Nukes

One of the pleasant frustrations of modern life is that there are far more good books out there than any of us have time to read. Browsing the Brookline Booksmith -- the wonderful local bookstore in my hometown -- is simultaneously delightful and depressing: I get intrigued and excited by all sorts of titles, but then I have trouble deciding which to buy and which to read first.

I'm know I'm not the only person with that problem -- which is why book reviews exist -- so I thought I'd help out by suggesting a few books I've recently read that got my own synapses humming.

The first is John Mueller's Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al Qaeda, which relentlessly punctures the various ways that analysts of all persuasions have overstated the dangers and the importance of nuclear weapons. (For a preview of Mueller's argument, see the FP excerpt here). It is an equal-opportunity critique, as Mueller goes after hawks, doves, realists, and other Cassandras with equal relish and a playful but pungent wit. He emphasizes that nuclear weapons are in fact highly destructive and need to be handled with great care, but convincingly shows that policymakers and pundits have 1) routinely exaggerated their destructive power (i.e., by suggesting they can "destroy the world"), 2) inflated their importance in deterring war, imparting influence, or enhancing status, and 3) overstated the risk of nuclear accidents, nuclear terrorism, or other very low-probability events. And instead of encouraging a useful prudence, Mueller argues that our "atomic obsession" has led us to adopt various policies that wasted a lot of money and may have actually made the situation more dangerous rather than less. Not everyone will be convinced by Mueller's arguments, but the book will certainly make you think. Added bonus: It's immensely fun to read.

My second recommendation is Campbell Craig and Fredrik Logevall's America's Cold War: The Politics of Insecurity. This is a creative, carefully researched, and incisive analysis of U.S. strategy during the long struggle against the Soviet Union. There are plenty of good books on this topic already, but Craig and Logevall's is one of the best, and their interpretation has important implications for contemporary strategic debates. In brief, they argue that America's initial response to the Soviet threat in Europe was both necessary and successful, but overselling by early Cold Warriors also put in place a worldview and a set of domestic institutions that consistently exaggerated U.S. insecurity and led to costly and counterproductive excesses over the next 40 years. The Soviet Union is now gone, but that worldview and those institutions remain in place today. Which is why the United States spends more on defense than the rest of the world combined, why we find ourselves bogged down in places like Iraq or Afghanistan, and why we panic over countries like Iran (whose defense spending in 2007 was a whopping $7.5 billion, or about 1 percent of America's).

My third suggestion is Margaret MacMillan's Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History, which I read on my recent trip to Norway. Based on a series of invited lectures, it is a set of pointed reflections on history, historians, and the ways in which the past is employed (and distorted) for both noble and ignoble purposes. If not quite the intellectual tour de force of a book like David Hackett Fischer's Historians' Fallacies, her reflections nonetheless provide a smart and eminently sensible set of warnings for citizens and leaders alike. History is essential to our identities, but it can also a dangerous weapon in the hands of anyone with a political agenda.

And speaking of history, my last recommendation is Eugene Rogan's The Arabs, which I acquired last week. I haven't finished it, but so far it's an entertaining, gracefully written, and eye-opening look at a diverse people whose history, culture and character are often badly misunderstood (if not actively distorted) here in the United States. Read it. You'll learn a lot.

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If I were President Obama (now there's a scary thought!), I'd ask some smart people on my foreign policy team to start thinking hard about "Plan B." What's Plan B? It's the strategy that he's going to need when it becomes clear that his initial foreign policy initiatives didn't work. Obama's election and speechifying has done a lot to repair America's image around the world -- at least in the short term -- in part because that image had nowhere to go but up. But as just about everyone commented when he got the Nobel Peace Prize last week, his foreign policy record to date is long on promises but short on tangible achievements. Indeed, odds are that the first term will end without his achieving any of his major foreign policy goals.

To be more specific, I'd bet that all of the following statements are true in 2012.

1. There won't be a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, and Israel will still be occupying the West Bank and controlling the Gaza Strip. More and more people are going to conclude that "two states for two peoples" is no longer possible, and that great Cairo speech will increasingly look like hollow rhetoric.

2. The United States will still have tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan. Victory will not be within sight.

