I am sure that my readers have all been watching this week Iran’s missile tests. Iran launched a series of missiles to demonstrate its capability to deliver warheads at medium-range distances (2000 km). While there is some dispute as to how many missiles it has launched over the last three days - the message from Iran is clear, it is developing the capability to deliver warheads throughout the middle east. The long-term threat is also obvious - at some time in the future, it is Iran’s intent that those missiles will be armed with nuclear warheads.

This begs a simple question with a not so simple answer - what does the United States do about Iran? To answer that question, first, I want to talk a bit about foreign policy making in general and the “macro” problems that the United States is facing in a post-Iraq conflict world.

Observation #1 - We presently suck at judging risk.

General principles of foreign policy do not dictate what level of risk the United States should accept in order to achieve its goals. In punishing the Iraqi regime, the Administration adopted a high-risk high reward strategy that required it to be correct simultaneously in several important calculations about the middle-east, the effectiveness of the sanctions regime against Saddam, and the prospects for stability and change in a post-conflict environment. Its self-confidence in its own judgments were clearly misplaced since we now understand several of those calculations were questionable - perhaps even at the time they were first posited in 2003.

The reality is, however, that all foreign policies, including doing nothing, involve risk. The proper way to assess the Bush Administration’s handling of foreign policy in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Iraq war is not to ask whether it took those risks, but, whether or not the risks were reasonable based on the information available to policymakers. Thus, the case of Iraq is dramatically coloring how policy makers view the threat posed by Iran.

Clearly,  the danger reprsented by Saddam Hussein’s regime was much lower than portrayed by the Administration. Not only did Saddam not have an ongoing nuclear weapons program, he possessed only paltry stocks of biological and chemical weaponry, in contradiction to the assertions by Secretary of State Colin Powell. Although some speculate that large caches of weapons were transferred to other countries - it is not immediately obvious why Saddam would have agreed to do such an act, if in fact that occurred. The reality of the sitution seems to be, with history being 20-20, that the regime of sanctions against Saddam was effective, and that the Administration (and the world’s) skepticism about the effectiveness of inspections was in fact misplaced.

Equally clear, the intelligence community is conflicted over the level of maturity and progress of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. While publicly Iran has made statements that would make one conclude that it intends to develop nuclear weapons, the intelligence assessments of that effort have not been consistent.

A National Intelligence Estimate released in January indicated that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The public release of that finding ignited a considerable political debate in the United States over the state of Iran’s nuclear weapons program - involving both the White House and Congress to question the Director of National Intelligence’s findings. However, a month later before Congress (February 2008), the DNI stated that if Iran were to resume its nuclear program, it could be ready to field warheads as early as 2009:

We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a weapon is late 2009, but that is very unlikely.

Thus, at least the public statements of the Intelligence Community seem to reflect some degree of apprehension in stating that the Iranian regime is actively developing nuclear warheads, however, is concerned over the capability Iran has to conduct such activity and our ability to adequately detect it in time for policymakers to act upon it. This caution I believe is in direct response to how the CIA and the intelligence community feel they were treated as a result of the Iraq intelligence estimate and how that estimate was used by policymakers.

The root issue for many critics comes down to credibility: Credibility of the estimate, credibility of the intelligence community that developed it and the credibility of the administration for whom those agencies work. Bridging that credibility gap might prove difficult for an Administration heading into its final months and election politics moving towards center stage.

The Administration remains resolute in its position that policy toward Iran should not change. This is because while the NIE said with “high confidence” that the program halted in 2003, the estimate only says with “moderate confidence” that it had not started up again earlier this year, and “moderate-to-high” confidence that it remained off-line as the report was being released.Because the NIE also stated Tehran maintains a civilian nuclear program, and the estimate is silent on whether Iran intends to start up its nuclear weapons program again, the Administration maintained (rightly I might add) that United States and other countries must be ever-vigilant against the possibility.

But the bottom line is - judging the risk of the imminence of the threat of a nuclear Iran appears quite difficult.

Observation #2 - Preemptive War has proven to be an utter failure, and the premise for potential incursion in Iran seems tenuous at best.

Preemptive war doctrine, while perhaps logical on paper, has proven to be rather messy in practice given the Iraq case. Preemption is understood to be an effort to break up an imminent military attack. Military intervention is designed to thwart threats from materializing, or alternatively, to put the enemy off guard and force him to fight on your terms versus his own.

