Lately, there has been a lot of coverage about Ahmadinejad's plan to enrich uranium. Of course, Israel, Europe and the US fear that they intent to get nuclear weapons as well.
No matter if that is true or not, what possibilities do the Western countries have to restrain Iran from their plans?
First of all, the West can impose sanctions on the country, as it already does and wants to intensify.
But does anybody really believe that those sanctions change anything about it?
Ahmadinejad is right when he says that the West is more depending on Iran than Iran on the West, for, on the long-term, Iran will find a purchaser of their oil in the East: China.
So if the West wants sanctions or even diplomacy to work out, it also needs to talk to China (and perhaps Russia).
For the time being, Europe's and the US' calls for stronger sanctions appear almost ridiculous.
So which further possible scenarios concerning Iran's future are there?
When I think about it and look at the history, I consider the following five options to be possible.
1. Iran gets nuclear weapons and behaves peacefully at least in the foreseeable future.
2. The US and Europe realize that diplomacy and sanctions do not work and instead go over to military acts - an invasion.
On the one hand, this may end like Iraq, thus in a total ignominy for the West (especially the US).
Or it may also end like Afghanistan, a still destabilized country which we allegedly are compelled to "build up" (how that is supposed to work out is another story).
3. Ahmadinejad gets nuclear weapons, forms a stronger army and attacks Israel. If it comes to the crunch, he undoubtedly would not shy away from doing so.
Without much doubt, the West would take sides with Israel and probably attack Iran as well.
4. There already is an opposition in Iran and, even though it is not clear how strong that opposition is, the protests in June 2009 and at the end of last year have proven that the regime has problems keeping the society together.
With respect to foregone actions of the US' (and perhaps other country's) intelligence services, they may support opposing groups financially or logistically.
The US already availed itself of covert actions in the past (e.g. against communistic countries, Central America etc.) and I see no reason why they wouldn't do that in Iran just the same.
5. In my view, this one is the most probable scenario: Israel, having the best intelligence service in the world (the Mossad), currently sees Iran as an arch-enemy and Ahmadinejad also bears hatred towards Israel as it is a Jewish country and strongly supported by the US.
In the Eighties, Israel already destroyed a nuclear reactor in Iraq for the same reason, and nowadays' Israel is still the strongest military power in that region of the world. The Israelis won't risk their existence.
However, if Israel really attacked Iran, Iran would start counter-attacks; so would the Hisbollah in the North, Hamas in the Palestinian territories and perhaps other Arabic countries nearby.
Eventually, there would be an even more destabilized Middle East with a defeated Iran or Israel.
What remains to be discussed is the role of Europe and the US, thus the NATO and most likely the UN on the one side, and China, Russia, Saudi-Arabia and other strong powers on the other side.
Runners
13 hours ago
22 comments:
He's an insane dictator. The sooner he is destroyed the better. I will always be morally on the side of Israel, and if Iran attacks Israel, I would hope that they would let loose the whole fury of their military forces, hopefully with hefty Western backing.
I think that it is extremely likely that Iran would remain peaceful if it got nuclear weapons. It also seems unlikely that they can be dissuaded from doing so. But maybe the right combination of bribes and threats would work. If diplomacy fails, it is necessary to prevent them from getting deliverable nuclear weapons. It would be ideal if Mossad could handle it. If not, the U.S. will have to do it. Most of western Europe will cower on the sidelines wringing its collective hands, and there will be massive demonstrations of fury at the U.S. or Israel for keeping the world safe from another madman.
The Middle East will not become more destabilized unless Iran actually gets nuclear weapons. If Iran is restrained force or diplomacy, they will be less able to exert influence.
Oops.
I meant to say it is extremely *unlikely* that a nuclear-armed Iran would remain peaceful.
It's quite obvious the Iran regime is getting nervous over its internal protesters when they're starting to execute as being "Enemies of God"
So much for "development", as long you shut up and obey, then you're allowed to express your view. How neat.
Love
Daniel
You need to keep in mind that a strong military attack on a country always causes thousands of dead innocent civilists.
No Western democratic country has the right to do that.
@Lunario
What if it saves more lives than it takes? Utilitarianism, I do concur, but perhaps it would be necessary...
Edit: My first comment was adressed to Sammi. ;)
@naturgesetz:
I basically agree with you, though I must say that, if I understood you correctly, you do not share the views of protesters against war.
