WMD
The Economist held a debate earlier this week about taking military action against Iran’s nuclear program.
In favor of military action was General Chuck F. Wald, a director at Deloitte. Dr. Emily Landau, a senior research associate at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, opposed the option.
For military action
General Wald offered these forecasts:
Iran may now have enough nuclear fuel “to make a rapid, if risky, sprint for a nuclear weapon,” the New York Times reported this week.
However, design work on an actual nuclear weapon may have been halted in 2003, and “it is unclear how many months — or even years — it would take Iran to complete that final design work, and then build a warhead that could fit atop its long-range missiles.” This makes the US believe it would have ample warning if Iran actually began pursuing a nuclear weapon in earnest — the Times notes that the official estimate is that Iran could have a bomb between 2010 and 2015, with later dates in that range more likely.
It also remains unclear how much effect the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran would have. NPR explored this issue late in August.
- Experts interviewed for that story suggest, as others have, that Iran is not ruled by a suicidal regime, and could likely be deterred, just as more radical regimes (such as Mao’s China) have been in the past.
- “If Iran gets the bomb, we’re going to have a period of experimentation in the beginning, where Iran is trying to figure out how much power this new capability has conferred,” says Gary Milhollin, the director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, noting that this could lead to a confrontation stemming from miscalculation.
- Mike Shuster of NPR notes: “If Iran does eventually build nuclear weapons, its deterrent is unlikely to grow beyond a handful of bombs. Iran’s own supply of natural uranium is believed to be quite small and dwindling already. Acquiring uranium from other nations could be difficult if Iran sought to keep it secret.”
A Sunni extremist takeover of Pakistan would be an immense threat to the US and hard to counter, Bruce Reidel writes in The National Interest.
Such a takeover
would create the greatest threat the United States has yet to face in its war on terror. Pakistan as an Islamic-extremist safe haven would bolster al-Qaeda’s capabilities tenfold. The jihadist threat bred in Afghanistan would be a cakewalk in comparison. The old Afghan sanctuary was remote, landlocked and weak; a new one in Pakistan would be in the Islamic mainstream with a modern communications and transportation infrastructure linking it to the world.
“A jihadist victory is neither imminent nor inevitable, but it is now a real possibility in the foreseeable future,” he writes. It would require the Taliban expanding eastward, and teaming up with the radical group Lashkar-e-Taiba in the Punjab, assisted by harnessing the grievances of Pakistan’s vast impoverished classes.
A jihadist Suni emirate would face significant internal resistance, Reidel writes, including from Shia, who make up a fifth of the population. To counter potential opposition within the army, the new regime would likely create a parallel military force, like the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
“In the end, we would be left with an extremist-controlled Pakistan, infested with violence, an almost completely dysfunctional economy, harsh laws and even-harsher methods for imposing them, and above all a nuclear-armed nation controlled by terrorist sympathizers,” Reidel suggests.
External effects would be severe:
- Pakistan would increase its influence in Afghanistan, with some of the Pashtun areas all but incorporated into Pakistan.
- Afghanistan would be split between Pakistan-backed Pashtun and their Tajik, Uzbek, and Shia opponents backed by Russia, Iran, and the Central Asian countries.
- Iran and Pakistan would face off in Afghanistan, and support separatists movements. Iran would accelerate its nuclear program in the face of the Pakistani threat.
- India and Pakistan might easily come to blows, with anti-Indian extremists in power in Islamabad.
- Israel and Pakistan would be active adversaries, but Israel would have few options for countering the distant Asian state.
- All Muslim countries would face the prospect of a newly energized radical movement using Pakistan as a support and training base.
- The United States would lack military options, and a blockade would be difficult to carry out and hard to sustain.
(Image courtesy openDemocracy)
Al Qaeda has been unusually clear about its interest in nuclear weapons, and in particular those held by Pakistan, recently.
On June 21st, al Qaeda’s leader in Afghanistan said this about Pakistan’s arsenal: “God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans and the mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans.”
And within the last month Osama bin Laden “said the jihadists must gain control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons to prevent them from falling into the hands of America, India and Israel,” analyst Bruce Riedel noted. Writes Riedel, “Al Qaeda has told us clearly what the consequences of defeat are – nuclear Armageddon.”
(Image courtesy Nevada Division of Environmental Protection)
A new analysis by the Institute for Science and International Security attempts to answer that question, the Washington Post reports.
A military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities would probably only delay the country’s progress toward nuclear-weapons capability, according to a study that concludes that such an attack could backfire by strengthening Tehran’s resolve to acquire the bomb. The analysis by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security found that Iran’s uranium facilities are too widely dispersed and protected — and, in some cases, concealed too well — to be effectively destroyed by warplanes. And any damage to the country’s nuclear program could be quickly repaired.
