb to attack Israel. The leadership of that country is from an apocalyptic offshoot of Islam that believes that A) the obliteration of Israel will lead to the apocalypse, which will be followed by Muslim rule over the world, and B) that men have the ability to control when that happens, largely by spreading enough terror and misery that it forces the return of the 12th Imam. That’s an extraordinarily dangerous belief system to have if you have nuclear weapons. Furthermore, the new leadership is on record as saying that they not only want to ‘wipe Israel off the map’, but that they may be willing to accept the results of a nuclear exchange with Israel, because Israel is densely packed and can be completely obliterated while the Muslim world is widely spread out and cannot be.
Amir Taheri on what Iran’s President Ahmadinejad and his inner circle believe:
For example, he’s not interested in a Democratic Palestinian state, or any accord at all with the Jews. He wants Israel destroyed, and sees it as his sacred duty to attempt to carry that out. And we’re going to let this guy have the bomb?
Imagine how you’d feel about all this if you were Israel. Are you really going to let Iran get the bomb? Even if military strikes are a long shot, do you take it? They may not be able to end Iran’s attempts to get a bomb, but surely they could cause enough damage to set them back a few years.
I don’t know what the answer is, but a world with a nuclear Iran in it is a far, far more dangerous world than one without a nuclear Iran.
What I hope happens is that the new bunch of lunatics leading Iran prove to be too crazy even for the Mullahs and other factions in the country, and a coup is staged. I have no idea how likely this would be. But assuming this doesn’t happen, letting this country get the bomb would be suicidal.
I don’t think there’s anything Iran could do short of converting to Episcopalianism and applying for statehood that’d make the US less suspicious of them.
Sam Stone Those are legitimate fears. However, the thing I would ask is if you’ve ever looked into a Muslims eyes when their rage shows. It’s a rage that comes from deep down in their stomach, it’s pretty frightening to behold, even when they are fully in control and are not focusing it at you or even mad at you.
Now imagine if Israel struck Iran. Imagine if Iran started funding terrorists willing to go after Israel. Imagine if they simply started handing out AK-47s. Muslims have a long history of successfully prosecuting wars in hordes. A dramatic event such as a strike on Iran by Israel could awaken a passion in the Islamic world that we don’t want to see, that can make nuclear weapons not irrelevant, but not necessary. Remember there are over a billion muslims in the world, most of which can walk to Israel.
Erek
Then we disagree at a fundamental level. I can certainly blame them for pushing this as they have been. I don’t see it wrapped up in a fundamental question of their sovereignty. I see it as being a good national citizen…which they obviously don’t want to be. THEY signed the NPT, and they accepted the benifits that came to them from signing it.
Do you have a cite for this? I thought that recently they decided they weren’t going to allow inspections (again). Reguardless is it your impression that the Europeans are just making things up…that there is no crisis here and that Iran is playing things fair?
I’m not Bush fan, but his being the president doesn’t significantly drop our stability as a nation, nor does the US lose its moral high ground (from a nuclear/stability perspective) just because we have a boob currently for a president. YMMV and all that but I think your impression of Bush’s actual impact on our standing is vastly overblown…he’s simply not that important.
-XT