Musa al-Gharbi 11 May 2015. Posted in News
Cynical
politicians are using apocalyptic visions of a nuclear-armed Iran to serve
their strategic and domestic political agendas.
ON
APRIL 21, Iran and six world powers resumed the final phase of nuclear talks
after a preliminary framework deal reached earlier this month. Iran and the
P5+1 countries — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States
— are expected to reach a final accord by the end of June.
Yet
hawks in Washington and Israel continue to oppose the negotiations. They argue
that Iran cannot be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon or even remain within
sprinting distance of acquiring one. A nuclear Iran would be an existential
threat to Israel, they claim, and would likely provoke a nuclear arms race in
the troubled Middle East. Others have suggested that a nuclear-armed Iran may
even precipitate World War III, pushing the world closer to a nuclear winter.
Most
of these fears are simply unfounded. In fact, even if Iran wanted a nuclear
weapon and managed to obtain one, it would not be able to carry out a
successful nuclear strike against Israel or the United States.
Iran’s
primary challenge in targeting the US or Israel would be geographic. Roughly
1,100 miles separate the Islamic Republic from Israel’s borders. Jordan, Saudi
Arabia and Turkey, which maintain joint missile-defense pacts with Israel,
occupy much of the intervening space. This means that a missile from Iran could
easily be intercepted by one of these countries before it reaches Israel.
Even
if this first line of defense failed, Israel has three complementary missile
defense systems that are among the most sophisticated in the world. Israel has
the strongest military in the region and has recently quadrupled its air
force’s striking power, which would allow the country to quickly intercept
incoming projectiles.
Moreover,
launching a surprise attack would be extraordinarily difficult, given Israel’s
superior intelligence capabilities, which are focused almost entirely on Iran —
not to mention its unprecedented cooperation with the United States.
Israel
also has other geographical advantages: It would be nearly impossible for Iran
to strike Israel without killing large numbers of Palestinians in the process.
Iran has been one of the most vocal and consistent supporters of the
Palestinian cause. Thus it is unthinkable that Tehran would carry out a nuclear
strike, which could annihilate the Palestinian territories. Nuclear fallout
from such a strike could prove devastating to southern Lebanon and western
Syria, causing immense harm to two of Iran’s key regional allies, Hezbollah and
the Syrian regime.
A
strike on the United States would be even less plausible. To reach the US, an
Iranian missile would have to deliver a nuclear payload more than 6,000 miles.
The capacity of Iran’s intercontinental ballistic missiles is nowhere near this
range, and it won’t be for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, the missile
would have to make it through the network that protects Israel, cross the
Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic, all without being detected or
intercepted by NATO, the US Air Force, the US Navy, US satellites and
Washington’s robust missile defense systems.
Clearly,
any attempted nuclear strike on Israel or the US is certain to fail. In fact,
it would amount to suicide for Tehran. The regional and international response
would be immediate, more or less unanimous and overwhelming in scale: The
Islamic Republic would not survive.
Hawks
contend that, even if it lacked the capacity to attack Israel or the US, Iran
could provide highly enriched nuclear material to terrorist groups to be
incorporated into a devastating dirty bomb that could be deployed against the
US or Israel. But this scenario is unlikely for a number of reasons.
For
one, Iran’s regional allies — including Hezbollah, Hamas and Yemen’s Houthis
—are primarily nationalistic and rarely operate outside their home countries or
their perceived national interests. Moreover, none of these groups have a
demonstrated intent or capability to attack the US mainland. This is in part
why US intelligence recently removed Iran and Hezbollah from its list of
terrorism threats.
Moreover,
dirty bombs are notweapons of mass destruction. A radiological dispersion
device does not have much more explosive power than a conventional weapon.
Moreover, the relatively small amounts of nuclear material emitted in the
process are unlikely to pose a severe immediate or long-term health risk to the
public.
Therefore,
even if Iran’s proxies obtained nuclear material and decided to carry out a
radiological attack in Israel or the United States, the effect would hardly be
catastrophic. The consequences for Iran, on the other hand, would be.
The
logic behind nuclear deterrence is that a country will be hesitant to carry out
an attack against an adversary that possesses nuclear weapons, lest it use
weapons of mass destruction in reprisal. However, given that Iran cannot carry
out a successful nuclear strike against Israel or the United States under any conceivable
circumstances, nuclear weapons would do little to deter Israel or the US from
attacking Tehran.
On
the contrary, if in violation of its international commitments, Iran makes
concrete steps toward developing and testing a nuclear weapon or manages to
obtain one, that could be used as sufficient justification for a military
intervention to disarm and possibly dismantle the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s
procurement of a nuclear weapon would result in its becoming a pariah state
like North Korea, with increased isolation. This is in stark contrast to the
military, economic, geopolitical and ideological superpower it is poised to
become if fully integrated into the international community. Hence Iran’s
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is right to suggest that nuclear weapons
hold no strategic value for Tehran.
Most
nuclear nonproliferation and foreign policy experts, as well as the majority of
the American public, support a nuclear deal as the best alternative to
preventing — rather than enabling, Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Those
presenting apocalyptic visions of nuclear-armed Iran are not independent
ballistics experts. Instead, they are ideologues or parties who are aligned
with one of Iran’s geopolitical adversaries or cynical politicians who want to
exploit the Iranian bogeyman in the service of their domestic political
agendas.
In
fact, even in the unlikely event that Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it would
hardly be the end of the world.
http://stopwar.org.uk/news/if-iran-had-nuclear-weapons-would-it-really-mean-the-end-of-the-world
No comments:
Post a Comment