CAN IRAN BE DETERRED?

If the Iranians are moving forward on a program to build a nuclear weapon (which they deny, but the U.S. and the Europeans believe they are doing), then at some point we must consider the possibility that they will achieve their goal. If they do (and I believe they will, even if there are military strikes, which will only delay the project), then what should we do in response? This, it seems to me, is all dependent upon one question...can the Iranian regime be deterred? Hillel Fradkin, while not writing directly about the issue of deterrence, says our leaders should be paying much more attention to the recent letter from President Ahmadinejad.

WILL THE UNITED STATES declare war on the Islamic Republic of Iran? For months, this question has been the theme of diplomatic and public discourse--with horror usually expressed at the idea. But it now seems that we have this backwards. For the import of the letter that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, sent to President Bush in the first week of May is that Ahmadinejad and Iran have declared war on the United States. Many reasons are given, but the most fundamental is that the United States is a liberal democracy, the most powerful in the world and the leader of all the others. Liberal democracy, the letter says, is an affront to God, and as such its days are numbered. It would be best if President Bush and others realized this and abandoned it. But at all events, Iran will help where possible to hasten its end. (The full text of the letter, translated into English from the original Persian, can be found at www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/Ahmadinejad%20letter.pdf.)

Read the whole analysis. Fradkin believes the letter is in the tradition of letters written by the Prophet to the rulers of neighboring states calling on them to submit to Islam. He believes Ahmadinejad thinks of himself as an agent of the "Hidden Imam". If this is so, and if he either has control or can gain control of the political and military apparatus of the state, then it may not be possible to deter his behavior.

Paul Starobin, writing in the National Journal, takes a very different view.

Most analysts who have studied Iran believe that the mullahs are, in fact, deterrable. "They respect superior power when they confront it," Kenneth Pollack, a National Security Council staffer in the Clinton White House, said in an interview. Pollack, who backed the Iraq war, added that he views the mullahs as less reckless than Saddam Hussein, who pulled "crazy stunts" like the attempted assassination of the first President Bush.

Starobin lays out a compelling case for the efficacy of nuclear deterrence. It worked with the likes of a sociopath like Stalin, and with an ideologue like Mao. It works regionally on the Indian subcontinent, and it has survived the break-up of the Soviet Union. He believes the only real question is how to set up the deterrent. Should it be a multinational deterrent, or should the U.S. take the lead and provide the umbrella for those who feel at all threatened by the Iranians? Most importantly, can the Israelis be brought into a deterrence regime?

The question hinges entirely on the rationality of Iran's rulers, and the prudence and caution of U.S., European and Israeli leaders. Unfortunately, while Starobin is right in his assertion that nuclear deterrence has a perfect track record thus far, human history is filled with examples of leaders losing control of events, or taking actions based on entirely false assumptions, or taking actions based on the emotions, rather than rational thought.