In the Meantime

Bill Roggio posted a more detailed look at the status of Iran's nuclear program (hat tip: Winds of Change), catching onto the same statement I noted here. I have been thinking a lot about what we can do about Iran, given the inevitability of the eventual success of their nuclear program (unless we stop it) and the current state of the Terror Wars and of our forces. (Certainly the UN can't and won't stop the Iranian program.)

I believe that it is time for the US to strike at Iran's nuclear capability. I do not believe we can afford to wait for the elections; I do not believe that time is on our side; I do not believe that we can wait for Israel to act.

Iran is currently building centrifuges to enrich uranium, and apparently has had some success already. High-enriched and low-enriched uranium have been found in trace quantities, and the best guess that can be made from this is that Iran is within 2 years of having a real, ongoing enrichment capability. Nuclear weapons designs of Chinese origin (the same as were used by Pakistan in its successful program) are apparently already in Iran's hands. This means that within 2 to 3 years, Iran will have a nuclear weapon, and within 5-7 years, it could have a nuclear arsenal comparable to North Korea's.

OK, so why not wait for next Spring and then invade Iran? Mainly because it is unclear that Iraq will be stable enough by that time, particularly because Iran and Syria and, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia are trying very intently to ensure that Iraq never becomes stable and democratic. Unless Iraq is stable, there will be a need to keep a substantial portion of our Army and Marines in Iraq; there are simply not enough troops left over to invade and occupy Iran.

If we began mobilizing the Guard and Reserves now, we would likely be able to mount a sufficient force, sufficiently equipped and trained, some 18 months from now. Needless to say, this move would be political suicide unless the President could explain the reasoning for it, and he could not do so without risking that the mission would fail to be launched, because Iran would have a great deal of time to prepare, and the Western media would have a great deal of time to bring down the morale of the voters and the public's will to support the attack.

If invasion of Iran is not possible before their program is complete, what other options are there? There are four that I see: bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities, allow the Israelis to take care of the problem, bomb Iran generally, or incite revolution. (The North Korean option - bribe them outrageously in exchange for promises that they will, at some point, decide to not assemble nuclear weapons - has been exposed as the fraud that it has always been and I therefore do not consider it a reasonable attempt at actually solving the problem. Playing "kick the can" with nuclear weapons kept Clinton from having to make hard decisions, but it's playing havoc with our foreign policy in SouthEast Asia now.)

Bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities is likely already somewhat futile. There are two problems: the critical facilities are underground - deep, deep underground - and we don't have the kind of weapons necessary to reach them. Destroying what facilities they do have above ground might buy us some time, perhaps 2 or 3 years, and so is perhaps reasonable. Certainly, if we allow more time for Iran to harden their facilities, and to complete the work for which the above-ground facilities are suited, this option will be pretty much useless. For this reason, we must strike soon if we are to have much hope, and waiting until after the elections reduces our changes of success.

We can, of course, simply wait until Israel decides to take care of the problem. Iran has already stated that as soon as it obtains a nuclear capability it will strike Israel. Israel knows this, and has probably the fourth- or fifth-largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Rather than submit to their own destruction, they would certainly use the arsenal. (What would you do in their place?) There are two problems with waiting for Israel, though. The first is that range and other factors make a sustained Israeli conventional bombing attack infeasible; at the least, they make it unlikely that such an attack would seriously hinder Iran's nuclear weapons program. The second problem is that Israel would (because of the first problem) likely strike with nuclear weapons. At the point that Israel was going to take the political and social hit from using nuclear weapons to defeat an enemy, it would be in their best interest to take out some other pernicious enemies: Syria, Hizb'allah, Saudi Arabia and perhaps Egypt spring to mind. I don't think we want to make such an attack - and the consequent near-genocide it entails - more likely.

Bombing Iran with the intent to force them to submit (as opposed to trying to destroy or hinder their nuclear program) has some merit. While the air campaign against Serbia shows that the US, given favorable conditions, can bring enough pressure to bear on a nation to cause it to surrender territory or other claims, the importance of the Iranian nuclear program is such that Iran would likely consider abandoning their nuclear program as tantamount to giving up their sovereignty and their form of government (and thus, the power of those who would have to make the decision to abandon the program). It is simply not possible to compel a stubborn enemy to surrender using only air power, though it is possible to destroy an enemy and his population from the air, particularly if that enemy sees surrender as being equivalent to or worse than its destruction.

Waiting for - even helping along - an Iranian revolution would perhaps be the best possible solution, though there's no guarantee that a new government would be either pro-US or likely to give up the nuclear program. In addition, any help given would be as likely to backfire (horribly and publicly) as to work, and supporting revolutions is, somewhat ironically, profoundly distasteful to Americans in general. Ignoring the distaste, the low probability of success is such that we cannot rely on such an option.

Given the options, I think the best course for the United States to take is to bomb all of Iran's above-ground nuclear facilities - even research labs at universities using F117s and B2s (so as to attack these targets without waiting for the suppression of enemy air defenses to be completed), to attack the enemy air defense infrastructure to allow our non-stealthy aircraft free range, and to target locations housing terrorists (such as al Qaeda and Taliban personnel and Hizb'allah headquarters). During the initial campaign, we would tell Iran in no uncertain terms that we next will attack oil export, military and leadership targets, should Iran fail to abandon - verifiably, permanently and completely, in the manner than Libya has - all of its nuclear programs. (While we're at it, we may as well demand the handover of terrorists in Iran and the cessation of support for terrorism. We're not likely to get it, but why start small?)

Such a strike also has the side benefit of concentrating Iran's attention, and thus likely reducing Iranian interference in Iraq over the short-term. And it is over the short-term that such a reduction is most needed, to allow the Iraqi government an easier birth.

This would not make us popular - as if we were anyway - but it would certainly make us safer for a little while. With complete success, should we be able to attain it, it could make us safer for a great while. And at the very least, such a campaign would reduce the eventual resistance when we finally get around to invading Iran, which would still be necessary at some point, unless the Iranian leadership suddenly completely changes their entire philosophy of life and governance. Further, even should John Kerry take office and cease actively fighting against terrorism and nuclear weapons proliferation (presumably, he would at least continue law enforcement efforts against terrorists), we may have bought ourselves enough time to last through such an administration before facing a nuclear-armed, fascist, totalitarian, terrorist-supporting, fundamentalist Islamist state which considers Israel an abomination and the US "the Great Satan".

The domestic political effect would likely be in the President's favor. Those who would most be offended at such a campaign would not support the President in any case. The President's current supporters would be more likely cheered than dismayed, and the undecided would likely (given the public response to Afghanistan and Iraq) break in the President's favor.

I hate thinking of the domestic political angle here, but the reality is that the only way we can lose this war is to lose our will, and that is a matter of domestic politics.

UPDATE (6/21): Brian James Dunn of the Dignified Rant has some very interesting and useful comments. I perhaps was unclear, in that I agree with Brian wholeheartedly that regime change in Tehran is the only long-term solution; it's what we do in the meantime that I was trying to address. If we can realistically facilitate revolution, I am all for it.

Posted by Jeff at June 17, 2004 04:00 PM | Link Cosmos