As far as that is concerned, I can only repeat what I said to Sammi: It is very difficult for a Western country to legitimate the death of innocent civilists - and this is fine.
Therefore I believe that an attack only on the military facilities in Iran would be more effective than an attack on certain locations in cities, or even an invasion. However, those actions need to be planned very well and it is important not to "jump the gun on it".
@Daniel:
I find it hard to believe that those regimes once existed in Europe as well and in my opinion it is very difficult to appraise our duty and responsibility when it comes to the question "How shall we deal with countries like Iran?".
@Lunario
Are you saying you think we Europeans came from a past which was a lot better than modern-day Iran?
I very strongly believe in the principle of noncombatant immunity. So I think that the bombing of cities during World War II for the purpose of demoralizing the population was wrong. Therfore I consider the bombings of London, Berlin, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki to have been war crimes.
On the other hand, there are legitimate military objectives, such as airfields, navy ships, and nuclear weapons facilities. When they are the objective, unavoidable civilian casualties are tolerable. Assuming a bombing or missile attack, the guidance systems for bombs and missiles have become amazingly precise, so it is possible to target the legitimate objective without causing much damage to surrounding areas. There would possibly be some collateral damage, but compared to WWII where they had to droop hundreds of bombs in hopes of destroying a target, it would be minimal.
We don't have a right to make civilians the target. In fact we should do what we can to minimize civilian casualties. But we have a right to target a military objective in a just cause, IMO.
@Sammi:
You pose a very difficult philosophical question there, and it can be transferred to the question whether torture should be allowerd in order to save lifes, whether a hijacked plane full of people should be destroyed in order to protect those on the ground etc...
In my view, in this situation nobody has the right to take innocent people's lifes.
If we accept dead Afghans, Iraqis or Iranians in order to achieve our goals, we are not better than Ahmadinejad who suppresses people (and sometimes kills them) to achieve his goals - at least not from the philosophical point of view.
Now of course, you can say that our goals are certainly better for the people than Ahmadinejad's. But that is nothing less than the mindset of the Brits, French, Dutch and so on who had colonies all over the world and forced their way of life upon the natives. It's the rationale of arrogance.
@Sammi:
I was saying the contrary - we had the same problems in the 17th and partly in the 18th century that some Asian and especially Islamic countries have, nowadays.
They are far away from our level of enlightenment and they mostly experience the same as our ancestory did, centuries ago.
What I wanted to say with my allusion at our historical responsibility was what I said in my comment before:
"But that is nothing less than the mindset of the Brits, French, Dutch and so on who had colonies all over the world and forced their way of life upon the natives. It's the rationale of arrogance."
You say that we are arrogant to push our ways of life upon people around the world, but we KNOW now that the way of life we lead is actually more humane and better. Would you allow satis to happen in India and Pakistan still, or are we destroying their heritage?
Secondly, no, the philosophical grounds on which we base are actions are firmer. If we were to stop Ahmadinejad in his tracks, perhaps through war, we would be saving life across the world-war abroad would quickly spread home, especially when fighting a large power such as Iran. We would, in the long run, stop his tyranny in his own country, saving lives there, and saving lives in at-risk countries, such as Israel.
Therefore I say that if it came to it, we would be justified in invasion.
@naturgesetz:
Alright, then I understood you correctly and absolutely agree.
As for collateral damage, I also think that it would be unavoidable, but that does not mean our militaries have a carte blanche to dismiss consideration of innocent people in their plans.
@Lunario (Didn't see the second comment).
It is very different, since we are not looking to impose all of our way of life upon them (colonise them), simply stop practices which we have now seen to be barbaric.
I'm very uncomfortable with the concept of legitimate targets when discussing the possible deployment of nuclear weapons. Even low yield nuclear weapons preclude surgical strikes, the very nature of the weapons creates significant collateral damage and fallout is likely to increase that.
In the short term Iran is undoubtedly inwardly focused as the regime attempts to crush opposition. The world, however, cannot afford to rely on dissention to maintain a fragile peace. It is not so much a question of how do we deal with countries like Iran rather we should ask how do we persuade these countries that nuclear aggression is not an acceptable threat. In a nuclear conflict that would escalate rapidly in such an unstable region there would be no winners only survivors.