3. Substantial U.S. personnel will remain in Iraq (relabeled as "training missions"), and the political situation will remain fragile at best. 

4. The clerical regime in Iran will still be in power, will still be enriching nuclear material, will still insist on its right to control the full nuclear fuel cycle, and will still be deeply suspicious of the United States. Iran won't have an actual nuclear weapon by then, but it will be closer to being able to make one if it wishes.

5. There won't be a new climate change agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

6. Little progress will have been made toward reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world. The United States and Russia may complete a new strategic arms agreement by then, but both states will still have thousands of nuclear warheads in their stockpiles. None of the nine current nuclear weapons states will have disarmed, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is still unratified three years from now.

Other achievements that we won't see include the balancing of the federal budget, a major revamping of global financial architecture, reform of the U.N. Security Council, a significant increase in the size of the State Department or the foreign aid budget, or the completion of new trade round. I'm not even sure we will have closed Gitmo or ended "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" by then.

Assuming he wins re-election, therefore, President Obama is going to be looking at a foreign policy "to do" list with remarkably few boxes checked off. And somebody ought to start thinking about this possibility now, because wise statecraft ought to anticipate the circumstances one is going to face a few years hence, instead of focusing solely on what's in the in-box today.

So what's Plan B? I'm still wrestling with that issue myself, but here's a quick sketch of some of the fundamental ideas. Plan B begins by recognizing that the United States remains the most secure great power in modern history and that most of damage we have suffered recently has come from scaring ourselves into foolish foreign adventures. It means rejecting the belief -- common to both neoconservatives and liberal internationalists -- that virtually every global problem requires an American solution and "American leadership." It acknowledges that social engineering in complex traditional societies is something we don't know how to do and probably can't learn, but it takes comfort from the fact that it is also a task that we don't have to do. It accepts that there are a few bad guys out there that do need to be confronted, captured, and sometimes killed, but understands that the more force we use and the heavier our footprint is, the more resistance we will ultimately face. And yes, Plan B understands that sometimes bad things will happen to Americans, and there is nothing we can do to completely eliminate all foreign dangers. Get used to it.

Plan B means playing "hard to get" more often, so that other states don't take us for granted and so that they bear a greater share of common burdens. It means exploiting balances of power and playing divide-and-conquer, instead of trying to impose a preponderance of U.S. power on every corner of the globe. It prizes the individual freedoms that are the core of American democracy -- freedoms that are threatened by a steady diet of foreign wars -- and it recognizes that other societies will have to find their own way toward more pluralist and participatory forms of government, and at their own pace. It seeks to maintain armed forces that are second to none but eschews squandering lives or money on peripheral wars that are neither vital nor winnable. It rejects "special relationships" with any other state, if by that one means relationships where we support other states even when they do foolish things that are not in our interest (or theirs). 

And Plan B proceeds from the belief that other states will be more likely to follow America's lead if they look at us and like what they see. America used to dazzle the world by offering up a vision of opportunity, equality, energy and competence that was unimaginable elsewhere. The danger now is that America is increasingly seen as a land of crumbling infrastructure, mountainous debt, uninsured millions, fraying public institutions, and xenophobic media buffoons. Over the longer term, getting our house in order back home will to a lot more to shore up our global position than conducting endless foot patrols through the Afghan countryside.

Postscript: Some smart observers -- such as Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic -- have a more favorable view of Obama's performance to date. They discern a trademark style in Obama's cautious and reflective approach to most policy issues: he sets forth general goals, waits to see how others react, gauges the limits of the possible, and then decides on a course of action. There's probably something to this view, and surely the patient examination of alternative policy options makes more sense than relying on one's "gut instincts" and then stubbornly refusing to admit the possibility of error.

