|
|
|
|
SPEAKING
FREELY
Learning to live with the Persian
bomb
By Stanley A Weiss
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing.
LONDON - After China
detonated its first nuclear weapon in 1964, the
satirist Tom Lehrer sang of the coming arms race:
"Luxembourg is next to go. And, who knows, maybe
Monaco. We'll try to stay serene and calm, when
Alabama gets the bomb. Who's next? Who's next?"
Forty years and several nuclear states
later, it appears the next to go will be the
Islamic Republic of Iran. And no one expects
Washington to stay serene and calm.
It is
possible that European Union negotiators, with the
backing of the United States, can convince Tehran
to abandon its nuclear ambitions through a package
of economic, political and security incentives -
such as Iran's entry in the World Trade
Organization, now under negotiation. But even with
Iran's recent pledge to continue its nuclear
freeze until the EU offers specific proposals this
summer, a permanent agreement remains elusive.
Nor will the outcome of Friday's scheduled
presidential run-off make much difference. Like
the vast majority of the Iranian people, both
candidates - ex-president-turned-pragmatist
Hashemi Rafsanjani, and the hardline mayor of
Tehran, Mahmud Ahmadinejad - insist that the
Islamic Republic will never give up its "right" to
a nuclear program.
It's time to start
accepting the inevitable: that Iran will have the
capacity to build a nuclear weapon by the end of
this decade. This isn't to suggest that the world
should, as Dr Strangelove might say, learn to stop
worrying and love the Persian bomb. Only that it's
never too early to start thinking about the
unthinkable - the day Iran goes nuclear.
The beginning of wisdom on Iran starts by
recognizing that the Islamic Republic wants to be
a nuclear power because it is surrounded by
nuclear powers - Israel, Russia, China, India,
Pakistan and now the US, with some 200,000 troops
around Iran's periphery.
Iranians, a proud
people with an ancient civilization, know that
great powers have great weapons. "The issue is
largely about status, respect, equality and
self-reliance," Shahram Chubin, an Iranian-born
expert with the Geneva Center for Security Policy,
tells me.
Because economics is not driving
Iran's atomic politics, economic carrots from the
West cannot put the brake on Tehran's nuclear
drive. And veto-wielding, Iran-friendly Russia and
China would surely block any stick of economic
sanctions at the United Nations Security Council.
Despite President George W Bush's warning
that the world will "not tolerate" Iran having
nuclear weapons, American (or Israeli) air strikes
would be of limited value against hidden, hardened
and dispersed targets. In fact, military action
would be an epic blunder, rallying the Iranian
people behind the clerical regime.
So what
will Iran's nuclear coming out party look like? To
avoid the international outrage that greeted the
Indian and Pakistani detonations of 1998, Iran
will likely avoid any earth-shaking,
headline-grabbing nuclear tests. To avoid the
pariah status of North Korea, Tehran will resist
pulling out of the nuclear Non-proliferation
Treaty and claiming it has bombs in the basement.
More likely, Iran will become the Japan of
the Middle East - maintaining a nuclear-energy
program with a "break-out capacity" to quickly
produce a nuclear weapon if it felt threatened.
Like Israel, Iran might embrace a doctrine of
"nuclear ambiguity", hinting - but never admitting
- that it possesses an existential deterrent.
Doomsayers warn that a nuclear Iran would
be a geopolitical catastrophe and possibly the
beginning of World War III. Henry Kissinger
predicts an apocalyptic arms race that could spell
the end of civilization.
But a nuclear
Iran would not be as destabilizing as some fear.
Because nuclear missiles arrive with a return
address, they remain the weapon no government can
use. The Cold War logic of mutually assured
destruction still holds. As irrational as Iran's
hardline ayatollahs may seem, they are survivors,
not suicidal. They seek to turn Iran into a great
power, not an ashtray, and are not about to trade
Tehran for Tel Aviv, or any other foreign city.
Nor does a nuclear Iran automatically
translate into a nuclear Hezbollah. Iran has
possessed chemical and biological weapons for
years, but there is no evidence that it has ever
passed weapons of mass destruction to a terrorist
group. Aware that a nuclear explosion could be
traced back to Iran, Tehran will know that giving
nuclear weapons to terrorists would invite a
devastating response against the Islamic Republic.
Finally, in place of military
confrontation, a nuclear Iran will force
Washington to put something new on the table -
dialogue. "The US must talk to Tehran, especially
after it gets the bomb," says Robert Gallucci, who
as assistant secretary of state in the Bill
Clinton administration negotiated nuclear issues
with North Korea. "The US cannot afford to ignore
a nuclear Iran."
To start the discussion,
the US should ease Iranian fears of an American
attack. If Washington can recognize North Korea's
sovereignty and disavow plans for an attack on
that country, as Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice has done repeatedly, why not Iran?
Which leaves the world with perhaps the
least bad option - staying serene and calm when
Iran gets the bomb while hoping that a future
Iranian government might follow in the footsteps
of South Africa, Ukraine, Brazil, Argentina and
Libya and give up on nuclear weapons.
Until then, the world doesn't have to love
the Persian bomb, only to live with it.
Stanley A Weiss is founder and
chairman of Business Executives for National
Security, a nonpartisan organization based in
Washington. This is a personal comment.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
© Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
|
|
|
