Mr. Ross makes some interesting points about the various aspects to a strategy on dealing with Iran. But yet again, he fails to see why Iran wants nuclear weapons. Is nobody seeing this? Why do the Iranians want a nuclear weapon?
It all comes down to three other nations and the reactions from the United States.
1. Pakistan
When Pakistan tested a nuclear bomb, America reacted by sanctioning the country. It didn’t react by invading the country–a Muslim country with a dictator, no less! After the paradigm shift post-9/11, America’s best ally in South Asia has been Pakistan, even though it is a repressive dictatorship with nuclear weapons.
2. India
When India tested their nuclear bomb, America said “shame on you” and did nothing about it. They couldn’t do anything about it. When India and Pakistan were on the nuclear war brink in 1998, America could do nothing. After the paradigm shift post-9/11, just earlier this year, Bush gave India all of America’s cards. We now have no leverage with India. Why? because they have nuclear weapons, and America wants to use India as a leverage against China. In other words, America has said, “it’s okay that India has nuclear weapons—even though they nearly went to nuclear war with Pakistan in 1998 and caused the deaths of millions of people—-because we’ll use India against China on China’s southern flank.
3. North Korea
This is the worst of it. After years and years of saying, “we’re not going to let NK have nukes,” what happens? North Korea, despite sanctions galore and economic problems galore, now owns several nuclear weapons. What has the United States done about it? nothing.
Iran looks at the world and sees all these nations having gained nuclear weapons without American intervention, and says, “hey, we can actually do it. it might hurt us—some sanctions here and there, some international scorn here and there—but in the end, we’ll come out alright.” in other words, the opportunity cost does not outweigh the gains from having a nuclear weapon or two.
What are those gains? What is respected internationally? Certainly not looks. No, internationally, what is respected is power. The United States respected the Soviet Union, and much as some conservatives wanted to blow up the Soviet empire, they feared those nukes.
Power equals Respect to Iranians.
Perhaps instead of acting childish and like an enemy to Iran, the United States ought to attempt to converse with Iran. Right now, America’s actions look like a schoolyard bully rather than the most powerful nation on the planet. Our post-war “reconstruction” in Iraq is inept and disorganized. It has reduced our respect as well as the perception of our power.
Iran is stronger than Iraq ever was. The only reason the Iran-Iraq war ended in a stalemate was because Saddam used chemical weapons to slow the advance of all those Iranians. We cannot win a war against Iran without severe consequences.
3 Comments
May 4, 2006 at 7:32 pm
The only reason the US wants to put sanctions on Iran, is because they want to close some agreements with China. Who is willing to pay for a higher price.–>
May 20, 2009 at 10:23 pm
While your analysis seems reasonable for their rationale, there are two points I think are relevant. Firstly, while power is respected- power is also feared. Getting more power means you get more enemies, essentially. You get WMDs, people want to monitor you and blow them up. The plus side of building them is bargaining power (sort of) and defense against attack. But seriously, if they weren’t trying to build WMD’s no one would be thinking of attacking Iran. And the extra bargaining power will not generally outweigh the sanctions. If Iran could just learn how to lay low, they could be like Switzerland. Instead, they get to jump up and down on the world stage- at the expense of the country’s long term growth.
Secondly, as far as the US never beating Iran? Seriously? The US would crush the Iranian military, it would not even be close. Winning? They could topple the regime, if you count the “chess” style win. More realistically, you seldom really win in those cases- but the US could easily break army and destroy the nuclear facilities. In modern war, stationary targets are pretty easy to take.
May 21, 2009 at 7:56 am
Ben,
This tells me you haven’t paid attention to the history of Iran. You see, the CIA overthrew a democratically elected government in Iran back in 1953. The provocation? Iran nationalized their oil industry. Not every action America takes is over WMDs. Most of our actions in the Middle East deal with oil.
I recommend you research the details of that coup. You’ll find some very shady American and British actors, including the Lion himself, Winston Churchill, who was a big crybaby when Iran nationalized their oil production. See, Iran’s oil was managed by a certain company named British Petroleum. And Churchill had stock in BP. When Iran nationalized oil production, BP’s stock crashed, and Churchill whined like a mule to the Americans to do something about it.
Ah, but if Switzerland had oil, they would be the ones in the spotlight. A sad fact of life.
Did you even read my comment, or did you get flustered when I dared mention that America could actually lose? Here is what I said:
Note the latter half of that? “Without severe consequences.” i.e. a war with Iran is not worth the cost. Clearly we are superior militarily and can wipe out their military capabilities. But it isn’t worth the cost (just like Iraq was not worth the cost).