Whether one relies on calm deliberation or a president's entrails, however, the proof of any approach to policymaking is its ability to deliver tangible results. And here the jury is still out. My concern is that Obama has yet to use American power -- in either its hard and soft forms -- in ways designed to shape the calculations and actions of both allies and adversaries. Where Bush erroneously believed that the United States could simply dictate to the rest of the world, thus far Obama seems unwilling to wield American power against stubborn opponents or withhold U.S. support from recalcitrant allies. His speeches are a valuable tool, but ultimately others need to know that there is resolve and purpose and tangible actions behind them. Sometimes foreign policy is like community organizing -- i.e., you're trying to herd diverse groups to work together for a common goal and your task is to overcome suspicions so that the common ground can be seized. But at other times it's more like a gang war. And when it's the latter, you have to take names, draw lines, and use the power at one's disposal to get the outcomes you want.

Think about it this way: how many foreign leaders are now grateful because the United States has backed them and their prospects are improving, and how many governments are now worried because the United States is successfully using its power to undermine or thwart them and force them to rethink their positions?

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to Moscow earlier this week, seeking Russian support for tighter sanctions on Iran. And what did she get for his efforts? A few nice photo ops, plus an unambiguous "nyet" from Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov.

I have a couple of questions.

Did she go there believing that she really would get a meaningful commitment for tighter sanctions from the Russians? Or did she know beforehand that she wasn't going to get anywhere, but felt she had to go through the motions anyway?

Frankly, I don't know which answer would worry me more. If it's the former, she's getting very bad advice from her Russia experts, who clearly have no idea how Russia's leaders perceive their own interests. If the latter, she has no business wasting time and effort on a lost cause and giving Lavrov the opportunity to score points by stiffing her in public. The Secretary of State of a great power shouldn't be flying off to foreign capitals with the diplomatic equivalent of a tin cup, pleading with them to comply with our wishes. You're supposed to wait until your assistants have got the deal more-or-less in place, and then you show up to make the final push and iron out the last sticky details. Either way, this just wasn't very smart diplomacy.

And let's not overlook the obvious possibility that Lavrov was right: right now isn't an opportune time to threaten Iran with more sanctions. The initial round of talks were encouraging (though there's still a long way to go), and brandishing threats is probably the best way to derail them before any additional progress is made. There are undoubtedly people in the United States (and Iran) who would like to see that happen, but I didn't think Hillary was one of them.

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One of the arguments that is often invoked to justify a hardline approach to Iran's nuclear program is the fear of a "regional arms race." In this view, if Iran were to get the bomb, neighboring states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt might be forced to get them too, with presumably harmful effects on regional stability. (For a recent invocation of this line of thinking, see Michael Slackman's article in the New York Times today).

One obviously cannot rule out such a possibility out, but there are good reasons not to accept this particular justification uncritically. To begin with, the real danger is not a regional arms race per se, it is the possibility that an arms race might lead to conflict in a critical region (or make it easier for terrorists to steal a weapon). By themselves, arms races just waste money, which is obviously not a good thing but not necessarily a disaster in strategic terms. So the question is two-fold: Would an arms race actually occur if Iran went nuclear, and would it then have dangerous effects on regional stability?

Here the evidence is mixed. With respect the first question, history suggests that one state's acquisition of nuclear weapons does not necessarily produce an immediate flock of imitators. The Soviet Union did get nuclear weapons because the United States had them, and one could argue that Soviet acquisition (and the desire to retain the trappings of great power status) played a role in the British and French decisions to go nuclear in the 1950s. China's decision to get a minimum deterrent of its own undoubtedly reflected their concerns about U.S. (and later, Soviet) power, although Mao seems to have been as worried by the other great powers’ conventional capabilities as by their nuclear arsenals. And it's clear that Pakistan's nuclear program was an obvious response to India's nuclear program. So we obviously cannot rule out the possibility that an Iranian bomb would encourage others to follow suit.

But the overall record on this point is far from clear. There are between 40 and 60 states with the technological capacity and economic wherewithal to build a nuclear bomb, and the vast majority of them have decided not to do so, even when there were other nuclear powers in their neighborhood. A few states have started down that road and then turned back, sometimes in the face of international pressure (Libya, Brazil, Argentina), and sometimes mostly on their own (Sweden, South Africa). Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons in the 1960s did spark some interest in the Arab world, but only Saddam Hussein got really serious about it (and even he gave up trying for nukes in the 1990s). Libya had a semi-serious nuclear program too, but it was hardly a crash program and Ghaddafi eventually abandoned it as well.  Iran’s own nuclear program (which began under the Shah) reflected broader security concerns and the Shah's own desire for status, and doesn't appear to have been a direct response to anyone else's bomb.  North Korea’s entry into the nuclear club hasn't led South Korea, Japan, or anyone else to start a new nuclear weapons program yet. In short, people have been forecasting the rapid proliferation of nuclear weapons ever since the nuclear age began, but all  of those forecasts have been overly pessimistic.

