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Iran & the Bomb—A Personal Commentary
By Carlton S. Coon
*
Amb. Coon calls upon his many years of servicein the Middle East and South Asia as a senior U. S. diplomat to assess a developing threat to U.S.-Iranian relations—Tehran's evident move toward acquiring nuclear weapons. –Ed.
Americans tend to be tone deaf. We decide which other countries we don't like and then decide what to do about them. This has been particularly true of Washington leaders in recent years. I have seen no evidence over the past four years that the White House and the Pentagon give a hoot about how other countries perceive their interests and why they behave the way they do. They take the position that you're either for us or against us. End of story.
Iran is a case in point. We don't care why the Iranians seem interested in acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. The fact is they are, and we don't like it, and we aim to face up to them and tell them we don't like it and make them back down or face the consequences. We are resolute, the mark of true leadership. Or so the TV sound bites tell us.
There are other ways of looking at the problem, however. Iran's way, for starters. Here is a big country with a lot of oil and a strategic location between the Middle East and South Asia. It has a history of independence and empire going back several millennia. When I served there in the mid-'60's, the country was developing rapidly, and a lot of that development was military muscle we were supplying. The Shah was boasting that by the end of the century Iran would overtake Germany as an economic powerhouse. But then the people, led by the ayatollahs, kicked him out. They did this partly because he was beholden to us, but mainly because he was a dictator who relied on secret police instead of the ballot box, and they wanted more freedom. The ayatollahs disappointed them, and now they are edging toward another regime change, hopefully peaceful, that will let an increasingly worldly-wise population have more of the freedom they want and are ready for.
Iran was relatively isolated geographically until 9/11, but then, quite suddenly, the neighborhood got a bit crowded. The United States knocked out Saddam, Iran's foe, which was a plus from Iran's perspective, but the advantage was tempered by the fact that American troops didn't go home. They settled in, just west of Iran's border. And U.S. forces had already established themselves just east of their border on the Afghan side.
Meanwhile Washington was forging a new strategic relationship with Uzbekistan and its neighbors, just up to the north. The world's military superpower had been on the other side of the world; now it was sitting in Iran's lap. This might have been tolerable except for the obvious fact that the administration in Washington tends to do what Israel's Sharon wants, and Israel is truly hostile, plus being armed with its own nukes.
The Iranians are not stupid. Given the new regional climate, they figured they needed nukes of their own, and they needed them fast, not to attack Israel or anyone else, but to act as a deterrent against an attack by Israel, with U.S. support. It's the old chicken game known as mutual deterrence -- if you nuke us we'll nuke you back. It's the psychology that drove the Russians in the early '50's to match new U.S. weapons, and then drove the United States when Washington was under the impression the Russians had forged ahead (the famous "missile gap"). Any nation worth its salt that feels threatened is going to try to do something about it. Is not this what America is doing with the "war on terror?"
The Iranians know that the process of getting nukes of their own will be very tricky, and there will be a period of maximum danger after they've crossed the Rubicon and before they have an effective deterrent. But they've had a lot of experience with tricky diplomacy over the last several millennia and they're about as good at the game as anyone.
Consider the internal politics, as well. The ayatollahs have a bear by the tail in this democracy movement, and they know that the best way to keep their populace in line is by scaring the bejeesus out of them with an external threat. Sound familiar? So they are not all that averse to risk-taking, as they plot their tricky course through the minefield that lies between their present condition and the acquisition of an effective deterrent. The name of their game is to get the rest of the West mad at them, but not so mad that someone actually takes a swat at them.
Unlike the blinkered outlook of Washington leaders, the Europeans have a pretty good idea of what the stakes are and why the Iranians are behaving as they are. They are old hands at this kind of diplomatic chicken game themselves. They understand that Iran will have an effective nuclear power program come what may, both because the Iranians want it in its own right, and because it's a step toward eventual acquisition of a weapons program.
he Europeans also understand that the best way to hold the Iranians back from that next step, from a power program to nuclear bombs is through negotiations. This is a relatively limited objective, and it may work, at least for a while, particularly if the result of the negotiations is to help the Iranians feel a bit more secure. Furthermore, this approach has the major collateral advantage of reducing the external pressure on Iran, and thereby enhancing the opportunities for the democrats to reform the regime.
If it acts true to form, the new administration in Washington will talk loudly while brandishing a very small stick. The conservatives may come out in favor of a military invasion, but the professional U.S. military, already stretched painfully thin, will almost certainly veto any such action. So the worst the ayatollahs would have to fear would be an Israeli air strike at their nascent facilities.
This would irritate them, and it might set their nuclear program back some, but it would also encourage them to burn their bridges and go for a nuke as fast as they could. The European thrust for compromise would be stymied, the whole region would become much less secure, and our erstwhile friends across the Atlantic would have yet another reason to regard us as the bull in the china shop, the world's number one threat to international peace and security.
October 26, 2004
Endnotes
Note *: Amb. Coon was a career officer in the U.S. Foreign Service from 1949 to 1985. Most of his posts were in or involving the Near East and South Asia. He served as ambassador to Nepal from 1981 to 1984. Since retiring he has published Culture Wars and the Global Village (2000) and One Planet, One People (2003). He has previously provided comment to this journal. Back