The Administration argued that in an age where terrorists could find themselves in possession of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, it may become necessary for the United States to strike nations or territory where such activity developed in order to prevent such weapons being used against US targets. That is a simple and laudable goal - take out terrorist with nukes before they can detonate them in US cities. However, the reality of how the doctrine was executed by the Administration went beyond striking countries demonstrating clear intent to transfer weapons to terrorists, or to harbor terrorism. In the case of Iraq, it violated concepts of Westphalian sovereignty in order to bring about fundamental change within the Iraqi regime in hopes that it would stave off conditions that would prevent terrorists from acquiring WDM capability. Put simply - that policy has proven to be an utter failure.

While no one could fault any Administration for  punishing a State, perhaps even through the use of nuclear weapons against that State, for transferring WDM technology to a group like al Qaida, the reality is that in the Iranian case, there appears to be little evidence of Iran’s intent to make such transfers. Moreover, Iran’s public statements would lead one to believe if anyone is threatened by nuclear weapons in the hands of the Iranians - its Israel in traditional state-on-state conflict.

Moreover, the doctrine itself has significant flaws and weaknesses. As conceived of by the Administration, preemption is based primarily on intention and not capability or action (or demonstrated intent). This is in part because of who was initially conceived of as being the intended target of such a policy - namely, failed states and weak states that would allow a terrorist organization to operate inside of it - like was the case with Afghanistan. In the case of Iraq, the Administration’s calculus proved to be totally incorrect - and thus severely weakened its credibility.

Observation #3 - Why have we abandoned deterrence, when it appears “compellence” would be largely ineffective.

While I am not happy about the concept of a crazed jihadist state like Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, the arguments raised by those who want to attack it preemptively essentially have rejected the underpinnings of nuclear weapons stability among competitors - namely, deterrence.

“Iran is today the world’s leading state-sponsor of terror,” declared President George W. Bush in a speech given in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, during his January 2008 trip to the Middle East. “Iran’s actions threaten the security of nations everywhere. So the United States is strengthening our long-standing security commitments with our friends in the Gulf-and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late.”

I do not disagree with this assessment. I think Iran is a threat. That said, preemptive war does not seem to be the course of action our military planners think is most appropriate.  J. Scott Carpenter, who was then deputy assistant secretary of state in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, recalled in an interview that senior Department of Defense (DOD) officials and the Joint Chiefs used the escalation issue as the main argument against a proposal that was allegedly backed by the Vice President’s office (something that is not confirmed).

According to Carpenter, who is now at the Washington Institute on Near East Policy, a strongly pro-Israel think tank, Pentagon officials argued that no decision should be made about the limited airstrike on Iran without a thorough discussion of the sequence of events that would follow an Iranian response to such an action. Carpenter said the DOD officials insisted that the Bush administration had to make “a policy decision about how far the administration would go-what would happen after the Iranians would go after our folks.”

The question of escalation posed by DOD officials involved not only the potential of the Mahdi Army in Iraq to attack, Carpenter said, but also possible responses from Hezbollah and from Iran itself across the Middle East.

Carpenter suggested that the Pentagon had shifted the debate on a limited strike from the Iraq-based forces to the much bigger issue of the threat of escalation to full-scale war with Iran, concerned that a preemptive attack on Iran would leader to a broader conflict where the Pentagon would be unable to effectively deter or punish Iran’s likely asymmetric attacks (namely likely terrorist attacks against US targets).

The Joint Chiefs were fully supportive of the position taken by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on the Vice President’s office proposal, according to Carpenter. “It’s clear that the military leadership was being very conservative on this issue,” he said.

At least some DOD and military officials suggested that Iran had more and better options for hitting back at the United States than the United States had for hitting Iran, according to one former Bush administration insider.

In that case, it would appear that the best course of action against Iran is deterrence, and not compellence. Unless the threat of attack rises to the level that the risks associated with inaction are greater than those of striking against Iranian targets, it is not obvious that compellence measures (air strikes, combat attacks, etc.) can coerce Iran into abandoning its nuclear programs.