The key point to remember is that a decision to build a bomb involves some complex cost-benefit calculations, and Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapon would not necessarily lead any of its neighbors to decide that their best course is to follow suit.  One reason they might hold back is simply the recognition that getting a bomb would not enhance Iran's influence as much as is sometimes claimed. China did not suddenly become a more influential power when it tested a bomb in 1964; its rise to true great power status came when it began to modernize its economy in the l980s. Getting a bomb may have reinforced Israel's "existential security" (which is why Ben Gurion wanted one), but having a couple of hundred nuclear weapons doesn’t enable them to blackmail the Palestinians or the other Arab states into doing whatever Jerusalem wants. Similarly, North Korea has hardly any influence in world affairs despite its recent entry into the nuclear club; the only thing that that Pyongyang can do with its weapon is discourage others from putting too much pressure on them. Americans really should understand this: we have several thousand nuclear weapons and we have a tough enough time getting other states -- even rather weak ones -- to do what we want. The same would be true for a nuclear Iran: it could not blackmail anyone because the threat would not be credible, and even nearby states might find it easier to adjust to than we sometimes think .

By the way, this same logic may also help convince Iran that it doesn't need to go all the way to full acquisition of a nuclear capability. It won't buy them much influence, but it still might encourage some of their neighbors to follow suit. Ironically, that situation might decrease Iran’s regional influence over time. Iran is the most populous state in the Gulf region, and it has enormous economic potential. If the mullahs ever get their act together, Iran’s conventional capabilities would overshadow the other states in the region. And if that's the case, crossing the nuclear threshold might lead others to look for a cheap way to counter that. Thus, from Iran's own point of view, staying on this side of the nuclear threshold (but having the capacity to go nuclear quickly if need be), might be the optimal strategy, particularly if they were less worried about an imminent Israeli or U.S. attack.

Next, would a Middle Eastern arms race lead to war? There is a vast academic literature on the general relationship between arms races and war, and the results are at best inconclusive. The empirical results are highly sensitive to the model specification and other definitional questions, and the best short answer is that the effect is highly conditional: arms races may raise the danger of war in some circumstances, but make war less likely in others.  

And what about nuclear arms races? Here too, there is a heated academic debate. On one side are those who believe the slow spread of nuclear arsenals might actually be stabilizing (or at least not destabilizing), essentially because the logic of deterrence would kick in, make war too dangerous, and also induce greater overall caution short of war. Other scholars question this optimistic appraisal, and argue that new nuclear states might have trouble establishing stable deterrent relationships and would also create a greater risk of nuclear leakage to terrorists.

I lean toward the former view, but it’s clearly not an open-and-shut case.  Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the spread of nuclear weapons has generally been stabilizing so far; in the sense that no one has launched a major war of aggression against a nuclear power at any time in the past. (The Egyptian-Syrian attack on Israel in the 1973 October War is not an exception, by the way, as it was clearly a "limited aims" attack focused on regaining territory captured by Israel in 1967, and not an attempt to conquer Israel itself). The Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan is probably the most serious counter-example, but even that dispute remained at a fairly low level and fear of nuclear escalation probably played some role in allowing cooler heads to prevail.

There are plenty of good reasons to try to prevent Iran from going nuclear, which is why one hopes that the talks in Geneva will make progress. But the sometimes apocalyptic visions of what an Iranian bomb might mean rest on worst-case arguments about which one should maintain a healthy skepticism. And for other reasons to be skeptical about the current effort to mobilize for war, see Juan Cole's "top ten things you know about Iran that are not true," here.

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The big story this morning, of course, is the revelation that Iran has been building a second nuclear enrichment facility. Here's what I think it means, with the caveat that the story is about three hours old and I still have lots of unanswered questions.

