Decision Time on Iran
October 31, 2006, 11:26 am |
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by Daniel Pipes*
As the Iranian government announced last week a doubling of its uranium enrichment program, the United Nations Security Council bickered over a feeble European draft resolution. It would do no more than prohibit Iranian students from studying nuclear physics abroad, deny visas for Iranians working in the nuclear area, and end foreign assistance for Iran’s nuclear program, oh, except from Russia.
Where, one wonders, will the desultory, perpetual efforts to avert a crisis with Iran end? With a dramatic calling of the vote at the Security Council in New York? Around-the-clock negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna? A special envoy from the European Union hammering out a compromise in Tehran?
None of the above, I predict, for all these scenarios presume that Tehran will ultimately forego its dream of nuclear weaponry. Recent evidence suggests otherwise:
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Hostile statements provoking the West. Perhaps the most notable of these was President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s warning to Europe not to support Israel: “We have advised the Europeans that … the [Muslim] nations are like an ocean that is welling up, and if a storm begins, the dimensions will not stay limited to Palestine, and you may get hurt.” Yet more outrageously, the chief of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, threatened the United States that it stands “on the threshold of annihilation.”
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A mood of messianism in the upper reaches of the government. In addition to the general enthusiasm for mahdaviat (belief in and efforts to prepare for the mahdi, a figure to appear in the End of Days), reliable sources report that Ahmadinejad believes he is in direct contact with the Hidden Imam, another key figure of Shi’ite eschatology.
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The urgent nuclear program. Bolstered by the economic windfall from oil and gas sales, the regime since mid-2005 has at almost every turn adopted the most aggressive steps to join the nuclear club, notably by beginning nuclear enrichment in February.
A focused, defiant, and determined Tehran contrasts with the muddled, feckless Russians, Arabs, Europeans, and Americans. A half year ago, a concerted external effort could still have prompted effective pressure from within Iranian society to halt the nuclear program, but that possibility now appears defunct. As the powers have mumbled, shuffled, and procrastinated, Iranians see their leadership effectively permitted to barrel ahead.
Nonetheless, new ideas keep being floated to finesse war with Iran. Los Angeles Times columnist Max Boot, for example, dismisses an American invasion of Iran as “out of the question” and proffers three alternatives: threatening an economic embargo, rewarding Tehran for suspending its nuclear program, or helping Iranian anti-regime militias invade the country.
Admittedly, these no-war, no-nukes scenarios are creative. But they no longer offer have a prospect of success, for the situation has become crude and binary: either the U.S. government deploys force to prevent Tehran from acquiring nukes, or Tehran acquires them.
This key decision – war or acquiescence – will take place in Washington, not in New York, Vienna, or Tehran. (Or Tel Aviv.) The critical moment will arrive when the president of the United States confronts the choice whether or not to permit the Islamic Republic of Iran to acquire the Bomb. The timetable of the Iranian nuclear program being murky, that might be either George W. Bush or his successor.
It will be a remarkable moment. The United States glories in the full flower of public opinion with regard to taxes, schools, and property zoning. Activists organize voluntary associations, citizens turn up at town hall meetings, associations lobby elected representatives.
But when it comes to the fateful decision of going to war, the American apparatus of participation fades away, leaving the president on his own to make this difficult call, driven by his temperament, inspired by his vision, surrounded only by a close circle of advisors, insulated from the vicissitudes of politics. His decision will be so intensely personal, which way he will go depends mostly on his character and psychology.
Should he allow a malevolently mystical leadership to build a doomsday weapon that it might well deploy? Or should he take out Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, despite the resulting economic, military, and diplomatic costs.
Until the U.S. president decides, everything amounts to a mere re-arranging of deck chairs on the Titanic, acts of futility and of little relevance.
*New York Sun
October 31, 2006
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/4097
Cross-posted with permission
Related: United States, Iran, War Against Islamo-fascism, United Nations (UN)
October 31st, 2006 at 11:30 am
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October 31st, 2006 at 5:26 pm
You have such a clear vision, wish some others did as well ! It’s amazing hopw thge future of the ME and perhaps the entire world boils down to the personal decision of this one man, to go to war or not to go to war?
October 31st, 2006 at 8:26 pm
Israel will not, and cannot, allow Iran to obtain the facilities to create the bomb, so someone will have to attack Iran before its to late. His messianic beliefs are real so he is willing to push his nuclear ambitions to fullfilment so that he can turn them on Israel. You cannot escape this scenario, it is a fact if he gets the bomb, so Israel has no alternative but to act for her own survival.
It will probably be Israel with American backing who will conduct pre-emtive strikes on Irans facilities and then there will be war with Hamas in Gaza and again with Hezbolla in Lebanon.
