So Crazy, it Might Work: A Grand Nuclear Bargain between Israel and Iran

My doppelganger http://www.samefacts.com/archives/iran_/2008/06/a_modest_proposal_a_grand_nuclear_bargain_between_israel_and_iran.php makes a modest proposal that is so crazy it just might work.

Israel recently mounted a huge military exercise involving more than 100 F15 fighters. This rehearsal for an attack on Iran might have been bluff or bluster. Israelis across the political spectrum are wondering whether they should launch a preemptive strike against Iran's budding nuclear program. I can't blame them for considering it. Within living memory, one out of three Jews in the world were murdered while the world watched. When the cartoonish but vicious president of a budding nuclear power denies that this happened, and vows to wipe Israel off the map, Israelis take notice. Raise your hand if you're sad that Israel destroyed Iraq's (actual) nuclear program 27 years ago.

Of course, an Israeli attack would be a disaster for everyone. We must do everything in our power to discourage such a strike. It's by no means assured that such a strike would work. The potential regional consequences, the potential consequences for our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, are dire.

At the same time, I am baffled about what we or Israel can or should do at this sensitive point. Iran seems determined to develop a bomb. I don't see how we can really stop this, or what incentives Iran really has to remain a non-nuclear state. Everything we have done over the past seven years has eroded the carrots and the sticks we might deploy to prevent this outcome.

I submit that Israel should offer a grand bargain to Iran and other Middle Eastern states. Israel should say: We will give up our nukes, verifiably, if you do the same, verifiably.

I know this seems crazy. One friend said that Israel will do this "when pigs fly." Another suggested that Israel should not make concessions while it is under hostile fire from both Hamas and Hezbollah.

I disagree. Israel's nuclear deterrent once served a useful purpose. When Arab states' public rhetoric and diplomacy sought Israel's destruction, Israel's nuclear capability also gave the front-line states a face-saving way of accepting the reality of Israel's existence. That time has passed. Israel has troubled but operative peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. It is actively negotiating with Syria. Many other unfriendly states have a strong stake in containing the Arab-Israeli conflict and other regional threats.

In today's world, Israel's commonly known but officially unacknowledged nuclear capability complicates every effort to prevent further nuclear proliferation. Since Israel itself is the obvious target of nuclear weapons held by rogue states and non-state actors, it has a unique stake in breaking the proliferation cycle.

Israel can respond to these new threats by enhancing its deterrent and by enhancing its second-strike capability on land and under the sea. This is not cheap for a nation whose population roughly matches New York City's. Augmented second-strike capability also does not address the fundamental problem. You'd already have to be crazy to attack Israel. This surely deters Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran. I still would not bet Tel Aviv's survival on Israel's -- or America's -- ability to deter, incapacitate, or kill every apocalyptic terrorist in the world. The more nuclear weapons pollute our world with their presence, the more likely it is that some crazy person or group will someday get hold of one.

And nuclear weapons do not address the threats Israel currently faces. Just today, we hear that Israel is releasing hundreds of prisoners, including a notorious murderer, in exchange for the bodies of two soldiers: Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Israel can do much more through diplomacy and through improving its conventional military forces than anything it might accomplish through improved nuclear weapons.

The scariest thing about nuclear weapons is that they are 1945 technology. Graham Allison and others note what every expert knows but ordinary citizens do not: There are no real "secrets" here. Your cellphone is more high-tech than the H-bombs in our nuclear arsenal. Any moderately advanced country -- maybe even some nonstate actors -- can build destructive weapons. Once one assembles a dodgeball-size lump of fissionable material, a workable atomic bomb is not that complicated. The bomb that destroyed Hiroshima wasn't even tested before it was used. Assembling fissionable materials is not all that complicated, either. The complicated part is doing all this covertly. As international safeguards erode on nuclear technology, this is getting easier, too.

We need a new way to think about these questions. Some countries want nuclear bombs to deter ourselves or some hostile neighbor. We must change these fears and incentives. Others go nuclear for prestige, to join the nuclear "club." We must decouple national prestige from nations' ability to make big explosions. Pakistan has nuclear weapons. Brazil, Japan, and Germany do not. How much respect and prestige has Pakistan really gotten from that?

Our national deterrence strategy must be modified to include the norm that it is simply unthinkable to explode a nuclear weapon or to use any weapon of mass destruction. The United States can set an example by making real cuts in our nuclear arsenal and by pledging no first use against non-nuclear states.

As the world's superpower, we can certainly afford to do so. As I noted in an earlier post, Iranians are well aware of our power. Within a few weeks, our military mauled an Iraqi military juggernaut that fought Iran to a standstill over many years. Despite our military's many tragic missteps in Iraq, we did so without resorting to the carpet bombing and deliberate attacks on civilians that marred our efforts in World War II and Vietnam.

