- SHNS
- Scripps Newspapers
- Abilene Reporter-News
- Anderson Independent-Mail
- Boulder Daily Camera
- Corpus Christi Caller-Times
- Evansville Courier
- Henderson Gleaner
- Kitsap Sun
- Knoxville News Sentinel
- Memphis Commercial Appeal
- Naples Daily News
- Redding Record Searchlight
- Rocky Mountain News
- San Angelo Standard-Times
- Treasure Coast Newspapers
- Ventura County Star
- Wichita Falls Times Record News
- SHNS Partners
- Scripps Broadcast
- Scripps Networks
- Scripps Blogs
What will America do when Iran has nuclear weapons??
Submitted by SHNS on Fri, 05/16/2008 - 15:33.
Hillary Clinton promises she'd "obliterate" Iran if it used nuclear weapons against Israel, suggesting that, as president, she'd return the "favor" -- in spades.
Putting aside campaign rhetoric, the senator raises an excellent point: What will America do when Iran gets nuclear weapons? Many national security experts still think Washington can stop Tehran's reach for the bomb. I am not one of them. Iran has already achieved a sloppy, asymmetrical form of nuclear deterrence, meaning we can't stop it from "getting nuclear" unless we "go nuclear" pre-emptively, something we won't do.
America could stop Iran with a massive conventional invasion, but that's not something we can pull off in time.
We also can't eliminate Iran's program through conventional bombing. We can certainly raise a lot of sand, but Iran's been smart enough to distribute their assets and bury them deep underground, learning from Israel's strikes against Iraq decades ago.
Yes, Israel might strike pre-emptively with nukes. That remains the big wild card.
But let's be clear that Israel would be protecting its long-standing regional monopoly on weapons of mass destruction. That monopoly hasn't kept Israel safe from conventional military attack; Israel's military superiority does that. It also hasn't prevented terrorism, even though Israel maintains a world-class defensive capacity there too.
All Tel Aviv's WMD monopoly generates is diplomatic opportunity: as soon as somebody else in the region gets a few nukes to challenge Israel's roughly 200 warheads, the world's great powers will collectively force direct negotiations leading to -- at least -- a bilateral strategic arms treaty between the two states.
Why? We'll all find the resulting situation too much to bear, not just in the West but far more in the East, which relies on Persian Gulf energy too much to suffer such strategic uncertainty.
What does that get us? It gets us Iran having to recognize Israel to achieve its primary goal in pursuing a nuclear capacity -- namely, America's promise not to engage in forcible regime change in Tehran.
Since that goal will be effectively achieved by Tehran's looming nuclear capacity anyway, then we're heading into a different dynamic: simultaneously creating a stable nuclear stand-off between Israel and Iran, a dyad that quickly becomes a triad if Saudi Arabia decides that Arab Sunnis need their own nuclear champion to balance the Persian Shia.
For many regional and nuclear experts, such developments would constitute an almost unthinkably unstable strategic situation, but again, the only way to stabilize such a situation would be to force a trilateral or even regional security scheme that acknowledges each state's nuclear weapons explicitly and links those capabilities to one another through the condition of mutually-assured destruction.
Pursued intelligently by outside great powers, Iran's reach for the bomb could end up being the event that makes real peace in the Middle East truly possible. No, I don't expect any outside great powers, especially the United States, to acquiesce to Iran's nuclear efforts. I expect them to try and stop that outcome from unfolding, but once those efforts prove insufficient, then we'll collectively shift to the dynamics I've just described.
When that moment comes, one thing will have to be made crystal clear to Tehran: if Iran attacks Israel with nuclear weapons, the United States would retaliate massively with nuclear weapons, effectively ending Iran's existence as a nation. Absent that firm guarantee, we'd put Israel into the scary situation of worrying about their second-strike capability.
And yes, America would need to make the same position clear to a nuclear-capable House of Saud.
Too scary to contemplate? Hardly.
We've covered this territory before and ended great power war across the Eurasian landmass in the process. Now, we're simply facing similar possibilities -- and dangers --in the Middle East.
In this journey, offering the right promises to wage unlimited war will get us the best opportunities to forge a permanent peace.
Thomas P.M. Barnett (tom(at)thomaspmbarnett.com) is a visiting scholar at the University of Tennessee's Howard Baker Center and the senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
Iran have developed and bought nuke weapons.
Ira has already developed hundreds nuke weapons and bought hundred to Russia, China, Pakistan, India and North Korea.
Iran have ICBM bought also from Russia, China and North Korea.
Iran is now a Major Power and the most Powerful country in the Middle East.
Iran and all Islam are united against US, Israel and EU.
Iran have capacity to totally burn and destroy Israel, all US military base in the Middle East, New York City, Washington DC, London, Paris, Vatican, Brussel and etc.
US,EU and Israel attack Iran is suicide like Nero and Hitler burn and destroy his own empire.
The solution...
Simple answer: start WW3 and let's get this done! I mean seriously the next WW must be the solution to all world problems. You figure out how come!
US Military Car Sales
So, the other day I was looking for a U.S. military car sales portal and found an amazing and cheap car selling store with all type and brands of military cars. Check it out and enjoy!