To start, it is not good news for those who have been hoping for a gradual improvement in Iran's relations with the outside world, hopes that were already undermined by the repercussions of the fraudulent election this past summer. At a minimum, it is bound to create new doubts about Iranian assurances regarding its nuclear program, although I don't know anyone who took those assurances at face value. After all, the whole idea behind inspections and other safeguards, and the whole reason that Western intelligence agencies have continued to watch Iran closely, is because we don't necessarily believe what Iran's government tells us.

That said, it is not clear from the early press reports exactly how blatant a violation this really is. According to the Washington Post, Iran notified the IAEA on September 21 that it was constructing a new pilot enrichment plant. Assuming that it has not already introduced nuclear material into this facility (and Tehran says it hasn't), Iran is therefore in compliance with the NPT's Comprehensive Full Scope Safeguards Agreement, which requires it to notify the IAEA six months before nuclear material is introduced into any new facility. Iran previously withdrew from the more demanding Subsidiary Agreement 3.1, which would have required more detailed and timely notification, in response to the IAEA's decision to refer Iran's nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council. So from Tehran's perspective, this new facility is not a violation at all: they are permitted to enrich under the NPT and they have complied with the Comprehensive Safeguards agreement by notifying the IAEA of the new facility. (Even that rather generous interpretation might not let Tehran entirely off the hook, however, as it seems likely that they informed the IAEA on September 21 because they had discovered that the United States had penetrated the program and they wanted to pre-empt today's revelation.)

The United States has an obvious response: unilateral withdrawal from Agreement 3.1 is not permissible, and so technically Iran is still in violation of its past commitments, but this legalistic back-and-forth is part of a long pattern. In addition, the U.N. Security Council has passed several resolutions demanding that Iran cease all enrichment, and its refusal to comply provides the main legal basis for sanctions. Iran is hardly the first country to ignore Security Council resolutions, however, and Tehran undoubtedly believes that the construction of a second plant is not a direct violation of its more basic obligations under the NPT.

The bottom line is that we still don't yet know just how serious the new discovery is. If nuclear material is already present there (despite what Iran now says), then it is a clear violation of the agreements that Iran's government has repeatedly claimed it is upholding, and thus casts even more doubt on its credibility. If the facility is still under construction and no nuclear material has been introduced, then Iran is technically in compliance of the basic safeguards agreement, and trying to exploit various legal loopholes. (Again, it is defying the SC resolutions, but it was doing that already and so today's announcement adds nothing new).

The New York Times story also makes it clear that this discovery is not by itself evidence that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program. The new facility is an enrichment plant, not a bomb-building factory, and everyone knows that Iran was already producing low-grade enriched uranium.  Accordingly, the new revelation does not contradict earlier intelligence estimates which concluded that Iran was not actively trying to build a bomb.

Of course, this does not mean Iran is not interested in getting nuclear weapons, or at least achieving a "breakout" capability that it would allow it to go nuclear rapidly at some point in the future. As I've noted before, there are good reasons why Iran might want a nuclear deterrent of its own, just as there are good reasons why the United States and its allies would prefer that it didn't. In any case, this new report is bound to reinforce suspicions about Iran's long-term intentions and hardliners will undoubtedly use this information to press for tougher economic sanctions. This is of course, why the United States, Britain, and France released it, and if I had to guess, I'd bet that stricter sanctions will in fact be imposed.

That's another puzzle, by the way. The Times's story says the United States "has been tracking the project for years," which makes one wonder why its existence was not disclosed previously. Perhaps the United States was trying to protect "sources and methods," or lacked fully convincing information. In any case, the timing of the release seems to be clearly related to the current push for more stringent sanctions.

Most importantly, this new information does not strengthen the case for using military force against Iran's nuclear program, although hawks are bound to invoke it for that purpose. Airstrikes can delay Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapon, but cannot prevent it, and they are likely to strengthen Iran's resolve to acquire a genuine deterrent as soon as they can. Attacking Iran will rally the population around the regime, and given Iran ample reason to retaliate against the United States or its allies in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or elsewhere in the Middle East.