Israel can afford this step, as well. Even without nuclear weapons, even without American security backup, a nation that can assemble a juggernaut of F15s and support craft 900 miles from home could launch a devastating, entirely conventional retaliatory strike.

Israel, the United States, and the world have a strong stake in Iran and other neighbors credibly renouncing nuclear weapons. As far as i can tell, we can no longer compel Iran to stay non-nuclear at an acceptable political and military cost. We and Israel must offer Iranians an honorable, even prestigious pathway to renounce these terrible weapons. A grand nuclear bargain would do that.

It may seem crazy to propose that Israelis negotiate away the prized capability they do not even admit to possessing. It is not.

Comments

[SeanC2]

Ahmadinejad never threatened to wipe Israel off the map nor does he deny the Holocaust. This is a lie from the same people who lied us into a war in Iraq. Even if this were so, Ahmadinjejad is not the sum of the Iranian people nor does he represent the desires of the Iranian people. On the other hand, Israeli leaders have called for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and a considerable number of Israel's chief rabbis have called for the extermination of the Palestinian people. Israel and its lobby here in the US is constantly calling for war against Iran, and Israel has a long history of aggression against its neighbors, including the recent war in Lebanon, attacks against Syria and continued brutality against the Palestinians. Iran has called for war against no one, nor have they started a war against anyone in 240 years.

Israel is vastly more deranged and dangerous than Iran is, they have nukes already, and they have a history of staging false flag attacks against the US to drag us into their wars (look up the "Lavon Incident," and "USS Liberty."). Iran is not developing a bomb but civilian nuclear power, as it has a right to do under the NNPT. But after what the US did to Saddam after he complied with us demands to destroy his chemical weapons stocks, no nation will ever again disarm in the face of US threats, as it is suicidal folly to do so.

[mulegino]

This would be a great thing, and could very well be accomplished, if-American geopolitics were based on the national interests of the United States as well as Of course, this is not the case. The American hyperpower is now whipping up the Iranian menace as one more stepping stone to achieve the long term interventionist goals of strategic dominance of Central Asia, via the encirclement of Russia, as well as securing Israeli hegemony in the greater Middle East. If the Iranian "nuclear weapons program" did not exist in the minds of the administration and congress, and were not trumpeted on a daily basis by the MSM (even though there is no hard evidence that it does exist) it would be necessary to invent it.
There are many wrenches in the works inhibiting the success of such a strategy-namely the new alliance between Russia and China (a wild card), as well as Iran's ability to retaliate with its extensive arsenal of ballistic missiles, its alliance with and support of Hezbollah, and the fact that the American forces in Iraq could be cut off from their bases of supply in Kuwait in the event of massive Iranian retaliation. Iran does not need a major navy to close off the straits of Hormuz; it could very well accomplish this with mines, anti ship missiles or small submarines.
Rationality and reality are called for; since there is neither reason nor realism in the current administration's policies, such an approach is highly unlikely.

[Dap]

SOoooooooooooo Crazy it might work? I hate to break your bubble there Mr. Pollack, but please excuse me *PLAIN CRAZY* is more like it. Do you have any real idea how out of priority your idea is, first things first, you've got it all backwards.

[KPinSEA]

Far from being outlandish, this is in fact the *only* strategy that has any hope of keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of Israel's enemies in the next 25 years: a Nuclear Free Middle East Treaty.

Israel is today the *motive* for any potential adversary to develop nuclear weapons, for political reasons that mankind has known about since the tribe in the next valley developed those newfangled fire-hardened spears and we didn't have them: nobody accepts permanent strategic inferiority. If the neighbor has an I Win button, we want one too. We don't just want it, we perceive it as necessary for our long-term survival.

I expect the politicians of Israel and the U.S. to keep putting on their puppet show about how dangerous and destabilizing it would be for Iran to have nuclear materials, but what is "destabilizing" is one party having a clear, unassailable strategic advantage, and we've known this about nuclear weapons for 60 years.

I'd be amazed at how patronizing the arguments put forth by my government are in pursuit of this insane Attack Iran buzz, but based on the historical evidence they can sell a bucket of steaming guano to voters and convince them it's peanut butter ... so get ready to take a big bite, America.

[MagisterLudi]

Reality Flash: ENTIRE Security Council including such "Israel lovers" as Libya, Indonesia, France, Russia and Veitnam voted to slam down Iran.

Stop using the favorite Arab ploy of blaming everything on Israel.

Iran does NOT deserve a nuclear weapon because it's leadership is a fanatical Shiite theocracy which oppresses its own people and actively promotes Islamic murderers.

The cowardly death warrant fatwas that Iranian leaders issue against people all over the world like Sir Salmon Rushdie and Rafiq Tagi is even more despicable.

Next subject.

