A Nuclear Iran

Iran is on the cusp of having nuclear weapons. I think it's fair to say at this point it's inevitable.

I've said for years now that the 2015 JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) was worth keeping. Under the agreement Iran agreed to eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium, cut its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98%, and reduce by about two-thirds the number of its gas centrifuges for 13 years. It also included regular monitoring. 

I've disagreed with Netanyahu, who fought against the agreement, and then with Trump for withdrawing from the agreement. But now all that is moot. The agreement is now for all intents and purposes dead. There is no going back. 

A little background: The only country in the world that has ever used nuclear weapons is the United Stated in 1945, and they did it twice. Nine countries currently possess nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel (undeclared), and North Korea. In total, the global nuclear stockpile is estimated to be 13,000 weapons. Nuclear weapons have only ever been used rhetorically by the nuclear powers for the past almost 80 years. Most recently, we've seen how effective that can be with Putin in his war of aggression curtailing the West's level of military support for Ukraine.

Reality check: A few years ago North Korea achieved the status of a nuclear power. Before Trump was exchanging love-letters with the dear leader Kim Jong-Un, I remember experts saying that the greatest threat to the world was a nuclear North Korea. Well, that happened. Haven't heard anything about it lately. I wonder why. Is the world any less secure? Well probably, but only because more nuclear weapons anywhere will always raise global risk of a mistake. Now, many experts are saying that the greatest threat to the world is a nuclear Iran. That would certainly raise security concerns in the same way. But let's face reality. If any regime, no matter how malign and autocratic, is hell-bent on achieving nuclear weapons, it's impossible to stop them. North Korea was hellbent on getting nuclear weapons, starving its impoverished population in the process. It did so not to strike its bitter enemy the US preemptively, but because the regime is fundamentally paranoid and defensive, like all brittle autocratic regimes. Much the same can be said about Iran. 

Iran is slightly different from North Korea. It is an openly stated ideological pillar of the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khameini to destroy Israel. But the threat isn't that as soon as it gets a nuclear missile that can deliver catastrophic destruction to Tel-Aviv they will launch it. They know that Israel already possesses nukes aimed at Tehran, so any preemptive move against Israel would be nuclear suicide. It's true, as most people by now understand, the ideology of jihadism glorifies suicidal death in the act of destroying infidels. But that's only for the lowly expendable soldiers of radical Islam. It would make no sense for the leadership of the caliphate, in an effort to create and strengthen a caliphate, to take an action that would destroy the caliphate and its leaders. Therefore, in this sense, even they are politically rational.    

As with most iron-fisted dictatorships, the Islamic regime's strategy against Israel is long-term. We see it today in the implementation of what is being called the 'Ring of Fire'. The goal is to surround Israel with armed proxies that will engage in constant hostilities to make life in Israel unlivable, essentially choking the life out of the country in a war of attrition. Nuclear weapons would only be used as a political tool, with threats and posturing, and of course as the ultimate insurance policy against existential military attack. In other words standard practice.  

No one should cheer a nuclear Iran, but we should also not be in denial about it. Nothing can stop malign regimes from eventually getting nuclear weapons, and the most malign paranoid autocracies are the most hungry for them. We know that to oppose such regimes by saber-rattling doesn't work, and imposing sanctions only has a marginal impact. Those tactics only tend to make already paranoid and defensive regimes even more paranoid and hungry for a nuclear insurance policy. Treating such regimes as actors in good faith is also fruitless. Negotiations with these regimes only tends to kick the inevitable down the road, as the JCPOA did. 

The only realistic and effective way that a nuclear Russia, a nuclear North Korea, or a nuclear Iran, can be defeated is from within. It will not happen quickly, and it won't happen militarily. We in the west need to use our economic advantage to apply long-term, concerted pressure against these regimes, and encourage the politicization of internal opposition by providing access to resources for them to expand their operations. We need to reward moderates and maginalize and isolate extremists. Iran has many vulnerabilities that can be exploited, chiefly a new generation of millions and millions of modern Iranians who despise the regime. But it will take time. Our greatest weakness, stemming partly from the relative frequency of government turnover in the west, is our impatience and inability to think and act strategically over the medium and long-term. And we make our own position weaker when we support our own divisive leaders who undermine our international alliances. We should acknowledge that sometimes our political leaders have helped our enemies by leveraging nuclear fears to consolidate their political domestic support. Those politicians should not be rewarded for such rhetoric at the ballot box.