If we want to stop an Iranian bomb (as opposed to halting its nuclear enrichment activities), we are going to have to convince Iran that it doesn't need a nuclear deterrent to be safe. That won't be easy to do, given that Iran has three nuclear neighbors (Pakistan, India, and Israel), and a very bad relationship with the United States, which has given millions of dollars to Iranian opposition groups and formally committed itself to regime change on several past occasions. Persuading Tehran that they don't need a deterrent requires taking the threat of force, regime change, and the like off the table, instead of ratcheting the threat level up. I'm not saying that this approach will work; I'm saying that threatening preventive war won't. And actually launching a preventive war is likely to make things much worse.

On this issue, Iran expert Gary Sick has the right idea: "first, do no harm."  Iran is committed to mastering the full fuel cycle, and probably wants to get a "breakout capability." Money quote:

The real purpose of negotiations, in my view, is to build a system of monitoring and inspections that will (1) provide maximum early warning of a potential future Iranian decision to "break out;" and (2) insure the maximum possible interval between that moment and the moment where Iran could actually have a bomb. Iran has said on several occasions that it is willing to accept such an enhanced inspection regime, but it will no doubt insist on a price. That, I think, is what the negotiations should be about."

Ironically, today's report may make this solution more feasible, by reminding the Iranian government that hiding a nuclear facility isn't easy -- especially when the outside world is suspicious -- and that any attempt to renege on a future agreements is likely to be detected. Maybe, just maybe, today's episode will make a deal easier to reach down the road.  Not that I'd bet on that.

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Just when you think the wingnuts are taking over the asylum, something happens to restore one's faith in rational analysis. Here are one and a half items that offered me some solace.

The half-full glass is the Obama administration's decision to replace the planned deployment of missile defenses in Eastern Europe with "a reconfigured system aimed more at intercepting short- and medium-range Iranian missiles." The original scheme was always a pretty silly idea, insofar as it was allegedly supposed to protect Europe from a presently non-existent "Iranian threat." If Iran ever did get nuclear weapons and missiles with sufficient range, why would they aim them at Poland or Czechoslovakia or other European targets? Plus, if those dastardly Iranians could develop a missile and warhead to do that, they could undoubtedly find some way to sneak a nuclear device (i.e., one small enough to fit on a missile) into Europe via clandestine means, thereby negating any benefit we might derive from being able to knock down a few incoming ballistic missiles. Spending billions on that task always struck me as like spending thousands on a sophisticated burglar alarm while leaving your doors and windows unlocked.

We had this program because missile defenses have been a sacred cause for the GOP ever since Reagan launched the old "Strategic Defense Initiative." Because building effective missile defenses is hard, expensive, and potentially open-ended, it is an appealing full-employment policy for government weapons labs and certain sectors in the U.S. defense industry.  These corporations are happy to take some of their profits and give it to think tanks and lobbyists who will push the idea to the public and to Congress. There are also some diehards who saw deployments in Eastern Europe as a way to stick a thumb in Moscow's eye, ignoring the fact that Putin & Co. could and would cause trouble for us if we did. And of course our Eastern Europe allies liked it, less because they were worried about Iran than because they saw it as a way to strengthen overall ties with Washington.

To be sure, Obama has bowed to these political realities and sought to preempt criticism, reiterating that there's still an Iranian threat and that he's merely decided to replace the original system with one based on different architecture. Secretary of Defense Gates and the JCS have backed him up, the former remarking that "those who say we are scrapping missile defense in Europe are either misinformed or misrepresenting the reality of what we are doing." So this glass is only half-full. But I'm going to hope that this decision is the first step towards abandoning the whole idea, so that we can spend those billions on weapons we might actually need.

Which brings me to Item No. 2: Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak's declaration that Iran is not in fact an "existential threat" to Israel. He's right, and he deserves praise for saying so forthrightly. Iran remains an obvious national security problem for Israel for a number of reasons, but the frankly hysterical talk about "existential threats" was becoming counterproductive, unless your aim is to persuade people that war is necessary and that it will make everything better. Exaggerating the potential impact of an Iranian bomb may have been more dangerous than the capability itself would be, especially if it began to convince worried Israelis it was time to emigrate or led Iran's leaders to mistakenly think that getting a weapon would suddenly give them a lot of additional influence or leverage. So kudos to Barak for reminding us that Israel is strong and offering a saner perspective.  