[USMAMule]

WTF is your problem? I guess the IAEA and our intelligence services pronouncement that they find no evidence that Iran is NOT developing nuclear WEAPONS program but a perfectly legal nuclear POWER program is of no consequence? Facts are stubborn things. Please stop catapulting the propaganda.

[MagisterLudi]

So let me guess, Iranian Supreme Leader is defying the will of the world, becoming severe isolation, possibility of military action, significant damage to Iranian economy..... ONLY because they want to build a electrical nuclear power station…sitting on oil and gas reserves worth trillions of dollars……

If you believe that, I have some sand to sell you in Saudi Arabia.

[rwt1138]

The Iranian nuclear program is a source of national pride, and is not going to be abandoned. The oil and gas reserves you refer to are the country's primary source of revenue, and for them cheap electricity that frees up more oil for sale is a better long term investment.

As for countries defying the will of the world, well, we haven't got a lot of room to complain about that, do we?

There is no hard evidence that they are producing a nuclear weapon, and peaceful enrichment is explicitly guaranteed in the NPT. There is no clause in the NPT that says "unless you have lots of oil and gas". According to the treaty, they don't even have to ask permission.

No thanks on the Saudi sand deal. I hear their sand is crap. A whole country full of it, and they still have to import tons of it from elsewhere for their swimming pools.

As for Mr. Pollack's grand bardain, it has a good chance of success--if you can get the Israelis to go for it. Iran already proposed this, several times, I don't think they'd be a hard sell.

[MagisterLudi]

Security Council 2008:
France, China, Russia, U.S. U.K Belgium
Indonesia South Africa Burkina Faso Italy Viet Nam Costa Rica Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Croatia
Panama
Unanimous vote against Iran. Surely even the neurotics posting here can't accuse Libya and Indonesia of being controlled by Israel. But go ahead, try.

United Nations Security Council Resolutions:

UNSCR 1803 (2008) requires Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment, regardless of its location in Iran, as well as research and development associated with centrifuges and uranium enrichment.
In addition,

UNSCR 1803 requires Iran to halt its construction of the Arak Heavy Water Research Reactor and activities at the Heavy Water Production Plant at Arak.

Resolutions 1737 (2006) and 1803 (2008) include exceptions for states to engage with Iran in the limited context of support to Iran’s light water reactors, which can provide electricity for civilian use.

A ban on arms exports from Iran and a call on states to prevent the transfer to Iran of arms listed on the UN Register on Conventional Arms.

All countries to inspect the cargo of aircraft and vessels of two companies—Iran Air Cargo and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines—bound to and from Iran, if that cargo is suspected of containing goods prohibited under previous Chapter VII UN Security Council resolutions 1737, 1747 or 1803.

The technology transfer ban to include all “dual-use” materials and equipment that could be used for both nuclear and non-nuclear purposes

[MagisterLudi]

"We have no gays in Iran, we're not building a nuclear weapon."
AhMaDenijad

[arvay]

The only way out of this nuttiness is for the powers of the region, including israel and iran, to agree to a verifiable nuclear disarmament treaty.

Israel's 150 nuclear weapons are useless except a some kind of doomsday strike. It's being pecked to death by insurgent attacks, its IDF was recently defeated in south Lebanon by Hizbollah. Nukes aren't cluster bombs, they are useless against entrenched guerillas close to and inside your borders.

[MagisterLudi]

"IDF was recently defeated in south Lebanon by Hizbollah"

Oh, I guess thats why Hezbollah no longer dares to attack Israel in any form. Because they won...
Keep to your delusions. As long as it makes you feel better.

[earthwealth]

Ahmadinejad never said the infamous phrase "wipe Israel off the map". You however used this phrase in your postings sounding like it was true. He was referring to a quote regarding change of regime not the country. Similar to what happened to the old Soviet Union http://counterpunch.org/tilley08282006.htmll).
The real problem with Iran that no mainstream media discusses is that no matter how much Iran is threatened and intimidated, she refuses to restart her nuclear arm program as our own intelligent groups have unanimously reaffirmed. Iran without possible nuclear arsenals is no use to our great industrial military complex. How else future military expansions and expenditures will be justified? And convince the wealthy Persian Gulf countries to buy more pricy military hardware. A military strike on Iran may be the last resort to push Iran to finally get into nuclear arm race and achieve our goal.
Iran has been offering similar proposal repeatedly but no news media ever had any coverage on it. Iran and fear from its imaginary nuclear weapons is being used as smokescreen to cover up abuses taken place against the Iraqis and Palestinians. As long as Iran is under microscope, not much attention is given to Israel’s large nuclear arsenals. Iran’s nuclear issue is also used as a good reason to maintain a wide spread presence of our military in the Persian Gulf and the neighboring countries.

[janmarie]

So true, corporate media loves to continue this lie that Iran has actually threatened Israel. In Iran, they say 'death to traffic', 'death to this, to that' but of course this would come to light from the media propaganda machine.

