An Iran with nuclear weapons would be dangerous and destabilizing, though I am not as convinced as some that it would automatically force Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey to go nuclear as well. If Israel's large nuclear arsenal has not made Egypt seek its own nukes -- even though that country has fought and lost three wars with Israel -- it is unclear to me why an Iranian bomb would.
Sarah Palin has a suggestion for how Barack Obama can save his
presidency. "Say he decided to declare war on Iran," she said on Fox
News this month. "I think people would perhaps shift their thinking a
little bit and decide, well, maybe he's tougher than we think he is
today." Such talk is in the air again. Palin was picking up the idea
from Daniel Pipes, a neoconservative Middle East expert who suggested
a strike would reverse Obama's political fortunes. (Actually, Palin
attributed the idea to Patrick Buchanan, but she obviously entirely
misread Buchanan's column,
which opposed Pipes's suggestion. It's getting tiresome to keep
pointing out her serial gaffes, but Palin does appear to be running for
president.)
The International Atomic Energy Agency warned last week
of its "concerns" that the Iranian regime was moving to acquire a
nuclear-weapons capability, not just nuclear energy. But this does not
change the powerful calculus against a military strike, which would
most likely delay the Iranian program by only a few years. And then
there are the political consequences. The regime would gain support as
ordinary Iranians rally around the flag. The opposition would be forced
to support a government under attack from abroad. The regime would
foment and fund violence from Afghanistan to Iraq and across the
Persian Gulf. The price of oil would skyrocket -- which, ironically,
would help Tehran pay for all these operations.
It is important to recognize the magnitude of what people like Palin
are advocating. The United States is being asked to launch a military
invasion of a state that poses no imminent threat to America, without
sanction from any international body and with few governments willing
to publicly endorse such an action. Al-Qaeda and its ilk would present
it as the third American invasion of a Muslim nation in a decade, proof
positive that the United States is engaged in a war of civilizations.
Moderate Arab states and Muslim governments everywhere would be on the
defensive. And as Washington has surely come to realize, wars unleash
forces that cannot be predicted or controlled.
An Iran with nuclear weapons would be dangerous and destabilizing,
though I am not as convinced as some that it would automatically force
Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey to go nuclear as well. If Israel's large
nuclear arsenal has not made Egypt seek its own nukes -- even though
that country has fought and lost three wars with Israel -- it is
unclear to me why an Iranian bomb would.
The United States should use the latest IAEA report to bolster a
robust containment strategy against Iran, bringing together the
moderate Arab states and Israel in a tacit alliance, asking European
states to go further in their actions, and pushing Russia and China to
endorse sanctions. Former secretary of state James Baker suggested to
me on CNN that the United States could extend its nuclear umbrella to
Israel, Egypt and the Gulf states -- something that Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton has hinted at as well.
At the same time, Washington should back the "Green Movement" in
Iran, which ultimately holds out the greatest hope for a change in the
basic orientation of Iran's foreign policy. It remains unclear how
broad or well-organized this opposition movement is, but as a long-term
strategy we should support groups that want a more modern and open
Iran.
Can we live with a nuclear Iran? Well, we're living with a nuclear
North Korea (boxed in and contained by its neighbors). And we lived
with a nuclear Soviet Union and Communist China.
Iran, we're told, is different. The country cannot be deterred by
America's vast arsenal of nukes because it is run by a bunch of mystic
mullahs who aren't rational, embrace death and have millenarian
fantasies. But this isn't and never was an accurate description of
Iran's canny (and ruthlessly pragmatic) clerical elite.
The most significant recent development in Iran has been the
displacement of the clerical elite by the Revolutionary Guards, a
military organization that is now the center of power. Clinton
confirmed this when she warned of an emerging "military dictatorship"
there. I'm not sure which is worse for the Iranian people: rule by
nasty mullahs or by thuggish soldiers. But we know this: Military
regimes are calculating. They act in ways that keep themselves in
power. That instinct for self-preservation is what will make a
containment strategy work.
Fareed Zakaria is editor of Newsweek International. His e-mail address is comments@fareedzakaria.com.