These two moments of sanity reinforce each other, of course. If a future Iranian nuclear weapon isn't an existential threat to Israel then it isn't a politically meaningful threat to anyone, save countries that might be tempted to conquer Iran at some point in the future. So if Barak is right (and I obviously think he is), then the case for missile defense deployments in Eastern Europe is weaker than Obama is admitting.

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When I started blogging back in January, one of my early posts questioned the belief that Obama's election had ended talk of military action against Iran. I though this view was "almost certainly premature," because I didn't think a rapid diplomatic breakthrough was likely and I knew that advocates of a more forceful approach would soon come out of the woodwork and start pushing the new administration to get tough with Tehran. 

Well, I hate to say I told you so, but ... Right on cue, Wednesday's Wall Street Journal had an op-ed from former Senators Dan Coats and Chuck Robb and retired Air Force general Chuck Wald, recommending that Obama "begin preparations for the use of military options" against Iran's nuclear facilities. They argue that keeping the threat of force "on the table" is the only way to achieve a diplomatic solution, but they also make it clear that they favor bombing Iran if diplomacy fails. In their words, "making preparations now will enable the president, should all other measures fail to bring Tehran to the negotiating table, to use military force to retard Iran's nuclear program."

Will we ever learn? As other commentators have noted, many of the most vocal advocates of military action against Iran tend to be the same groups and individuals who saw 9/11 as a good excuse to invade Iraq and start trying to "transform" the Middle East. Plenty of people agree that Iran's nuclear ambitions are a problem, but the loudest voices calling for the threat or use of force tend to be either Israeli hardliners or American neocons. Gee, who woulda thought! It's equally unsurprising that the United Jewish Communities sponsored an "Iran Advocacy Day" in Washington yesterday, featuring appearances by key administration officials and prominent legislators. Its purpose, of course, was to highlight the danger of a nuclear Iran, put pressure on Obama to take a tough line, and to rally support for stiffer sanctions (at a minimum). M.J. Rosenberg called it just right: "it marks the start of the fall push on Iran."

The Coats, Robb and Wald op-ed is based on a new report from the "Bipartisan Policy Center" (a relatively new inside-the-Beltway think tank) which is an updated version of a lengthy report released last summer. The earlier study presented an alarmist view of Iran's capabilities and intentions and advocated a hard-line approach, including the use of "kinetic action" (i.e., military force) as a last resort. The director of the earlier study and its primary author were Michael Makovsky and Michael Rubin, two prominent neo-conservatives who previously worked on Iraq in the Bush Defense Department. Both are also hawkish defenders of Israel (among other things, Makovsky reportedly emigrated to Israel and served in the IDF before returning to the United States, and his brother David works for WINEP, the right-of-center pro-Israel think-tank that AIPAC created back in the early 1990s.)

Second, even though their earlier advocacy of the Iraq war proved disastrous, those who are now contemplating the use of force against Iran are hardly marginalized or discredited outsiders. The earlier BPC study was endorsed by a task force of mainstream figures that included my Kennedy School colleague Ash Carter (now in charge of acquisitions in the Pentagon) and Iraq hawk (and former WINEP official) Dennis Ross. Ross started out as Obama's special envoy on Iran and then moved over to a senior Middle East position at the NSC. Ross has also expressed skepticism about the prospects for a diplomatic breakthrough in the past, but believed that trying diplomacy first would make it easier to sell a more forceful approach later.

The drumbeats for war may still be faint but they are getting louder, even though trying to disarm Iran by bombing its nuclear facilities is still a very bad idea. If you want to reunite Iran's disaffected population behind the current dictatorship and give Ahmadinejad a real jolt of legitimacy, dropping bombs on their country is a good way to start. The Iranian people strongly support the nuclear research program, as does Mir Hussein Mousavi, the opposition candidate who was allegedly "defeated" in the recent election. Equally important, bombing Iran's existing facilities will only delay the program for a few years, because Iran could reconstitute it in more dispersed, hidden, and protected sites. And bombing them now is hardly going to lessen their desire for a deterrent of their own. Wouldn't any country that had been attacked in this fashion try to obtain the means to prevent a repeat in the future? Wouldn't we? Iran's government and population are also going to be hopping mad at us if we do this (or if we give Israel the green light to attack on its own), and they are bound to do whatever they can to pay us back. Again, wouldn't we do the same thing if anyone attacked us?