[pmag88]

The counterpunch article is interesting, but in light of the danger to the region, one would think that the president of Iran and other Muslim leaders would do more to clarify any misleading translation of his words. Resistance in the U.S media is obvious, but there has to be a way to quell the fear if indeed, there is nothing to fear.

As far as a solution to disputes between Palestine and Israel, I have a crazy suggestion of my own. Because part of the issue is related to the resources necessary to create a viable Palestinian state (water and quality land, etc) maybe the U.S could stop immigration from other countries for a few years and offer to allow immigration of Jews and Palestinians who want to leave the region and come here for a fresh start. If we allowed a million or more people a year to come in for a couple years and helped them get on their feet, it might do a lot to alleviate the issue of limited resources in the region. Obviously this doesn't address the feelings of loss or the issues of what is right or wrong, but there is a such thing as starting over and many people who have lost everything have started over and done well, so at least we know that it's possible.

[KPinSEA]

Yeah, I mean we don't have any reckless chuckleheads in our government that make boneheaded statements about bombing other countries, do we?

I'm sorry, speak up Senator McCain, what was that you were singing?

I think our biggest gripe with Iran's crazy political bozos is they're just a little too much like our crazy political bozos .... but for the life of me I can't figure out why we demonize the Islamic country that doesn't think it's unusual for women to vote (or anybody to vote), drive and hold down professional jobs, but we sell our most modern weapons to the Saudis.

[eden4barack08]

great comment!

[MagisterLudi]

Noting with serious concern that, as confirmed by the reports of 23 May 2007
(GOV/2007/22), 30 August 2007 (GOV/2007/48), 15 November 2007
(GOV/2007/58) and 22 February 2008 (GOV/2008/4) of the Director General of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran has not established full and
sustained suspension of all enrichment related and reprocessing activities and heavy
water-related projects as set out in resolution 1696 (2006), 1737 (2006), and 1747
(2007), nor resumed its cooperation with the IAEA under the Additional Protocol,
nor taken the other steps required by the IAEA Board of Governors, nor complied
with the provisions of Security Council resolution 1696 (2006), 1737 (2006) and
1747 (2007) and which are essential to build confidence, and DEPLORING Iran’s
refusal to take these steps....

This is the WORLD SPEAKING. NOT one country. Libya, and Indonesia voted for this resolution, E.U. voted, China, Russia. Your obsessive Anti-Israel rants don't change the reality of the situation.

[research]

Only World Fascism can prevent most countries from ending up with WMDs.

[AdamWykle]

How do we allow an immature and aggressive garrison theocracy that practices brutal colonialism, apartheid and occupation and is in violation of countless international laws to maintain its possession of undocumented nuclear weapons without joining the Non-Proliferation Treaty?

Iran on the other hand, is an NPT signatory and has every right to produce nuclear power for peaceful purposes. This administration is willing to go against its own NIE report that stated Iran WAS NO THREAT.

[MagisterLudi]

How do we allow an immature and aggressive garrison theocracy that practices brutal colonialism, apartheid and occupation and is in violation of countless international laws to develop nuclear weapons and missile technology?

We don't allow Iran to do it, thats why the Security council resolutions.

[AdamWykle]

I was refering to Israel. The part about brutal colonialism, apartheid and occupation was the most obvious clue.

[eden4barack08]

Too late. I believe a war against Iran is already in the works, compliments of BushCo and Israel.

[Thorn]

In other words, Israel should cease to exist.

[unitron]

If Iran is so desperate to have a nuclear weapon, let's give them *a* nuclear weapon. One. One of our oldest, most outdated. They can build a secret storage facility/museum/shrine for it and place it to there to go admire and polish the fenders whenever they want.

We just have to make sure that they understand that they aren't allowed to use it except in a non-pre-emptive defensive reply to an actual offensive attack on them by others. Any other use, including letting someone walk off with it, will be considered a nuclear attack upon the U.S. and we'll turn their entire country into a sea of radioactive glass.

As to their being desperate to have a nuke, I can sort of understand and sympathize. When Iraq attacked them in the early '80s, nobody cared or gave them any help If Hussein had thought or known that Iran could nuke him as a response he would have been a lot more polite to them.

[edtastic]

Remember that photo of Sadam and Rumsfield, America was covertly helping Iraq attack Iran. America probably gave Iran it's WMD in the first place. Don't forget why Iran had a revolution in the first place, it was to displace the Western puppet Shah installed by the United States after the Iranians ran out the British. It is a sick sad history and the United States is not the altruistic idealist fantasy that too many think it was. If Iran would obey the Western powers then they would not be using their media to demonize them in order to justify a military assault. It is about power and control. America does not respect the sovernty of nations that are not obedient lap dogs.

[Thorn]

"Sadam and Rumsfield"? Gosh. You must be quite an expert.