Symposium
Doyle, Michael W.
PREVENTING IRAN from acquiring nuclear weapons is desirable. But is it vitally necessary or just desirable? Is it doable, and, if so, at what cost? Answers to those questions will explain why I...
...The current U.S.-European draft (October 26) circulating in the Security Council meets these standards, if we exclude the bizarre attempt to exclude Iranian students in foreign universities from classes in nuclear physics...
...President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's threats to "wipe Israel off the map" and Iran's arming of Hezbollah clearly threaten Israel...
...These sticks should be accompanied by carrots that take seriously Iranian denials of any intention of creating nuclear arms—if Iran is prepared to verify them...
...Annual "Death to America" celebrations and the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that housed U.S...
...As a start, the United States should promise not to do what it neither can nor should...
...With regard to legality, Iran's threats themselves violate the UN Charter (Article 2.4...
...In the Cuban Missile Crisis, in October 1962, the United States unilaterally—illegally but arguably justifiably—imposed a blockade to prevent the Soviet Union from making Cuba into a missile base threatening the United States...
...It is fully legal when authorized by the UN Security Council under Article 39 of the Charter, which calls upon the Council to determine "threats" to international peace and decide what to do about them...
...If they do not, deterrence is the best recourse...
...The Bush administration eliminated Iran's regional containment by creating power vacuums in Iraq and Afghanistan, which were once the barrier walls to Iranian expansion...
...American billionaire Warren Buffett has offered the money to jump-start this nuclear fuel facility ($50 million...
...Various Israeli officials off the record and Vice President Dick Cheney on the record say, "We join other nations in sending that regime a clear message...
...A moderate Iran could also be rewarded with membership in the World Trade Organization...
...All Iran needs is nuclear capability to serve as an umbrella over a much more adventurous and coercive policy toward the Persian Gulf and its cheap oil that fuels and controls world prosperity...
...airmen convey continuing threats to the United States...
...A surgical strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would likely miss many hidden sites, accelerate Iran's program, and legitimate its acquisition of a full-scale nuclear weapon capability in the eyes of the Islamic world...
...NATO should promise to defend the states of the Gulf from any Iranian attack...
...But there is a long-run lethal threat...
...Prevention is not a radical policy...
...This essay draws from his Tanner Lectures on "Anticipatory SelfDefense," delivered at Princeton University, November 8-9, 2006...
...Even reprocessing could be permitted, if Iran is prepared to accept unrestricted, nonotice IAEA inspections...
...MICHAEL W. DOYLE is the Harold Brown Professor of International Affairs, Law and Political Science at Columbia University...
...DISSENT / Winter 2007 n 47...
...that is, change Iran's regime by invasion...
...The international community is beginning to develop a jurisprudence of prevention focusing on lethality, likelihood, legitimacy, and legality— criteria that help assess the seriousness of threats not yet imminent and the appropriate responses to them...
...Legitimacy covers the proportionality, necessity, and deliberativeness of proposed responses...
...Comprehensive sanctions and a steady campaign of air attacks such as was imposed on Iraq in the 1990s could degrade Iran's nuclear program, as they successfully did Iraq's...
...If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, the United States should give Israel access to a more robust, second-strike deterrent, such as a nuclear missile submarine...
...Absent good reasons relevant to each standard, preventive action is not justified...
...Responsible governments regularly face the choice of whether to try to deter a potential foe or to act first—that is, preventively—to save themselves from a blow that the other seems to intend, has delivered before, and could again deliver...
...Legality asks whether the threatening situation is itself produced by legal or illegal actions, and whether the proposed remedy is more or less legal...
...Recreating the cold war nuclear standoff in the Middle East is not a happy outcome...
...Many in the region are well aware of past Anglo-American covert interventions against Iran (against Mossadegh in 1953 and in support of the shah) and are not unsympathetic to Iran's hyper-defensive nationalism...
...mUCH MORE LIKELY than a direct attack on either Israel or the United States (which would be met with an overwhelming response) is Iran's continued funding, arming, and directing of Hezbollah...
...Current threats may be so much hot air...
...All four standards should be taken into account when considering prevention...
...Iran is four to ten years away from nuclear weapons according to Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte...
...But Iran's current attempts to acquire a nuclear fuel reprocessing capability appear to be within the scope of peaceful energy in the Non-Proliferation Treaty...
...Iran should be informed that there will be no strategic gain from nuclearization...
...Furthermore, as ElBaradei recently offered, the IAEA could guarantee full access to nuclear technology short of reprocessing by assuring access to reprocessed fuel on market terms from an IAEA facility...
...Preventing an Iranian bomb is clearly desirable, judging by those 4Ls, but not an immedi46 n DISSENT / Winter 2007 ate vital necessity...
...Likelihood assesses the probability that the threat will occur...
...Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, judges that Iran is at least seeking a "screwdriver" bomb, one that would be a week or so away from assembly in a crisis...
...Iranian threats have generated responses that reveal a rising level of concern...
...Even a Middle East hawk such as Kenneth Pollack who (in The Gathering Storm) made the case for war against Iraq, argues (in The Persian Puzzle) for caution in dealing with Iran...
...Answers to those questions will explain why I think we should try to prevent, but settle for deterring...
...But the international community accepted the sanctions on Iraq only after Saddam Hussein twice invaded his neighbors...
...Beyond that, sanctions should be lifted in return for moderation, such as Iran's recognition of Israel within its 1967 borders...
...but it is disturbing that, knowing how provocative they have been, Ahmadinejad has repeated them time and again...
...The Council imposed preventive sanctions on South Africa in 1977 to punish apartheid and prevent a regional race war...
...We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon...
...Trade sanctions should be targeted narrowly on nuclear capacity and the governing regime...
...Iran could also tilt the regional balance of power in ways that threaten the world economy...
...IRAN What is missing is a response that is both effective and legitimate—one that is proportionate to the threat...
...An Iraq-style invasion would unify the country in resistance...
...Iran is four times the size with three times the population of Iraq...
...Lethality is fortunately not imminent...
...Lethality identifies the likely loss of life if the threat is not eliminated...
...The citizens of Tel-Aviv and Tehran become hostages, their lives dependent on the prudence of their two governments...
...But at the end, there is no guarantee that this combination of preventive sticks and carrots will work...
...THE EXISTING LEVEL of uncertainty and the immense costs of the military action both argue for trying an alternative mixed strategy of sticks and carrots, with multilateral authorization...
...But if prevention fails, it does appear to be the least bad outcome...
...Completely apart from its implications for academic freedom, no one has suggested that Iran currently lacks the technical expertise to create a bomb...
Vol. 54 • January 2007 • No. 1