And please remember: Iran does not have a single nuclear weapon today, and there is still no sign that it has an active weapons program or is enriching uranium to sufficient purity to permit them to build a bomb. (For a rebuttal of Coats et al's claims on this point, see Daniel Luban here.) As of right now, they appear to looking for a "break out" capability that would enable them to get one rapidly if they decided it was necessary. If so, then it may -- repeat, may -- still be possible to persuade them not to weaponize. But the only course of action that stands a chance of doing that is the exact opposite of the one that the hawks are proposing.  Instead of rattling sabers, setting deadlines, and mobilizing for war, as Coats et al suggest, we need to take the threat of force off the table entirely. Pointing a gun at their heads merely reinforces their desire for a reliable deterrent, and probably strengthens the hand of any Iranian officials who think they ought to get a bomb as soon as possible. It may still come to that -- which would force us to fall back on deterrence and containment -- but following the hawks' prescription makes that outcome more likely.

Lastly, what about tougher sanctions? That will probably end up being the default option -- because it lets the United States and its allies appear to be doing something -- but it's not going to work either. Russia doesn't appear to be willing to go along, sanctions are rarely an effective means of coercion, and Iran has been facing them for years now without budging. If he's not careful, Obama's initial efforts to put relations with Iran on a new trajectory will morph back into the same strategy that the Bush administration followed, and will achieve the same results.

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By Justin Logan

Recent reporting indicates the Obama administration is beginning to think about what to do if Iran fails to respond to their overtures for negotiation over its nuclear program.

A report in last week's Haaretz claimed that the administration was looking at the option of attempting to impose an embargo of refined petroleum products into Iran including, most importantly, gasoline which Iran has to import as a result of its lack of indigenous refining capacity. The NYT's David Sanger followed up with a story Monday indicating the reporting in Haaretz was correct, and Sanger predicts that legislation to impose sanctions on refined petroleum products will "sail through" Congress. There is also talk in Washington of pressing other U.N. Security Council members to sign on for similar measures. (Meantime, of course, the usual suspects in Washington have been doing their level best to promote panic and delude people about the likely consequences of military action.)

Sometimes, though, the trouble with making laws is that you have to enforce them. This seems like one of those cases. It's much easier for Congress to grandstand by imploring the administration to "cut off" the supply of refined petroleum products into Iran than it is for the administration to actually cut them off. As Sanger writes: "Enforcing what would amount to a gasoline embargo has long been considered risky and extremely difficult; it would require the participation of Russia and China, among others that profit from trade with Iran."

As this Reuters report observes, while such restrictions would indeed place some increased pain on Iran, they would constitute, more than anything, a "boon to traders." The fact is that there are extremely powerful incentives, particularly with the global economy in the toilet, for actors to cheat on these sorts of sanctions.

Given this reality, one wonders what's going on here. Moreover, Matt Yglesias points to another important puzzle: many of the people promoting a resolution at the UNSC instituting an embargo also want to do things like admit Ukraine and Georgia into NATO and pressure the Chinese on their treatment of the Uighur population in Xinjiang or the people of Tibet. In order to get Russia or China to sign onto a sanctions regime, we would have to engage in actual diplomacy with those countries, perhaps including dreaded "quid pro quos," which most hawkish analysts seem to view as appeasement.

Here's a side question on the Iran nuclear dispute more generally, in particular for Beltway folks: If you were an Iranian government official or an adviser to the government, what would you suggest the government do? Should it seek to acquire a nuclear capability or try to negotiate a deal with the United States? Please show your work.

(For thoughts on the increasingly likely choice between either military action or an incipient Iranian nuclear capability, see myself, Barry Posen, or Christopher Hemmer.)

Justin Logan is associate director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC.

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