Re: "Iran have developed and bought nuke weapons"
To "Anonymous":
Wow, dude, what are you? Let me guess:
1) a propagandist...your comments are obviously not connected to reality
2) a fanatic...your mind does not grasp reality
3) a faker...you write to incite response against Muslims and/or Iran
4) smoking some really good stuff!
Iran as a "Major Power" is a joke and the "Most Powerful Country in the Middle East" is actually the US. Comments like yours are childish and do nothing to resolve very real issues. Please do the rest of the world a favor and act like an adult.
America Iran Nukes
Mutual Assured Destruction. Can we really do that all over again? Can't we learn anything?
If the world's greatest powers can force direct negotiations two countries have nuclear weapons, then they could as much there are two (or more) nuclear states in the Middle East.
This 'game of chess' approach stays so far inside the box that it's laughable, appalling and terrifying. It completely oversimplifies the dynamics at work, and the myriad possibilities for a peaceful resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Solving this problem would do much more to quiet Iran than threats of attack.
Iran's Supreme Ruler is not its president - it's the Imam who stands behind and above him. It isn't really clear to many people when the president speaks for the Imam, and when he's on his own; only the comments that actually come from the Imam can be taken seriously.
We certainly don't know what's happening in all of the back channels. Only the same crude outlines, as used in Barnett's article, make it into the news.
How many wars can this country afford to wage? Who really thinks Americans will send more of its people into harm's way? Who really thinks that the American people would tolerate a nuclear attack by us?
I think Mr. Barnett's analysis is limited by his expertise, not enhanced by it. Any analysis of this question needs to include some amount of ethics and morality.
Barnett's "What will America do when Iran has nuclear weapons?"
Even if it were not patently insane, Thomas P. M. Barnett’s recommendation for the U.S. to respond to a nuclear attack on Israel “massively with nuclear weapons, effectively ending Iran's existence as a nation” is monumentally immoral. To obliterate, as Clinton put it, millions of innocent civilians in retribution for the acts of the theocracy oppressing those same innocents is murder on the same scale as Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Surely a nation which nearly outspends the entire rest of the world in conventional weaponry does not have to resort to nuclear genocide.
I am stunned that this level of moral degradation is even conceivable in a supposedly Christian nation. God help us.
Re: David Freeman's "moral" argument
We had no moral scruples about "obliterating" the USSR when they threatened us with nuclear weapons. Why should this nuclear stand off be any different?
Mutually assured destruction is not about morality, it is about deterrence, or more simply, protecting your side's people. The idea is that the threat of a retaliatory nuclear strike that would destroy all of Iran will be enough to keep them from ever launching their first strike.
See: http://www.csis.org/index.php?option=com_csis_pubs&task=view&id=4172
However, if for whatever reason, Iran did launch a first strike. It would be necessary, to preserve the credibility of the deterrence, and to (regrettably) launch a massive nuclear strike on Iran.
Anyway, as the linked article pointes out: Iran's nuclear capability will be modest, basically like the USA's first nukes. While Israel has missile defenses, satellite targeting and of course: thermo-nuclear weapons. These more powerful hydrogen bombs would do far more damage to Iran than Iran's bombs would do to Israel. This could be by a factor of 10X or even 100X PER BOMB. Israel, of course, would have many bombs, while Iran would have few. Furthermore, most of Iran's industry is in Tehran, which is a geographical basin and perfect nuclear killing field.
I am sorry to digress here
I am sorry to digress here but Mr. David B Freeman comment made me wonder if God and religion was not such a big issue in Middle East would we have all this suffocating cycle of violence for the past 60 years? Israel ( Jewish state); Iran ( Muslim - Shia) - The rest Sunnies with different subdivisions. USA nuked Hiroshima she can do it in Tehran and Yes moral degradation is ( expected )and it is conceivable from a Christian nation (ie. religious nation).
In conclusion the real peace maker is to teach logic and reasoning so people can draw their own moral conclusions. Religion whatever it is thrives in giving a specific set of tools that can, had, and will tolerate violence against other religions.
Very confident, yet
Very confident, yet ridiculous. Learn your English first.
Why no ethics?
Mutual Assured Destruction. Can we really do that all over again? Can't we learn anything?
If the world's greatest powers can force direct negotiations two countries have nuclear weapons, then they could as much there are two (or more) nuclear states in the Middle East.
This 'game of chess' approach stays so far inside the box that it's laughable, appalling and terrifying. It completely oversimplifies the dynamics at work, and the myriad possibilities for a peaceful resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Solving this problem would do much more to quiet Iran than threats of attack.
Iran's Supreme Ruler is not its president - it's the Imam who stands behind and above him. It isn't really clear to many people when the president speaks for the Imam, and when he's on his own; only the comments that actually come from the Imam can be taken seriously.
We certainly don't know what's happening in all of the back channels. Only the same crude outlines, as used in Barnett's article, make it into the news.
How many wars can this country afford to wage? Who really thinks Americans will send more of its people into harm's way? Who really thinks that the American people would tolerate a nuclear attack by us?
I think Mr. Barnett's analysis is limited by his expertise, not enhanced by it. Any analysis of this question needs to include some amount of ethics and morality."
Post new comment