A Dangerous Hegemon

Why Iran must not be allowed to go nuclear


Emily B. Landau
IP Global
06 May '10

In the international debate over Iran’s nuclear program, the argument for containment—rather than prevention—is gaining currency. But the emergence of a nuclear Iran would be a dangerous option, destabilizing the fragile Middle East and delegitimizing the non-proliferation regime. This month’s NPT review must not waste the chance to prevent this outcome.

As Iran moves closer to a military nuclear capability, and the international community demonstrates that it is ineffective—if not totally helpless—in keeping Iran from this goal, discussion on this topic has shifted disturbingly to the potential to contain a nuclear Iran. While the time may come to explore this option, we are not there yet.

To accept Iran’s nuclear advance toward a bomb as inevitable would mean that efforts to stop it would lose the essential seriousness and determination needed to succeed. The next step would minimize the gravity of the situation by claiming that the threat can be successfully managed—that nuclear Iran can indeed be deterred and contained. While it would be foolish not to prepare for the possibility of Iran attaining nuclear weapons, there is a delicate balance between such preparations and resolving ourselves to this outcome.

But beyond the implications that discussion of containment might have for whether the West intends to invest the necessary political will and resources in a tough negotiation strategy that might still work, additional questions focus on the notion of containment itself. Is this the correct framework for discussing the potential dangers of Iran going nuclear? Even if deterring an Iranian nuclear attack could be expected to succeed, is this the only threat that we need to prepare for?

In fact, attempts to create the sense that the emerging threat could be managed through Cold War-type deterrence are misleading. They apply conceptual thinking from a very different time and place to a threat that today has serious implications in a number of previously unseen directions.

The Broader Threat of a Nuclear Iran

Today there are surely grounds for believing that other states can deter nuclear Iran from attacking them and their allies with nuclear weapons. Deterrence coming from other nuclear states would be enhanced by new missile defenses, and a nuclear umbrella that the United States would assumedly put in place for its allies in the Middle East. But claiming that Iran can be contained today just as China was in the past reflects a lack of attention to the severe contemporary consequences of Iran becoming a nuclear state. This assumption ignores the dramatic regional implications associated with the Islamic Republic acquiring nuclear weapons. The Iranian government is a regime that is pursuing a hegemonic agenda in the Middle East, that has already taken determined steps in this direction, and that makes no secret of its strong desire to not only change the face of the region, but to encourage any dynamic that will delegitimize Israel to the point that its existence will become a thing of the past.

(Read full article)

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Can the US Contain a Nuclear Iran?

Emily B. Landau
INSS Insight No. 171
24 March '10

With any hope of a new round of UN Security Council sanctions on Iran now postponed until June, and the understanding that if at all, these will be weak and ineffective measures, Obama's diplomatic initiative is slowly grinding to a halt. Taking into account Iran's steady progress in developing fissible material, its work on producing a nuclear warhead, and its ever-improving missile capabilities -- together with low expectations that anything in this dynamic will impress upon the Obama administration the need to ultimately take military action -- part of the discourse on this topic is changing track. Instead of focusing on the stinging failure to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions, some are arguing that it's now time to move on. They say that in the likely scenario that Iran becomes the next nuclear state, the US will simply resort to its ultimate strategy that has worked in other cases: it will contain a nuclear Iran.

But will the US indeed be able to contain a nuclear Iran? The answer to this question involves two levels: first, US credibility vis-à-vis Iran, and second, what the US will be seeking to contain. On both counts, there is little room for optimism.

Containment (and deterrence) of an adversary necessarily depend on a state's ability to transmit to the adversary credible threats of consequences for certain behavior on the part of the adversary. In this regard, the idea that the US can contain Iran cannot be divorced from what has transpired over the past year vis-à-vis the diplomatic initiative that Obama has pursued from his first day in office. The lesson that Iran has learned from the Obama administration is that while there has been no shortage of threats of consequences, there have been little to no actual consequences. Iran has seen that the US sets red lines and deadlines that in practice are virtually meaningless. The US has undermined its own ability to present a credible threat by saying outright that it has no intention of taking military action because it is overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it has clarified through its actions that broad multilateral agreement is more important than demonstrating resolve to Iran in the economic realm as well. Why should we assume that the US will be any more successful in projecting credibility toward Iran when this state becomes a nuclear state than it has been in the period before Iran crossed this line?

(Read full report)
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