Almost
Logan and Preble journey to the belly of the beast to make the case that the best way to deal with Iran is to – deal with Iran:
Although the Bush administration believes the Iranians are not negotiating in good faith, there is a straightforward way to find out: offer them a grand bargain that gives them what they want in exchange for giving up a capability to build nukes.
The United States should offer Iran full normalization of relations, including a public promise not to attack it, restored diplomatic relations, and normalized economic relations. In return, Iran would need to give up any prospect of building a nuclear arsenal. Iran would be required to immediately open its existing nuclear program to unfettered international inspections.
I agree with almost everything they write except their conclusion – “Washington needs to make every diplomatic effort to stop Iran from getting a bomb before we start a war with that country” – to this extent: I doubt that it is worth a war to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. Logan and Preble implicitly concede that war is a reasonable if not actually necessary response to the possibility of an Iranian nuke.
I’d go further and say, if the United States and Iran can successfully normalize relations, the United States has no interest in keeping Iran from going nuclear at all. I’m talking about a comprehensive normalization such as the Iranians themselves proposed exploring in May 2003:
In the spring of 2003, shortly before [former NSC advisor Flynt Leverett] left government, the Iranian Foreign Ministry sent Washington a detailed proposal for comprehensive negotiations to resolve bilateral differences. The document acknowledged that Iran would have to address concerns about its weapons programs and support for anti-Israeli terrorist organizations. It was presented as having support from all major players in Iran’s power structure, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A conversation [Leverett] had shortly after leaving the government with a senior conservative Iranian official strongly suggested that this was the case. Unfortunately, the administration’s response was to complain that the Swiss diplomats who passed the document from Tehran to Washington were out of line.
If such a deal could be worked out, Iranian nukes would be no scarier than French ones, and less worrisome than the nukes in Pakistan. Nor need we assume it’s too late to make a deal. There’s been a lot of talk about scary things Iran could do to retaliate against a (possibly nuclear) US air war, but in a surprisingly good article last week, Michael Young argues that all the possible reactions are problematic from Iran’s own perspective. That’s by no means to say Iran wouldn’t resort to them in the event of war, but it certainly offers hope that they’d still like to avoid one. Would we?
Comment by Thomas Nephew —
April 25, 2006 @ 2:16 am
Re ”US has no interest in keeping Iran from going nuclear at all,” what about Israel? (Sure, they floated something or other about ”addressing concerns” about anti-Israeli terrorists once, but will they again, and what did it cost them?)
That’s why I think Logan and Carpenter (Preble?) are right to have a nonnuclear-arms Iran as a goal. I’m with them and you on offering a nonaggression pact and the rest of it as the quid pro quo. And Israel might need to join in the nonaggression pact to try to take that possibility off the table as well.
Comment by dsquared —
April 25, 2006 @ 6:04 am
offer them a grand bargain that gives them what they want in exchange for giving up a capability to build nukes.
yes, that would be a good way to find out if the Iranians were negotiating in good faith. However, there is this ongoing issue of whether we are negotiating in good faith, and if I was the Iranians I would want that totally sorted out first.
Comment by Jim Henley —
April 25, 2006 @ 8:14 am
Thomas: I thought I was pretty clear that ”normalized relations” would include a successful US-Iranian rapprochement on Israel/Palestine? Absent a comprehensive agreement including that issue, yes, the US has an interest in a non-nuclear Iraq, but not an overriding one: by which I mean, it’s not worth the US initiating a certain war now on the excuse of preventing a possible war later.
Comment by Barry —
April 25, 2006 @ 8:40 am
”…what about Israel?”
Israel has up to a few hundred nuclear weapons, with redundant delivery systems. They can take care of themselves.
I’m really puzzled why people don’t understand that.
Comment by IOZ —
April 25, 2006 @ 9:03 am
But Barry, don’t you know that the Jews are helpless? Pace Mila 18, if we don’t protect them, who will?
