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February 17, 2006

Mark Kleiman on Iran

Mark Kleiman has an excellent summation on the implications of Iran's quest for nuclear powers. (hat tip: The Glittering Eye) I agree with almost all of it, but there are a few bits, all near the end, that I want to critique. I'm only going to quote those bits, but this should not be taken as a fisking even in a partial sense: Kleiman's points are well-considered and very worthy of attention.

13. We can't attack Iran while we have 150,000 troops in Iraq as virtual hostages to a Shi'a call for jihad against the infidels. But accepting a rotten result in Iraq might be a relatively small price to pay for avoiding a nuked-up Iran. Maintaining our freedom of action in Iran is one more excellent reason not to try to create a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq.

I agree that preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons might be worth a bad, and certainly worth a less optimal, outcome in Iraq. But I don't agree with the premise, that the majority of Iraq's Shi'a support Iran because it is ruled by Shi'a. Sadr appears to be Iran's puppets, and would likely cause problems, but the real threat in Iran's response is not that, but the widespread terrorism around the world and the blocking of the straits of Hormuz combined with attacks on our allies and their oil facilities in particular using chemical weapons on intermediate ranged missiles. This would cause far more problems that finally killing off the Badr Brigades would. Particularly if Iran attacked Israel or US forces with chemical or biological agents, which could lead to nuclear escalation.

However, I don't think that Iran's possible response should stop us from acting, though it should be considered so that we can minimize it as much as possible.

None of this means that I favor military action against Iranian nuclear capacity. What it means is that military action might, in the future, become necessary to prevent Iran's transformation into a new nuclear power, and, if that were the case, I would be willing to support an attack (non-nuclear, of course) as the least bad option in a bad situation.

The real question, of course, is how to know where the dividing line is between when they just have potential capability and when they actually have nuclear weapons. The pessimist, or the cautious person, says attack early when we know they don't have weapons or the full ability to get them. The optimist, or the deluded, says don't strike until we know they do have weapons or the full ability to get them.

Footnote It goes without saying that reducing our oil imports is an even more urgent national-security issue than ever in the face of the fact that the support our imports provide for world oil prices helps enrich the Iranian regime. Anyone who says he's for national security and against an increase of at least a dollar per gallon in gasoline taxation is a bag of wind, and should be laughed at and ignored.

This I cannot agree with at all. If our goal is to deprive Iran of revenue, an embargo would be far more effective with potentially less impact on our domestic economy. Gas taxes simply do not work to reduce the revenue to an oil-producing state, because demand is relatively inelastic. To reduce the revenue by taxation, we would have to so tax gas and other oil products that other fuel sources would be more economical. That would be a crushing burden on the economy. Go ahead and laugh and ignore me if you feel so inclined.

Update Bruce Moomaw asks what we should do if a conventional attack on Iran wouldn't work and only a pre-emptive nuclear strike would do the job. My answer: drop back three yards and punt. The point is to maintain the taboo on the use of nuclear weapons. I think it's worth fighting a war to do so. But I'd rather risk losing that taboo than give it up for sure with a pre-emptive strike.

This is unlike the situation with the U.S.S.R. back when Bertrand Russell called for pre-emptive war. (Which is not to say that I think he was right even in that circumstance; I don't.) Since Iranian nuclear capacity can't possibly threaten the existence of the U.S., I can't see how we could justify pre-emption either morally or on a pure calculation of national self-interest.

Are you willing to bet New York, DC, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, Miami or any other major cities on this supposition? I agree that the taboo against using nuclear weapons is important, and that we'd be better off both militarily and morally (over the short as well as the long term) with a conventional attack. But I wonder if a conventional attack, with its attendant thousands of casualties, is possible in the current political environment, or if we will be unable to act for fear of casualties, until it becomes necessary to act with nuclear weapons or allow the Israelis to do so.

Posted by jeff at February 17, 2006 2:36 PM

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Comments

Posted by: Francis W. Porretto at February 18, 2006 7:00 AM

Posted by: Eric Sivula at February 19, 2006 10:40 AM