"You say that we are arrogant to push our ways of life upon people around the world, but we KNOW now that the way of life we lead is actually more humane and better. Would you allow satis to happen in India and Pakistan still, or are we destroying their heritage?"
European colonialists were also sure that their way of life would be more humane and better than that of the American Indians, Africans, indígenas, Australian aborigines and so forth. It ended in a dictature-like system in those countries that forced the natives to either adapt their lives to ours and scores of dead natives.
You see, good motives don't always bring good results about.
And I strongly believe that it is a major problem of our Western society, especially the US for the time being, that we claim to have the right to impose our culture and our political system on the whole world.
When it comes to Iran, I also think that democracy can be established, for the country has a history of uprisings, a revolution and a relatively developed society.
However, when it comes to most other Asian countries, a democracy has never been part of their culture, and I'd like to remind you that the democracy in many Western countries (with a few exceptions like Great Britain, France and the US) is not older than 100 years. And it is by far not perfect.
So we do not really have the legitimation to give ourselves airs and indoctrinate others who are not yet on our level.
At your second paragraph:
I did never say that overthrowing the government, thus deposing Ahmadinejad would be wrong.
On the contrary, it would indeed be justifiable with our convictions and (moral) laws.
Nonetheless, I am not in favour of an invasion for the reasons I pointed out in the comments before.
Instead, as naturgesetz also said, an asymmetric warfare with well-considered military attacks solely on military facilities would be both more effective and in line with our moral values: We would avoid damage to the population as much as possible and we would not antagonize the population with an occupation of the country (which would be necessary in order to build up a new country, including a new government).
@Sammi: Sorry, I did not see your new comment before I sent mine.
"It is very different, since we are not looking to impose all of our way of life upon them (colonise them), simply stop practices which we have now seen to be barbaric."
What is it that "we" want to impose on Iran, China and all other countries whose culture appears strange to us?
Human rights? I disbelieve that. If NGOs try to do so, and if European and American citizens call for more human rights in those countries, I absolutely support that.
But if it is our government - modern, capitalistic and strongly influenced by lobbies - I do not accept human rights to be the true reason for military interventions in certain countries.
@Old Midhurstian:
You bring in a new aspect of this topic - possibilities to avoid nuclear arms build-up.
I can't help but enunciate the argument that every country factually has the right to build nuclear weapons, even though Europe and America do not like that.
Of course a nuke is much safer in the hands of a European country than it is in the hands of Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-il or the Taliban.
So a possibility to restrain them from building nuclear weapons would be diplomacy, as you said in your comment.
However, autocratic regimes are usually not willing to nation diplomacy.
By that, I mean yes, impose the UDHR. Also, our governments will be motivated by the threat which Iran poses. If the governments of the West wanted their resources, we would have been in there a while ago.
And who despite you and the USofA cares? Propz Pilgrim
Military action has to be a last resort. Its gains would be as uncertain as the costs. For if the West is considering military action, so are the ayatollahs (as you conclude in point 5).
At this point of time, I see no alternative to tougher sanctions. Although it is almost pointless trying to knock sense into a fanatic regime.
Clearly a lot of people care about Iran and what's happening there.
I don't believe that diplomacy/sanctions/threats will stop enrichment - it's already too late for that.
I am interested in dissidents within the country and the possibility of fermenting dissidence. When I look at my Stats for Smutty Stuff I see a massive increase in the number of hits the blog gets from Iran since (say) July last year.
Don't forget we (the US really) changed the government of Iran before.
@Sammi:
It seems like we are at a dead end, now.
Your opinion is that one country has the right to influence domestic affairs of other countries, whereas I do not believe that is a good idea with respect to lessons history has taught us.
As far as Iran's energy resources are concerned, I did not have only them in mind when I mentioned capitalism and lobbies.
Of course, exploitation is very often a product of war - sometimes willingly, sometimes just because it is beneficiary for one's country.
There is also the weapon industry as another branch that always benefits from war.
And, last but not least, wars always strengthen the we-spirit of a country and are also useful to show power.
@Pilgrim:
I don't get what you mean - perhaps you could amplify what you wanted to say?
@Mr. Urs and Micky:
I agree that sanctions are currently the only realistic means to influence something in Iran.
But since the Iranian government won't let itself be influenced by it (especially not when they come from the West), it remains open what's going to happen next.
Post a Comment