[Mb-civic] FW: Why fear Iranian nukes? (interesting opinion article)

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From: Samii Shahla <shahla at thesamiis.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 11:43:20 -0500
Subject: Why fear Iranian nukes?  (interesting opinion article)


Why fear Iranian nukes?

By Tony Blankley

Jan 25, 2006

A growing number of nations and international interests are expressing alarm
at Iran's seeming intent to develop nuclear weapons. But why the world
thinks Iran is developing such capacity, and what is to be feared from it,
remain matters in wide dispute.

 Israel, of course, is most immediately threatened and is least ambiguous in
its analysis. A nuclear Iran, either out of calculation that it could win a
nuclear exchange with Israel, or out of a fanatical derangement, clearly
poses an existential threat to Israel. No Israeli leader could risk exposing
his country to such a threat, if he could avoid it.

 The United States, to a substantial extent, shares the Israeli concern. But
beyond that, the U.S. as the dominant world power would have primary
responsibility for managing a more aggressive, harder-to-deter Iran that
might feel safer in using terrorism to strike the U.S. and the West, armed
with a nuclear deterrent. Also, a nuclear Iranian regime would feel safer
from a combined U.S. and domestic regime change effort.

 On its face, Europe would seem to be less concerned with Israel's fate and
more concerned about a general disturbance to the world equilibrium (such as
it is), as well as the possibly "reckless" response of Israel or the U.S. to
the danger. 

 However, French President Jacque Chirac last week added a fascinating and
unexpected element to the crisis by his barely veiled, unambiguous threat --
while visiting France's Ile Longue nuclear naval base in Normandy -- that
France might use her nuclear weapons against a country that either launched
a terrorist attack against France, or cut off her "strategic supplies" (i.e.
oil). The French press, from left to right, immediately stated that Chirac's
target was Iran.

 Some of his left-wing domestic political opponents suggested he was
fantacizing about France's quickly fading imperial glory, merely trying to
regain his footing after his poor performance during the Muslim fire-bombing
riots in Paris last fall, or trying to justify the large budget of France's
"useless" nuclear force de frappe.

 Other observers judge (I believe quite plausibly) that Chirac is now alive
to the threat of radical Islam in France, and he is prepared to threaten to
go nuclear to try to stop its encouragement from outside. Mr. Allan Topol,
the noted international lawyer and author, will make that case in an
exclusive article in Washington Times' op/ed page Jan. 26.

 But there are other serious, if more recondite, theories arising to explain
Iran's possible motives. Strategic Forecasting Inc. (Stratfor), the highly
regarded Texas-based strategic analysis group, has recently presented a
completely different theory.

 In their view, Iran's move is all about Iran's place in the Islamic
firmament -- and particularly her seeking pride of place over Al Qaeda as
the leader of radical Islam.

 According to Stratfor, in the quarter century since the Iranian revolution
launched radical Islam on the world, Iran has sullied its reputation for
principled Islamic radicalism by its conventional geopolitical compromises
with the West, including with the United State -- and even with Israel
during the 1980s. Moreover, in the last 15 years, the Shia Iranians have
seen the Sunni Wahhabi movement of Al Qaeda outflank Teheran for
revolutionary primacy.

 Thus, by this theory, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad very
methodically went out to deny the Holocaust in order to reassert Iran's
anti-Zionist credentials. The nuclear gambit, so it is reasoned, would have
three goals: to be seen to end Iran's sometimes unprincipled accommodation
with the West, to become Israel's greatest threat (and gain unambiguous
power over regional Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt) and to be
seen to take unmatched risks for radical Islam.

 Under this theory, if they get the bomb unobstructed, good. If the United
States or Israel uses military force against them, they regain their valued
credentials as true martyr and fighter for Islam.

 There is yet another theory emerging to try to explain Iran's motives for
presumably starting to develop a nuclear capacity: traditional Persian
imperialism driven by a quest for more oil and regional hegemony.

 Turkey, a historic adversary of Persia/Iran, is expressing increasing
concern over Iranian pretensions. If Iran moves much further down the
nuclear path, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt might all feel the need to join
the nuclear club, with all the potential for catastrophic miscalculations
inherent in such a condition.

  Moreover, should the Iranian regime fail for any reason, then Turkey fears
the emergence of an independent Kurdistan formed out of Iraqi, Iranian and
Turkish Kurds. 
At the same time, Iran still asserts its rights to much of Caspian Sea oil,
based on pre-World War II treaties with Russia.

 As the sometimes flamboyant but much read analyst in the Asian Times (who
goes by the nom de plume of Spengler) wrote recently, despite Iran's current
oil glut, in 20 years Iran will be almost out of oil, just as her now young
population will be ageing. From Eastern Saudi Arabia (with its Shiite
population) to the United Arab Emirates, to Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan,
these oil-rich Caspian and Gulf regions may become powerfully attractive to
a nuclear Iran.

 The world is only in the earliest stage of seriously trying to understand
the significance of Iran's recklessly bold nuclear moves of the last few
weeks. Each country and region's analysis may begin to gel in the coming
months.

 It may well turn out that for vastly different -- even contradictory
reasons -- Iran may be causing to come into being a large and varied
international alliance with a powerful set of motives for militarily denying
Iran the nuclear capacity for which she seems to be so quickly grasping.

Tony Blankley is the author of The West's Last Chance and editorial page
editor for the Washington Times.

Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com
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URL: http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/tonyblankley/2006/01/25/183704.
html


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