This probably should be included under the pet peeves I was cataloging the other day. One of the things that bugs me most about the dialogue between the Left and Right blogospheres on the subject of the proper U. S. posture and path forward with respect to Iran is that there isn’t any.
They’ve got their own facts. For some in the Right Blogosphere it’s just this simple: kill or be killed. Here’s a sample from my own comments section but it’s by no means isolated:
Radical Islam has rendered useless the concept in which we have always believed to save us all from nuclear holocaust – mutually assured destruction. Iran has already stated that they are aware of the cost and not only don’t care, all the dead Iranians will be martyrs – so it is a good thing…
So, when Iran decides it is time, they will attack one and probably more cities with nuclear weapons, knowing full well the price they will pay and not caring. Millions of people will die. The world will forever be changed.
And it will be our fault. We could have stopped them but we didn’t.
The commenter cites the repeated announcments from various different Iranian officials of their intent to use nuclear weapons once obtained to destroy Israel. Here’s more hot off the presses:
So how long before Iran can produce enough highly-enriched uranium? Even with the 3,000-centrifuge cascade the Iranians plan to implement immediately, they could produce enough fissile material within 271 days of its completion. We have only months before Teheran can put a nuke on top of its Shahab-3 ballistic missile and threaten the entire Middle East and most of Europe. If the Iranians develop their 54,000-unit cascade, they could produce two nukes every month, making them capable of developing an inventory of nuclear weapons that will quickly escape accounting — and enough excess capacity to supply its proxies with smaller, portable devices that could cross borders and strike anywhere around the world.
Months, not years. If the 54,000-centrifuge cascade becomes reality, it will be days instead of months.
Here’s more from Trent Telenko at Winds of Change:
The time for diplomacy with Iran has come to an end. Mohammad Saeedi’s announcement was a public declaration that Iran’s nuclear break out has begun.
Welcome to the nuclear express elevator to hell, going down.
I might hope for counter-arguments from the Left Blogosphere but that’s not what I’ve found. What I’ve found is just contradiction. I think that Matthew Yglesias is generally a pretty reasonable young guy but here’s a sample from a recent post of his (about a Mark Steyn article):
If it weren’t ridiculous, it would be a reasonable argument in favor of Israeli military action, but it’s also ridiculous.
After citing a snippet of Steyn’s article he goes on:
That’s all just nutty.
I’d like to understand his reasoning, the facts on which he’s basing his judgment. But that’s all there is. I guess you just have to know.
John Aravosis of AMERICABlog writes:
Iran is ten years away from developing nukes.
I’ll say it again, TEN YEARS away. That would be TEN YEARS at the earliest, according to the best estimate we have. And that’s not according to some peacenik liberal, it’s according to the best estimate of US intelligence.
Is this what it was like in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq with political opponents squaring off and talking past each other, in some cases hurling accusations and counter-accusations?
The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said that “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.†He was wrong. They have their own facts.
UPDATE: Tigerhawk has a post with an updated timeline as well as some expert testimony and citations that deserve your attention:
Since Tuesday’s post I have corresponded with Professor von Hippel, who still believes that 2009 is the best estimate of the earliest date that Iran could get to a bomb of its own manufacture. He agreed that 3000 functional centrifuges could generate more than enough fissile material for a bomb in a year if configured to do so, but he doesn’t think that Iran can build them nearly that fast.
It may be that Professor von Hippel has not changed his estimate because it turns out that Iran’s stated goal of running 3000 centrifuges by the end of this year is actually not new news. The Arms Control Wonk wrote a post on March 25 that referred to this goal, and had his own thoughts about the implications for the timeline:
The 2008 worst-case estimate described in the Knight-Ridder piece is about a year ahead of David Albright and Corey Hinderstein’s.
It seems likely that this accelerated timeline has its roots in ElBaradei’s last report to the IAEA BoG, which says that Iran plans to install 3,000 centrifuges in the Natanz FEP beginning late this year. That is about twice the number of centrifuges ISIS says Iran needs for producing enough HEU for a weapon within a year.
So if we take Iran’s claim at face value, Natanz will have more cascades operating by 2007 than the ISIS timeline posits.
ANOTHER UPDATE: This New York Times article quotes David Albright and Anthony Cordesman as saying that the 54,000 centrifuges is far-fetched. How about the 3,000? If you go far enough into the NYT article it seems to suggest that’s credible which would make the timeline roughly one year.
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: I feel like I’m walking through a pasture on this one today. Everywhere I step there’s another cowpie.
