To the Editor:
Norman Podhoretz writes that “deterrence [can]not be relied upon with a regime ruled by Islamofascist revolutionaries who not only [are] ready to die for their beliefs but care less about protecting their people than about the spread of their ideology” [“Stopping Iran: Why the Case for Military Action Still Stands,” February]. The regime’s behavior, however, tells a different story.
The mullahs talk a big game, but they act only through terrorist proxies. They stoke the fires of nationalism in order to turn the attention of the populace away from their economic policies, social agenda, and sham rule, but they keep Iran’s large army within the country’s borders, where it has enough work on its hands maintaining the regime’s grip on power. Iran may be a nuisance, but it is hardly an undeterrable threat.
Mark Baker
New York City
_____________
To the Editor:
According to Norman Podhoretz, the failure of diplomacy to halt Iran’s nuclear program means that a preemptive strike on its nuclear facilities remains the least worst option on the table for America. Not surprisingly, he draws on the analogy of 1938 to excite his readers into support for his position, and for good measure adds that President George W. Bush is “a man who knows evil when he sees it and who has the courage and determination to battle against it.” But while President Bush’s sincerity is not to be doubted, there is ample scope to criticize his judgment—and his apparent use of theological paradigms in international affairs. This is an Iranian export I wish he had shunned.
There are several flaws in Mr. Podhoretz’s brief for opening up a new conflict in the Middle East. Given how concealed and dispersed Iran’s facilities are, it is by no means clear that a surgical strike would significantly impair its nuclear program. Moreover, to prevent serious retaliation against American troops in the region, the U.S. would have to engage a broad range of targets. Iran’s infrastructure would be crippled, and the humanitarian and political consequences would far exceed the imagined threat.
The main problem with Mr. Podhoretz’s position is its fatal lack of political context. It is as if he had forgotten the dictum that “war is a continuation of politics by an admixture of other means.” The military option is at best a short-term solution to a long-term problem. It is the broader political dynamic between Iran and the U.S. that really needs to be addressed. Without that, any diplomatic effort is hamstrung.
Simply denigrating America’s intelligence agencies, as Mr. Podhoretz does, is no path to a solution. They must be reformed for the 21st century and an age of asymmetric politics defined by mass media: a politics in which the weak may outwit the strong through a better manipulation of the many and varied tools of communication.
In sum, the U.S. must refine and articulate an Iran policy that is consistent, clear, and unambiguous. This means using “soft power” and framing a practical strategy for dealing with Iran instead of dictating a wish list; focusing on the durable foundations of authority rather than the immediacy of power; and organizing for peace rather than preparing for war.
To achieve these things, the U.S. must invest in the requisite tools of human intelligence—to begin with, analysts who can properly assess different cultures. America stands alone among global players in having a largely introverted political establishment. Those in it who bother to engage and understand the “other” are all too often accused of having gone “native.” This mentality will have to change.
Over a century ago, England’s Lord Curzon berated his countrymen for their failure to develop a sober and consistent policy toward Iran. The problems may be different today, but the reaction of the world’s superpower is all too familiar. The politics of fear is a poor substitute for serious analysis. It is not only Iranians who deserve better.
Ali M. Ansari
University of St. Andrews
St. Andrews, Scotland
_____________
To the Editor:
Nowhere in Norman Podhoretz’s article is there any discussion of what would follow if the bombing he urges were to fail to damage or destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. What would happen to our troops in Iraq? Could our economy sustain the inevitable rise in the price of oil? Would Islamic militancy escalate to unseen heights?
These questions would also apply if the bombing were to succeed, but at least then we would feel safer. To bomb without dealing a knockout blow would be disastrous. Is Mr. Podhoretz aware of these contingencies, and is he in fact prepared to advocate the unthinkable, namely, dropping a nuclear bomb?
Allen Rutchik
Miami, Florida
_____________
To the Editor:
Norman Podhoretz does an excellent job explicating the flaws in the recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran as well as explaining why it remains imperative to prevent the Islamic Republic from getting nuclear weapons, even if that requires the use of force.
Historically, it has proven impossible to talk many nations out of nuclear ambitions by way of diplomacy or the threat of sanctions. (See India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, and North Korea.) It was only the use of force by Israel that delayed Iraq’s nuclear program in the 1980’s, and the use of force by the U.S. and its allies following Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait that ultimately prevented Saddam Hussein from acquiring nuclear weapons.
History also demonstrates that nations with nuclear-weapons programs tend to conceal and lie about them. South Africa denied that it was pursuing nuclear weapons when it was, and refrained from placing communications equipment on the roof of a key facility in order to avoid attracting the attention of American imagery analysts. Israel originally claimed that its Dimona facility was a textile plant. North Korea expended much effort burying pipes that were to carry nuclear waste from a reactor to a reprocessing facility. India took great care at its test site not to leave any traces of nuclear activity. And Iran, for its part, has lied again and again about its nuclear efforts at Natanz and elsewhere.
Another historical instance of deception—this time by the U.S. itself—might shed light on the Iranian situation. In the late 1950’s, an effort by the U.S. Air Force to produce a special reconnaissance satellite was publicly “terminated,” to the great chagrin of key people involved. At the same time, however, and unbeknownst to them, a parallel effort was established at the CIA that would eventually produce the first photographic reconnaissance satellite. Part of the motivation at work was that the grumbling of the Air Force team would suggest to the outside world that the project had been abandoned. Iran could be engaging in a similar ploy.
