Would you board a plane which had a 5 percent chance of crashing?

Mladen Andrijasevic
American Thinker
05 December '10



(The article being addressed is one of the few of Barry Rubin's that I had chosen not to post because of the issues being raised here. These are good questions that should be taken into consideration.Y.)

In the article Israel's Missile Defense: The New Strategic Factor in the Middle East Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center of the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel, writes:

Many, unconsciously perhaps thinking of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War balance, misunderstand this system's effectiveness. Of course, they point out, even if one nuclear missile gets through that would still be catastrophic. But this neglects three factors.

First, the Soviets had many hundreds of nuclear-tipped missiles and could launch dozens at the same time. Iran is unlikely to have more than s small number and will be unable to fire off more than an even smaller number at one time. This improves greatly the chance of a successful defense.

Second, missile defenses have greatly improved since the Cold War era. The diversity of protective systems has grown in a spectacular manner.

Third, Israel must ensure-and know that Iran understands this-that its planes can take off and hit back the attacking country with nuclear weapons of its own. Israeli experts calculate that to have a chance of stopping such an Israeli second strike, Iran would have to fire a dozen missiles simultaneously.

Certainly, it is possible that Iran's regime (or a faction there that might fire missiles without full government approval) would ignore the rational fear of being devastated in return. Yet by maximizing this certainty, the possibility of the Iranian regime ignoring the danger is minimized.

However, Bernard Lewis in his 2006 article in the Wall Street Journal wrote:

For people with this mindset, MAD [mutual assured destruction] is not a constraint; it is an inducement."

What this means is that the above first three points would make sense if Iran's leaders were rational, but not if, as Bernard Lewis believes, they would be induced by the prospect of mutual assured destruction, in other words when they would be looking forward to triggering a nuclear war.

(Read full article)

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