The Dangers of a Nuclear Iran

What to do about Iran’s nuclear program is one of the most vexing foreign policy challenges confronting the Obama administration. This debate is increasingly characterized both by growing pessimism about whether the international community’s diplomatic efforts and economic sanctions can prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and by guarded optimism that the consequences a nuclear-armed Iran are manageable. Writing in these pages last spring, James Lindsay and Ray Takeyh, both of the Council on Foreign Relations,maintained that the United States could contain Iran even if it developed a nuclear arsenal by establishing clear “redlines” that Tehran would not be allowed to cross without risking some type of retaliation.For example, if Iran used its nuclear weapons,transferred them to a third party, invaded its neighbors, or increased its support for terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah,the United States would be compelled to respond, although the measures it chose to adopt would not be specified in advance. This argument reflects the public position of many senior U.S. and European officials, as well as a number of prominent academics and defense intellectuals.

Yet this view is far too sanguine. Above all, it rests on the questionable assumptions that possessing nuclear weapons induces caution and restraint, that other nations in the Middle East would balance against Iran rather than bandwagon with it, that a nuclear-armed Iran would respect new redlines even though a conventionally armed Iran has failed to comply with similar warnings,and that further proliferation in the region could be avoided. It seems more likely that Iran would become increasingly aggressive once it acquired a nuclear capability, that the United States’ allies in the Middle East would feel greatly threatened and so would increasingly accommodate Tehran, that the United States’ ability to promote and defend its interests in the region would be diminished, and that further nuclear proliferation, with all the dangers that entails, would occur.The greatest concern in the near term would be that an unstable Iranian-Israeli nuclear contest could emerge, with a significant risk that either side would launch a first strike on the other despite the enormous risks and costs involved. Over the longer term, Saudi Arabia and other states in the Middle East might pursue their own nuclear capabilities,raising the possibility of a highly unstable regional nuclear arms race.

Furthermore, the strategy that appears to be emerging as the default solution to these troubling outcomes—a combination of deterrence and extended deterrence—has serious drawbacks, and these are often down-played or, worse, ignored. The conventional wisdom holds that U.S.security commitments can keep Iran in check, prevent U.S.allies in the Middle East from accommodating Tehran, and dissuade them from pursuing nuclear weapons. Yet both the willingness and the ability of the United States to defend its partners in the region against a nuclear-armed Iran are questionable. The United States was able to deter a nuclear-armed Soviet Union during the Cold War, but the foundations of its security arrangements then—formal treaty guarantees and large U.S. military deployments on the territory of its allies—are unlikely to materialize again soon. Although members of the Obama administration have stated that no option, including military force, should be taken off the table, they have done little to create a credible military option that would discourage Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons or contain it if diplomatic isolation, economic sanctions, or redlines fail to yield the desired results and Iran obtains nuclear weapons. By deploying additional U.S. air and naval forces in the Middle East, the United States could bolster its diplomatic efforts with coercive leverage, lay the foundation for an extended deterrence regime, and give itself the means to use force if a military campaign turns out to be the least bad option.

Iran, Israel, and The Bomb

Given Israel’s status as an assumed but undeclared nuclear weapons state, the most immediate consequence of Iran’s crossing the nuclear threshold would be the emergence of an unstable bipolar nuclear competition in the Middle East. Given Israel’s enormous quantitative and qualitative advantage in nuclear weapons—its arsenal is estimated to consist of anywhere from 100 to more than 200 warheads, possibly including thermonuclear weapons—Tehran might fear a disarming preventive or preemptive strike. During a crisis, then, the Iranian leadership might face a “use them or lose them” dilemma with respect to its nuclear weapons and resolve it by attacking first.

For their part, Israeli leaders might also be willing to strike first, despite the enormous risks. Israel’s small size means that even a few nuclear detonations on its soil would be devastating; Iran’s former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was exaggerating only slightly when he claimed that “even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything.” Iran’s nuclear arsenal is likely to be small at first and perhaps vulnerable to a preventive attack. Moreover, even if current and future Israeli missile defenses could not stop a full-scale premeditated attack by ballistic missiles, they might be effective against any retaliation Iran might launch if it were hit first. And the willingness to execute a preventive or preemptive strike when confronting a serious threat is a deeply ingrained element of Israel’s strategic culture, as Israel demonstrated in its attacks against Egypt in 1956 and 1967, against Iraq’s nuclear program in 1981, and against a suspected Syrian nuclear site in 2007. On the one occasion that Israel absorbed the first blow, in 1973, it came perilously close to defeat. In short, the early stages of an Iranian-Israeli nuclear competition would be unstable.