It’s probably to the Israelis advantage that we insist on infantalizing them, but honestly, you’d think that Israelis’ military history, US-funded or no, would give some pause to the perpetrators of the Jews-are-helpless meme
Comment by Lemuel Pitkin —
April 25, 2006 @ 9:16 am
Dsquared is right — no sane Iranian would want to give up the nuclear option, given the history of U.S. conduct in the region (recent and not so recent.) Of course Jim is also right that Iranian nukes are no problem if relations are normalzied. And he clearly believes — but doesn’t quite say, and probably should have — that even if no deal can be worked out, it’s not worth a war.
Comment by Nell —
April 25, 2006 @ 12:52 pm
Martin van Creveld explicitly made Barry’s point in his recent Forward piece:
[Israel] has long had what it needs to deter an Iranian attack. Should deterrence fail, Jerusalem can quickly turn Tehran into a radioactive desert — a fact of which Iranians are fully aware. Iran’s other neighbors, such as Russia, Pakistan and India, can look after themselves. As it is, they seem much less alarmed by developments in Iran than they do by those thousands of miles away in Washington.
Comment by Nell —
April 25, 2006 @ 1:10 pm
I couldn’t agree more with Jim’s criticism of the Logan/Preble statement that Washington needs to make every diplomatic effort to stop Iran from getting a bomb before we start a war with that country.
That is exactly the rhetorical box into which most Democratic candidates have placed themselves. And the Bush administration will pretend that it’s taking the diplomatic path, and then that diplomacy is failing, and the next thing you know: war.
The reality is that no military option short of genocidal attack can prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. A nuclear-armed Iran is not a desirable thing, but it’s absolutely not worth a war, and we can live with it. As we live with nuclear-armed non-NPT Israel, India, and Pakistan. Nations seeking to acquire nuclear weapons are doing so as a deterrent (another point Creveld makes). I would except our own country, which is one signature away from an official first-strike nuclear policy and is busily developing the ’bunker-buster’ nukes to be used in such a strike.
We can prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, and we have many, many years to do so — if we de-escalate the threat and start dealing directly with Iran. This country is the threat, and only its government can start the de-escalation. Voters need to make clear they will only support candidates for that government who will do so.
Comment by matthew hogan —
April 25, 2006 @ 1:57 pm
”in a surprisingly good article” by Michael Young.
Man, am I ever hip.
Comment by Shawn —
April 25, 2006 @ 5:50 pm
I’ll go even further. If Iran claims that it is only enriching uranium for nuclear energy, then the U.S. will give them nuclear energy. The U.S. could build them a nuclear plant in another country and give Iran all the energy they need. In exchange, Iran just has to give up their nuke development. If they don’t take the deal, I’m sure the U.S. will bomb the hell out of them. Sounds like an easy choice to me.
Comment by ajay —
April 26, 2006 @ 11:50 am
Shawn: nope, wouldn’t work. The US signed a deal to give North Korea light-water reactors (ie good for power, bad for bombs) in 1994, and then reneged. The Iranians know that the US cannot be trusted to keep its commitments.
Comment by Mike in Austin —
April 28, 2006 @ 4:21 pm
Let’s play a game. I say ”You are absolutely evil, and I am going to get a gun and come to your home and kill you.”
I then allow you to see me as I go to several gun stores, buy guns and ammo, try a little target practice. You alert the police, who are told when they come around to my place that I ”don’t give a damn” what they say, I’m going to kill you, because you are absolutely evil. They file a report, but can’t arrest me because I don’t live in their district. Incidentally, I have threatened all your friends and started up a gang in their neighborhoods, that regularly attacks them.
So what do you do? Ask me why I hate you, so you can change your evil ways? Ask the police, who are powerless to arrest me, to protect you? Get a gun and carry it everywhere in case I attack you? Or are you going to knock me upside my head the first chance you get, to avoid my plans to kill you? Your choice.
I suggest we take the Iranian threats seriously, and treat their leaders as rational adults responsible for their statements and actions.
Comment by Jim Henley —
April 28, 2006 @ 4:41 pm
Mike, your hypothetical is amusing, but doesn’t fit what Iran has actually done.