Deterring Iran, however, poses obvious difficult problems. It is unclear that sanctions work in raising the costs for continuing its nuclear program. In part, the sanctions have not been effective because we have not effectively isolated Iran from its partners. Thus, to an extent, we cannot state that deterrence in the form increasing isolationism has failed because it largley has not been applied. However, even if it were to be effectively applied, it is not obvious that Iran can be swayed as they demonstrate a considerable resistance to US efforts.

Alternative options would be to deter Iran through more conventional means, namely, reminding them that our submarine based nuclear weapons would vaporize Tehran before their missiles reached their apogee. It is clear that Secretary Rice’s statements over the last few days were to remind Iran exactly of that - that an attack against states in the Gulf Region would be met by severe force by the United States. I for one would be supportive of the use of nuclear weapons against Iran if it were to use such force against US forces in Iraq or were to attack an ally like Israel.

Such deterrence calculations have traditionally worked. The reality for Iran is that it will at best be able to field a small nuclear force - even in the best case scenario. The United States would dwarf its arsenal by several order of magnitude. In such a situation, MAD - or mutually assured destruction, is not even a reasonable calculus. Instead, Iran’s weapons would need to be purely retaliatory, because if used offensively, a decision by the United States to carry through on its threats to realiate in kind would mean the end of the Iranian state.

Observation #4 - Iran’s nuclear ambitions raise the cost of peace in the middle-east, thus, US policy must attempt to do what it can to isolate Iran and deter such actions.

Without question, a nuclearized Iran represents a significant problem for peace and stability in the middle-east. US forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq would be directly threatened by medium range missiles. Israel would be directly threaned. Moreover, any city within 2000km of Iran’s borders could be threatened. However, assuming Iran would not take offensive action, the costs to middle east stability are still high.

Other states in the region would be encouraged to develop a deterrent threat to an Iranian nuclear force.  Nuclear parity rarely remains one-sided for very long. Isreal may have to officially and unambiguously (i.e. test) declare its nuclear capability. States like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt might be encouraged to develop their own nuclear forces, not convinced that US deterrence through its “nuclear umbrella” would be sufficient.

In addition, while Iran’s forces would present no deterrent in the traditional sense, Iran could indeed raise the cost of intervention by the United States in middle-eastern affairs, thereby changing the overall calculus of how the US can affect middle-eastern political reforms and processes.

Given these factors, it is key that the United States continue to place pressure on the Iranian regime to attempt to dissuade it from fielding nuclear weapons. The sanctions regime needs to be strengthened and the United States should strengthen the alliance of states against Iran in isolating it. The lessons of Libya and North Korea would appear to be that if the United States can effectively raise the cost of playing as nuclear power or developer - it can ultimately induce the behavior of disarmament. Libya did not disarm, in my view, because Quadaffi decided to be a nice guy. US/UK sanctions and interdiction of Libyan nuclear technology made it nearly impossible for Libya to develop a bomb. Faced with the prospects of continued isolation and a hopeless nuclear program, Libya gave up on its nuclear ambitions. Similarly in North Korea, US efforts in the six party talks seem to be compelling North Korea to disassemble its nuclear ambitions (although realistically, the jury is still out on the efficacy of our efforts with North Korea). In light of those cases, and others such as Chile, Argentina, and South Africa, it isn’t entirely a predetermined conclusion that sanctions and diplomatic pressure would fail. While the regime of sanctions against Iran thus far has not been effective, there may be levers to pull that would eventually compel Iran to stop developing nuclear weapons.

Final Conclusions:

While much of the talk in the mainstream media seems to be focused upon whether or not precipitous action (military intervention) is wise, hopefully from tonight’s post one can see that our options and the consequences of US policy, are complex. Iran represents a serious and continuing threat to the United States and the peace and stability of the middle east. While it may eventually be the case that US intervention in the region is the only rational option, from my vantage point we are far from the case being made for preemptive attacks against Iran to debilitate its nuclear ambitions. Instead, I would argue that the United States needs to strengthen the regime of isolation - something that the Administration is presently doing and championing. While candidates like Obama banter on stupidly about “getting allies together,” an effective regime of sanctions and intervention of nuclear technology to Iran is going to be required. Unity of purpose and a strong led coalition by the United States (versus European/US “gladhanding” proposed by Sen. Obama) is what is required. US political concerns may ultimately get in the way of such a course of action, and thus, we may be forced to rely on a very simple premise….

Okay “imanutjob”  - skin that smokewagon and see what happens.