Moreover, Albright told the Post, Iran would likely emerge more intent on acquiring nuclear weapons. He said that:
an Israeli or U.S. attack would result in broader popular support for Iran’s ruling clerics and could lead Tehran to sever ties with the U.N. nuclear watchdog. “Iran would likely launch a ‘crash’ program to quickly obtain nuclear weapons,” Albright said in an interview. “An attack would likely leave Iran angry, more nationalistic, fed up with international inspectors and nonproliferation treaties, and more determined than ever to obtain nuclear weapons.”
New polling in Iran offers mixed signals to those who hope for “moderation.”
A strong majority of Iranians favors allowing all reformist candidates to contest elections, and 86% say that all leaders of their country should be elected.
At the same time, a slim majority of Iranians says that Iran should develop nuclear weapons–51% are in favor of this, with only 39% opposed.
So Iran’s potential interest in nuclear weapons is not confined to a tiny ruling group, and even the advent of full democracy might not dispel it.
The Washington Post recently detailed developments in synthetic life: microorganisms guided by completely artificial DNA.
While there are many upsides — artificial organisms might be able to produce cheap biofuels and high-tech chemicals — this technology also has potentially dire security implications.
A biotech watchdog organization, the ETC Group, put it this way:
Ultimately synthetic biology means cheaper and widely accessible tools to build bioweapons, virulent pathogens and artificial organisms that could pose grave threats to people and the planet.
Unlike nuclear weapons, this would not require a vast state-run program. Says the article,
the technology is quickly becoming so simple, experts say, that it will not be long before “bio hackers” working in garages will be downloading genetic programs and making them into novel life forms.
In other words, small groups and even individuals could create immensely dangerous pathogens. (See the movie “Twelve Monkeys” for one such scenario.)
Researchers say that fully artificial cells might be achieved within a year.
Image: NIH
According to a recent New York Times article, many in the US intelligence community “believe that Pakistan, not Iraq, is the place Mr. Bush should consider the ‘central front’ in the battle against terrorism,” as it threatens “political meltdown in the one country where Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and nuclear weapons are all in play.”
The article includes these forecasts:
- “If serious divisions emerge in Pakistan’s army, they could also threaten the security of Pakistan’s potent nuclear arsenal.”
- “Some experts … argue that Pakistan’s army is overwhelmingly moderate and will remain so, even without General Musharraf.”
- Instability in Pakistan “could cripple a renewed [US] effort to turn around the war against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.”
Despite Pakistan now constituting one of the chief threats to American security, there may be little the US can do about it: according to “recent intelligence assessments,” “American influence over events in Pakistan may be ebbing fast.”
Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress polled 108 foreign affairs experts across the political spectrum about terrorism and related issues.
Asked what country is likely to be the next al Qaeda stronghold, the experts said:
- Pakistan — 35%
- Iraq — 22%
- Somalia — 11%
- Sudan — 8%
- Afghanistan — 7%
The experts also put Pakistan at the head of the list most likely to transfer nuclear technology to terrorists by 2012:
- Pakistan — 74%
- North Korea — 42%
- Russia — 38%
- Iran — 31%
- United States — 5%
The experts were divided about how to change US policy toward Pakistan: about a third favored sanctions against the country, and a similar number advocated increasing US aid.
Pakistan likely tops both lists both because of ideological forces at work within the country, and because it is regularly cited as one of the states most likely to fall apart.
Writing in The Telegraph, historian Niall Ferguson attempts to make the case for immediate military action against Iran via a future scenario perspective.
His scenario includes these ideas:
- It would not be difficult to stop Iran’s nuclear program with preventive airstrikes.
- This is a repeat of the history of the 1930s, with a dictator arming for war.
- Iran will have nuclear-armed missiles by 2007.
- China will threaten to intervene on the side of Iran in the resulting 2007-2011 war.
Analysis
Ferguson’s assumptions are weak:
- It appears doubtful that bombing will easily arrest Iran’s nuclear program. According to Seymour Hersh, definitive targets have not even been identified.
- Ferguson strains to invoke the Hitler analogy, but Hitler was absolute dictator of one of the most powerful, technologically advanced nations on Earth. Ahmadinejad is the bureaucratically constrained head of a weak nation highly vulnerable to disruption.
- Ferguson explicitly criticizes as delusion the idea that “the West” is still in a position to dominate the Middle East, but a ready resort to force depends on that very idea.
Ferguson exaggerates the pace of change:
- No credible sources foresee a nuclear arsenal in Iranian hands by 2007. A decade after that appears more likely.
- China will have neither the capability nor the inclination to intervene in the Middle East in the next few years.
He may be accelerating the plausible timetables of his scenario in order to heighten the apparent urgency.
Given that he is a historian, Ferguson’s strangest omission is that he fails to address the possible medium- and long-term consequences of the course he advocates. These include: