NY Times Article Providing Context - Foreign Affairs Article

.
The first three reference materials = The Foreign Affairs article (11.5 Microsoft Word pages), a NY Times article (2 pages) providing context for the Foreign Affairs article, and an essay (3 pages) providing sharper focus =

Even is one presumes Arabs are more gullible than Charles de Gaulle or the Israelis, both of whom refused to place any trust whatsoever in the American nuclear umbrella (as a result of which Israel for the last 37 years has not been the answer to the trivia question – What WAS Israel?) – (1) can mutually-assured nuclear destruction (“MAD”) work with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, or (2) is he more like Fidel Castro who, Soviet archives de-classified in the Glasnost era disclosed, was ready to fire the Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba at the U.S. upon their discovery in October 1962 if Nikita Khrushchev hadn’t ordered the missiles removed from the custody of a “mad man” (Khrushchev’s term for Castro after receiving Castro’s offer to destroy himself and the Cuban people)).

This may be the most important issue facing the world today – since it is unlikely that more than a small portion of the human race would be able to survive without Middle Eastern oil supplies that have become radioactive. After all, losing most of the world’s oil production impacts not only transportation, but also the production of fertilizer and heating oil.
Post Reply
Pat
Site Admin
Posts: 170
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2007 3:11 pm

NY Times Article Providing Context - Foreign Affairs Article

Post by Pat »

.
NY Times – March 14, 2010 Print Edition

Debate Grows on Nuclear Containment of Iran
By David E. Sanger

For a few months in the mid-1960s President Johnson and his aides secretly weighed bombing China’s nuclear sites — perhaps seeking Soviet help — rather than let Mao get the bomb. Then the costs of starting another war in Asia sank in and they decided to try containment — living with a threatening regime while deterring its most dangerous moves.

It worked. Nearly five decades later, more Americans wake up worried about our trillion-dollar debt to China than about China’s arsenal. China has evolved into a comparatively manageable military competitor, at least for now.

Today a version of the same debate about whether containment is the answer is breaking out again, this time about Iran. Prominent strategists like Zbigniew Brzezinski argue forcefully that what worked in the cold war will work with the mullahs. The cover of Foreign Affairs this month is an article titled “After Iran Gets the Bomb”; it draws scenarios for dealing with what many believe is inevitable. Meanwhile, the administration races to add antimissile systems and a naval presence in the Gulf — an effort to contain Iran’s power in the region, officials say, but it sure looks like the building blocks of a nuclear containment policy, a backup in case the next round of sanctions fails to do the trick.

The White House denies that nuclear containment is on the table. “The United States is determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, period,” Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said on his testy trip to Israel last week.

But to many in the early 1960s, a nuclear China was also unthinkable. More recently, George W. Bush would regularly repeat that America would never “tolerate” a nuclear North Korea. The reality was that during the last six years of his presidency, he tolerated it, then prepared the way for the current containment strategy of intercepting shipments from North Korea to customers for its nuclear know-how.

What is striking about the current debate about containing Iran is that neither side seems entirely confident in the solidity of its argument.

Those who advocate sanctions acknowledge that three rounds enacted by the United Nations Security Council failed to change Iran’s behavior. Even if the administration wins new sanctions aimed at the Revolutionary Guard, the advocates admit it will still be a long shot that Iran would hurt enough to stop enriching uranium.

Those who argue that a military strike might be needed if sanctions fail have their own doubts. They admit they cannot predict Iran’s response — from terror strikes to oil cutoffs to confrontations in the Strait of Hormuz.

Even the administration seems tentative about when Iran will exceed American tolerance. In the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies, several senior officials complain — though never on the record — that President Obama and his staff have not clearly defined when Iran will gain a “nuclear weapons capability.” Many argue that similar indecision preceded the day in 2006 when Mr. Bush woke up to discover that North Korea had conducted a nuclear test.

So what is the argument for containment? Basically, it assumes that if China and Russia changed over decades, so might Iran. And nuclear weapons can handcuff a nation as easily as they can empower it. Last week, at the University of Oklahoma, Mr. Brzezinski argued that either an Iranian bomb or an attack on Iran would be “a calamity, a disaster.” He said containment could work because Iran “may be dangerous, assertive and duplicitous, but there is nothing in their history to suggest they are suicidal.”

Nevertheless, in their Foreign Affairs essay, James Lindsay and Ray Takeyh concede that the Iran case differs substantially from the cold war ones, and that a successful strategy today would have to recognize that fact. They urge Mr. Obama to prescribe three explicit no-go zones for the Iranians: “no initiation of conventional warfare” against another nation; “no transfer of nuclear weapons, materials, or technologies”; no increase in support for terrorists. The penalty, they argued, would have to include “military retaliation by any and all means necessary,” including the use of nuclear weapons.

It is a logical list. But there is a counterargument: Why would Iran believe the threat if the United States, having said it would never allow Iran to get a nuclear capability, then allowed it?

In fact, the administration is deep into containment now — though it insists its increases in defensive power in the Gulf are meant to deter a conventional attack by Iran. If Iran’s threat went nuclear, America might have to extend its nuclear umbrella as well. Defense Secretary Robert Gates carefully stepped around that option last week while in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, trying to reassure leaders who increasingly fear the prospect of an Iranian bomb.

Mr. Gates defended the sanctions strategy: “I think the prospects of success are certainly better than in a lot of other situations where sanctions have been applied,” he said. But he spent most of his time explaining the need for “defensive capabilities” against Iranian missiles.

Few doubt the missile threat can be contained. Strategists worry more that Iran might slip a crude weapon or nuclear material to terrorists, betting it couldn’t be traced back to Tehran. (It’s not a bad bet — the science of “nuclear attribution” is a lot weaker than it seems on “24.” )

Yet another argument against containment comes from Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush. “The ultimate consequence of trying to contain Iran has little to do with Iran itself,” he argues. “The biggest risk is that it will start an eruption of proliferation” around the Gulf, starting with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. They would doubt the American deterrent capability, he said, and the problem would spread to Japan and South Korea.

Post Reply

Return to “Reference Materials - After Iran Gets The Bomb (Foreign Affairs Magazine Lead Article) - May 12th”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests