{"id":69457,"date":"2021-12-17T12:30:38","date_gmt":"2021-12-17T01:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=69457"},"modified":"2021-12-17T17:34:02","modified_gmt":"2021-12-17T06:34:02","slug":"tolerating-a-nuclear-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/tolerating-a-nuclear-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"Tolerating a nuclear Iran?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

In 1977, Israel\u2019s deputy prime minister, Yigael Yadin, asked Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat, who was on his historic trip to Jerusalem, why the Egyptian army had not proceeded to the Sinai passes during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. \u2018You have nuclear arms, haven\u2019t you heard,\u2019 was Sadat\u2019s reply<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course, Israel\u2019s nuclear capabilities were the stuff of rumour. To this day, Israel has never officially confirmed the existence of a nuclear program. Yet Israel\u2019s worst-kept secret<\/a> has long shaped the region\u2019s politics, including by deterring its enemies. But can it deter Iran?<\/p>\n

In 1967, David Ben-Gurion, Israel\u2019s first prime minister, and Shimon Peres, who would later serve as both prime minister and president, argued for Israel to test a primitive nuclear device, in order to deter an Egyptian attack. At the time, Israel was virtually on its own in a hostile neighbourhood. France\u2014which had been its main arms supplier\u2014had recently deserted it, and Israel had not yet achieved its current strategic intimacy with the United States. Ben-Gurion\u2019s position reflected his view that Israel was an intrinsically fragile entity surrounded by mortal enemies with which war was inadvisable absent the backing of a major foreign power.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon and Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin\u2014all principled opponents of nuclearisation in the Middle East\u2014recognised<\/a> the country\u2019s precarious position but resisted the temptation to demonstrate a nuclear capability. When, during the dark days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Defence Minister Moshe Dayan revived<\/a> the proposal, Israel\u2019s leaders again resisted the temptation to flaunt\u2014let alone deploy\u2014nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

Nearly half a century later, Israel has fewer enemies in the region, having made peace with several of its neighbours. But it has gained a powerful new one in Iran, since that country\u2019s 1979 Islamic revolution. And some are arguing that in order to deter Iran from pursuing its nuclear program, Israel should abandon its policy<\/a> of \u2018nuclear opacity\u2019.<\/p>\n

But if Israel announces its capabilities and Iran persists in its nuclear drive anyway, would Israel really mount a nuclear response against what is clearly a strategic challenge but certainly not an existential threat? Moreover, Israel\u2019s acknowledgement of its nuclear arsenal might lend legitimacy to Iran\u2019s own quest for nuclear weapons and encourage other regional powers, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, to follow suit.<\/p>\n

The risks are apocalyptic. The kind of mutual deterrence that existed during the Cold War, or even today in the binary India\u2013Pakistan conflict, would not work in the Middle East, a dysfunctional region where non-state actors and unstable regimes abound.<\/p>\n

Iran has been dogged in its nuclear efforts. It has endured years of crippling economic sanctions, ultra-sophisticated Israeli cyber warfare against its strategic infrastructure, assassinations of its nuclear scientists, and attacks on its military targets across the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Yet Iran is now closer than ever to mastering the full nuclear fuel cycle. It has also managed to maintain its proxy armies throughout the Middle East, and to extend its strategic influence from Yemen through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s \u2018Begin doctrine\u2019\u2014a counter-proliferation policy focused on using pre-emptive strikes to halt potential enemies\u2019 development of weapons of mass destruction\u2014will not stop Iran. A decade ago, Israel spent billions<\/a> of dollars on preparations for a massive strike on Iran\u2019s nuclear installations. But that strike never materialised.<\/p>\n

Israeli air strikes did destroy Iraq\u2019s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 and a similar installation in Syria in 2007. But those were surgical operations. Using air strikes to destroy Iran\u2019s well-dispersed, well-camouflaged and well-protected nuclear installations is unrealistic, and the effort would almost certainly lead to a major war.<\/p>\n

While Israel\u2019s military capabilities are unmatched by any other Middle Eastern power, it would still face serious threats. Iran would certainly respond to an attack on its nuclear installations by retaliating against Israeli targets, and perhaps against the countries that allowed Israel to use their airspace to reach Iran.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Iran\u2019s Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, would begin to deploy its 150,000 missiles and rockets, which can reach every corner of Israel. Israel\u2019s vulnerable home front, and possibly some of its vital infrastructure, would be hit hard before its air force neutralised Hezbollah\u2014likely razing Lebanon in the process.<\/p>\n

An international agreement is probably Israel\u2019s\u2014and the world\u2019s\u2014best hope for preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power. But while that is precisely what negotiators are currently attempting to achieve in Vienna, Iran has taken a tough bargaining position.<\/p>\n

That is not entirely unjustified. After all, it was the United States (with Israel\u2019s complicity) that withdrew unilaterally from the 2015 nuclear agreement in 2018, even though Iran had not violated its obligations. And Europe failed to keep its promise to help Iran bypass the sanctions the US subsequently reimposed. Furthermore, Iran\u2019s interlocutors in Vienna\u2014the countries that are preaching against proliferation\u2014are mostly nuclear powers themselves.<\/p>\n

This perceived hypocrisy likely reinforces Iranian leaders\u2019 belief that the real danger lies in not<\/em> developing nuclear weapons. If Ukraine had not surrendered its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal (then the world\u2019s third largest) in 1994, in exchange for American assurances that Russia would respect its sovereignty, it might still have Crimea, and it might not be watching with concern as Russian troops mass on its border. Likewise, a nuclear-armed Iraq would not have been attacked by the US and its allies in 2003. North Korea\u2019s nuclear capabilities have so far kept it immune from such an attack.<\/p>\n

With this in mind, Iran\u2019s leaders might be thinking like Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was 50 years ago. Pakistanis, Bhutto declared<\/a>, would \u2018eat grass, even go hungry\u2019 if that is what it took to develop their own nuclear bomb.<\/p>\n

The talks in Vienna can still lead to an agreement. But, with Iran\u2019s leaders largely convinced that a nuclear weapon is their best protection, the only durable way to prevent Iran from mastering the enrichment cycle and, ultimately, building an operational nuclear weapon probably lies in regime change. This was the position of key intelligence authorities in Israel a generation ago, when Iran\u2019s nuclear program was still in its infancy. Given how resilient the Islamic Republic has proven to be, it seems that the world may well eventually have to tolerate an Iranian nuclear bomb, just as it has learned to live with the Indian and Pakistani arsenals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1977, Israel\u2019s deputy prime minister, Yigael Yadin, asked Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat, who was on his historic trip to Jerusalem, why the Egyptian army had not proceeded to the Sinai passes during the 1973 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":484,"featured_media":69463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[247,240,218,356],"class_list":["post-69457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-nuclear-weapons"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTolerating a nuclear Iran? | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/tolerating-a-nuclear-iran\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tolerating a nuclear Iran? | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In 1977, Israel\u2019s deputy prime minister, Yigael Yadin, asked Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat, who was on his historic trip to Jerusalem, why the Egyptian army had not proceeded to the Sinai passes during the 1973 ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/tolerating-a-nuclear-iran\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-12-17T01:30:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-12-17T06:34:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-52250601.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"649\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Shlomo Ben-Ami\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shlomo Ben-Ami\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/tolerating-a-nuclear-iran\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-52250601.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-52250601.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":649,\"caption\":\"BUSHEHR, IRAN - FEBRUARY 27: A reactor building of Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant is seen February 27, 2005 in Bushehr, Iran. 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