For all those fans of deterring Iran if they get nuclear weapons, chew on this thinking in Iran concerning the fight in Syria and Israel:
The government is under pressure by Islamic radicals within its ranks to strike back at Israel, which has become more active in aiding efforts to weaken the Assad dictatorship in Syria. The lack of response from Syria, or anyone else, to two recent Israeli air attacks on Syria apparently means, according to Iranian intelligence that there will be more attacks. The first two attacks hit a convoy taking Russian air defense systems to Lebanon (for Iranian-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon) and the other hit a military weapons research facility (that probably had ties with Iran). The most likely target for the next one will be an Iranian electronic listening facility 11 kilometers from the Israeli border.
So, Israel has both a nuclear arsenal and a dominant conventional military--bolstered by the reputation of being willing to use their power to stop enemies--and Islamic radicals within the Iranian government are not deterred by that power and want to strike back at Israel?
I keep reading articles explaining that Iran is a cautious power, so they would never use nuclear weapons. Using nuclear weapons would provoke a devastating response and so would be irrational. There are surely many examples of Iranian caution.
But even cautious rulers can make irrational decisions. A case in point is Iran's decision to challenge our military power in the Persian Gulf in the late 1980s. How rational was that?
Consider the Tanker War during the First Gulf War (as I call the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988). For many years the Iranian government acted rationally and avoided lashing out at neutral tankers too much despite the provocation of Iraq striking Iranian oil tanker traffic at will. Even when the US and Western Europe sent ships in 1987 to protect "neutral" shipping that in reality actually supported Iraq while Iraq continued to attack Iranian tankers, Iran wisely held back.
But at some point, the Iranians snapped and lashed out at the US Navy despite the clear foolishness of challenging our Navy, which simply gave us the excuse to chew them up[.]
Strategypage's post (and Strategypage wouldn't agree with my use of this information, long arguing for their long history of rationality, I'll add) adds a wrinkle that we don't even have to worry about normally rational actors becoming irrational. We have to worry about irrational actors having control of nuclear weapons. What good does it do to have rational rulers who we talk to but irrational actors who control the nukes. Or who can gain control long enough to launch them?
Indeed, just what level of actual deaths would deter even rational Iranians?
Thank goodness we say our policy isn't containment. I sure hope it really isn't our policy.