So where do we get accurate information? Maybe it’s not possible to know for sure. Maybe we have to make our best guess and hope that we are right. This is a dilemma that we have no solution for. Sometimes it’s just not possible to have perfect knowledge. So the question then becomes: given that we know we have imperfect knowledge and the consequences of being wrong are serious then how do we proceed? We can’t do nothing. We can’t pretend that this isn’t real. But we don’t want to go too far, either. And yet is it better to err on the side of going too far or not going far enough? The reality is that someone is going to have to make a serious decision and right now that someone is W. We can all retreat into our ordinary lives, drink a few beers, and enjoy the beautiful spring day and forget about the yahoos whose primary purpose in life seems to be to plot how many people enjoying their spring days they can kill. There is no end of history, there is no recess from reality. And the reality is this: the mullahs want the bomb; the mullahs are working to get the bomb; the only way to stop the mullahs from getting the bomb is to stomp them into the ground. Regardless of the differences of opinion mentioned in this post, it doesn’t matter whether it’s tomorrow, 3 years from now, or in ten years that they get the bomb, they are going to get the bomb. So we might as well decide now how we are going to deal with it, since it is going to happen regardless of what we do. The reality is that the Iranian regime must be destroyed. The question is about when not whether. Should we take them out this year or plan for the future? There are two things not in dispute: that Iran wants the bomb and that they will get the bomb. What is in dispute is whether we are going to do anything to stop this from happening.
phil, I hardly see a thing in your comment that I disagree with. However, both of the things that you say aren’t in dispute are being disputed. I agree with you that they shouldn’t be in dispute.
In my opinion a nuclear armed Iran is a multi-pronged threat and I think most of those who oppose any kind of hardline action against Iran are looking at this like a unilateral threat (ie Iran shooting a nuke at Israel) that can be deterred. I have mixed feelings whether or not Iran would be bold (or stupid) enough to actually fire a nuclear weapon at Israel (an act that assures the destruction of the regime in Teheran), despite their repeated promises to do so. I accept that the leadership in that country isn’t exactly rational and stable and the stakes are simply too high to roll the dice, but beyond the idea that Iran can be deterred (something critics attempt to push), there are multiple other aspects of a nuclear armed Iranian dynamic that are threatening and I think it’s imparitive to highlight the full nature of the threat a nuclear armed Iran would pose, beyond firing off a nuclear armed al-Samoud at Tel Aviv.
Most noteworthy is Iran’s disturbing support for Hezbollah ($ 100 million/year), Hamas, Islamic Jihad and any other Islamic terrorist that is willing to threaten and attack the west and Israel. A nuclear armed Iran would be like an amulate of immunity to some degree, where they quite simply would never be held accountable for terrorist activity and could continue to utilize non-state third parties to carry out their proxy war against Israel and the west. Do we really think that there is anything short of a direct attack against Europe that would spurn them into military action against a nuclear armed Iran? I doubt it, particularly as Iran’s long range missile programs progress and more and more of Europe falls under Iran’s nuclear umbrella. If we think Europeans are generally passifist and non confrontational now, imagine EU policy under that Iranian umbrella. So a nuclear armed Iran is an enormous deterent against anyone wanting to hold Iran accountable for unacceptable behavior and threatening actions, particularly if they can project that threat thousands of miles.
A nuclear armed Iran also increases the likelyhood of proliferation in the Middle East, another threatning aspect that I don’t think many critics of taking a hardline with Iran are considering. IAEA Chief Mohammed El Baradei warned about the danger of proliferation on 8 May 2005, saying “”if every country continues to exercise that right [enrichment], we are going in the next 10 or 20 years to have 30 or 40 countries, in my estimation, who are virtual nuclear weapon states.” (Source)
If Iran maintains uranium enrichment for energy, then why not Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria or anyone else for that matter. I understand the process is alot more difficult than simply saying “He Mahmoud, want us to teach you how to make the bomb,” but by the same token I think the proliferation risks are there and El Baradei’s warning should be heeded. How this plays out with Iran is likely to dictate the future path of other nations in regards to enriching uranium. The loophole in the NPT needs to be closed and international fuel banks established, that is the only long term solution (even beyond the current situation with Iran) I can see that will grant peaceful nuclear energy while controlling proliferation concerns.
Of course I’ve heard some make the argument that proliferation is inevidible, that the djini is out of the bottle per say and I’m not willing to accept that. We not only have the right to fight against nuclear proliferation among terror states and third world despots, we have the obligation and it isn’t an easy challenge, particularly when forced to face those challenges with the likes of Russia and China, who have freely engaged in proliferation and weapons sales to a host of dangerous regimes and enemies of the west.
I dare say that a world with 20-30 virtual nuclear weapons states would be considerably more dangerous, not less. Given those dynamics, an unconventional attack against the United States would be considerably more difficult to identify those responsible. I mean, think about how many people were up in arms wanting proof of this or proof of that as a qualifier for U.S. military action, I can imagine a scenerio in a world of nuclear proliferation where the United States is struck by a nuclear terror attack and left standing around trying to figure out who to flatten in retaliation. If Iran and North Korea are the only potential candidates, that identification and response process is considerably easier. If 20-30 nations are on the list of suspects, we could feasibly see an unconventional attack against the United States to which we have little to no response, and certainly not proportionate to the devestation we would’ve suffered. So again, this is another dangerous threat we will face if Iran becomes a nuclear state.
I feel like there is still time left, but based on the current convictions of the regime in Teheran, I am pessimistic that any diplomacy will ever yeild any results. Iran is essentially at the stage where they are trying to move the issue past uranium enrichment, as if that isn’t a debatable conversation any more.