Realistically how can Israel not act after Ahmadinejad’s declerations to his country of wiping Israel off of the map, and his direct support for Hezbolla and Hamas. This attack will then give Osama Bin Laden (in his mind) permission in the Worlds eyes to then detonate his tactical Nukes that are located within the U.S.
This is not a joke, this type of scenario is real because the facts are as Mr Pipes has stated them.
The question is, what is the time frame before Iran completes its project?
We know that Bin Laden through Zwahiri and Azzam have fullfiled Islamic obligation by inviting Americans to become Muslim which is what they do before attacking. They have also told Muslims to get out of America so they cannot be blamed for killing Muslims.
The scene has now been set.
Check out these articles, these people mean what they say, we must always remember that. They are at war with us and want our complete and total destruction.
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/site/modules/news/article.php?storyid=627
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/site/modules/news/article.php?storyid=566
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/site/modules/news/article.php?storyid=589
After Iran is attacked we will probably then recieve an open decleration from Bin Laden and then America will be attacked.
God is on our side though so they cannot win this War…
November 1st, 2006 at 10:46 am
Dr. Pipes has gone outside his field of expertise when he makes the following statement:
“But when it comes to the fateful decision of going to war, the American apparatus of participation fades away, leaving the president on his own to make this difficult call, driven by his temperament, inspired by his vision, surrounded only by a close circle of advisors, insulated from the vicissitudes of politics. His decision will be so intensely personal, which way he will go depends mostly on his character and psychology.”
While what Dr. Pipes likely is correct to say that the President’s decision to go to war is intensely personal, he is wrong to say that the President will ultimately be directed in that decision by his character and psychology.
The public has been given more than enough of an insight into the inner workings of the Presidential office to know that Presidential decisions, regardless of how important are influenced by his advisers, the media, polls that guage the mood of the electorate, the timing of his decision, where he and his party stand in the polls, what impact his decision will have on the standing of he and his party, whether he has the support of not only America but of America’s traditional allies and a myriad of other factors that all boil down to the President being very much aware, sensitive to and influenced by the exigent vicissitudes of politics.
Western nations were changed by horrors of WWII to want to avoid war as an option. The EU’s aversion to being at war is virtually absolute, while America has for a number of reasons still retained war as an option. America’s experiences at war in North Korea and Viet Nam further changed America. America’s experience in Iraq especially is changing America as especially now with American policy of democratizing the Middle East looking more and more fanciful every day and for all its efforts to bring good to Iraq, at least good in a Western sense, America is paying a heavy price in loss of lives, money and prestige on the world stage, not to mention that Bush and his administration are being savaged on the home front for their decision to go into Iraq in the first place.
We have witnessed the West’s aversion to war, especially in Europe where leaders have virtually eliminated a war option and are persistently trying to contain Iran with empty words and feckless diplomacy. The Europeans are not fools. They know their diplomatic efforts have not worked and cannot work with Iran. Nonetheless, putting more stock in form than substance, they feel that doing something at least looks better than doing nothing.
As hard as one might be on the EU for being spineless cowards, not nearly enough anger has been directed by the EU and America against Russia for first enabling Iran’s nuclear program, against Russia and China for arming Iran to the teeth with the most sophisticated weaponry and for both their efforts that have effectively sandbagged efforts to impose real sanctions by America and the EU at the UN. In the result, what the UN has done is nothing more than the usual fare of empty and toothless ultimatums issued against Iran and Iran continues to thumb its nose at the West and openly pursue its nuclear agenda to reach its goals. Estimates of when Iran will have nuclear weapon capacity range from months to just a few years.
There has been no words of censure and anger or actions to impose some negative consequences against Russia and China for their running interference for Iran and being the ones giving Iran sophisticated weapons and time to complete its nuclear program.
We are also witnessing this same EU attitude in President Bush and all the President’s people, though not necessarily for all the same reasons, sentiments and feelings as appears to be the case throughout the EU.
Nonetheless, the American mood seems to be changing. Americans seem to becoming more isolationist, to be more concerned with only reacting to what poses a direct threat to American interests, and to more carefully define just what is in American interests.
Maintaining some modicum of political stability in the Middle East is very much in both American and EU interests. Maintaining stability in the world oil economy is very much in Western interests.
Whatever Iran’s threats and machinations, unless that political and economic stability is seriously threatened by Iran leaving America and EU at the brink of facing wrack and ruin and having to choose between being pushed over the edge or pushing back and taking Iran out, neither America or the EU will be too quick about taking the war option off the shelf, dusting it off and putting it into their holsters.
Many sage advisers and pundits have warned that the EU and America could very well by their inaction be closing in on the point of no return and when they do reach for their war option they will find it out of reach for they are already over the brink an on the slippery slope down to the rocks of despair at the bottom.
Cross posted at Israpundit