The extent to which these past episodes are a guide to the present situation remains to be seen. But the notion that Iran can be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons without American or Israeli action seems only marginally more probable than the prospect of the centrifuges at Natanz getting up and walking out of the facility.
Jeffrey T. Richelson
National Security Archive
Washington, D.C.
_____________
To the Editor:
The recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran was an even greater fiasco than Norman Podhoretz writes. Not only did the NIE fudge its own finding that Iran’s nuclear activity continues apace, it also confessed that the U.S. did not have “human intelligence” about the Iranian nuclear facilities.
Unless this admission is an elaborate piece of disinformation (something belied by the rest of the NIE), it is a stunning advertisement of the incompetence of our intelligence community and an inducement for the mullahs to stay the course. How hard should it be for the most powerful country in the world to get intelligence about a nuclear industry that requires the work of hundreds if not thousands of people to function?
James Wyeth
Denver, Colorado
_____________
To the Editor:
Norman Podhoretz may be right that President Bush knows evil when he sees it, but it remains to be seen whether he has the guile and the will to face it down in Iran. If the Bush administration were serious about laying the ground for a strike on Iran, it would (as Reuel Marc Gerecht has suggested) insist on high-level talks with the mullahs in order to expose to the world their malevolence and intransigence.
Michael Hanraty
New York City
_____________
To the Editor:
Norman Podhoretz argues that the United States should bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, but would this be sufficient? The mullahs might simply reconstitute their nuclear program, or they might attempt a spectacular terrorist attack on our troops in the region or on American soil. Only if an effort were made to topple the regime would a bombing campaign be worthwhile.
Joseph Kellard
East Meadow, New York
_____________
To the Editor:
I admire Norman Podhoretz for his brave stand on Iran, but I am afraid that he is shouting at the wind. The Bush administration can barely criticize Iran for ordering attacks on our troops in Iraq without being itself criticized by most of the world and the American Left for warmongering. To believe that in such an environment Bush can muster the courage to do what must be done to a proven enemy is wishful thinking.
Louis Finchley
Las Vegas, Nevada
_____________
To the Editor:
I am grateful that Norman Podhoretz has brought up the perilous position into which Israel has been pushed by the recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran. But unlike him, I find the idea that Bush “might be fixing to outsource the job” of stopping Iran to the Israelis more than merely “plausible.” For if it is true (a) that the mullahs will not be deterred from their nuclear ambitions by the fear of retaliation, (b) that the NIE forecloses the possibility of action by the U.S., and (c) that Bush still plans to make good on his pledge that a nuclear Iran is “not going to happen” on his watch, then a U.S.-approved strike by Israel must be in the cards.
Mr. Podhoretz feels that “it would be very hard for the Israeli air force, superb though it is, to pull the mission off.” That is true if a strike were limited to Israel’s conventional arsenal, but Israel could use one-kiloton tactical nuclear bombs to ensure the destruction of the Iranian nuclear sites. The moral and political implications of such a move would be staggering. But faced with an enemy that has threatened to wipe it off the map, Israel is within its rights to act.
Mladen Andrijasevic
Beersheba, Israel
_____________
To the Editor:
Norman Podhoretz has it exactly right: stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons is the most important issue of the day. But I would question his assertion that this would bring about an extended oil “shock.” If care were taken to prevent damage to the oil refineries, export facilities, and shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf, there is cause to believe that any initial spike in the price of oil would settle down once the security of the supply chain was assured.
Jonathan Stein
Cold Spring Harbor,
New York
_____________
To the Editor:
Norman Podhoretz is right: it does seem like the eve of World War II all over again. Again the West has failed to show resolve before a terrifying regime that has threatened the civilized world with the worst, and again the appeasers hope to placate the aggressor with offerings of peace. If the mullahs are rewarded for their evil with a “grand bargain” for “peace in our time,” how could we reasonably expect anything but more belligerence?
Bruce F. Sterling
Tampa, Florida
_____________
To the Editor:
I fear that Norman Podhoretz’s outlook is correct: that war with Iran is inevitable, and the only question is in which direction the bombs will go first. Historically, America has retaliated rather than initiated attack, but this is a luxury we may not be able to afford against an apocalypse-minded regime with nuclear weapons.
Bob LaFavor
Woodinville, Washington
_____________
To the Editor:
Norman Podhoretz has been vilified for advocating military action against Iran. Indeed, in progressive circles, it has become something of an article of faith that to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities would be an unthinkable offense. Another article of faith is that we must withdraw our troops from Iraq as soon as possible. If the progressives get their wish, the damage to American credibility will be enormous. Notice will be sent to rogue nations that they can do what they want with impunity, and notice will be sent to our allies in Iraq and to people around the world that it is safer to be a foe of America than a friend.
Kyle Brand
Berlin, Germany
_____________
Norman Podhoretz writes:
In my article, I argued (1) that the only way to stop Iran from getting the bomb is by military action; (2) that unless such action is taken soon, it will be too late; (3) that the consequences of preemptive air strikes would be far less catastrophic than what would happen if Iran were allowed to become a nuclear power; and (4) that it would be best if the United States were to do the job, but that if the new NIE has made this politically impossible, Israel may well be forced to act on its own.
In developing these arguments, I traced the breakdown of the near-universal consensus on the urgent need to stop Iran from getting the bomb. I also showed how, in the process of this breakdown, the accompanying faith that Iran could be stopped through diplomacy and sanctions was being replaced by a new and astonishingly complacent confidence in our ability to “live with” an Iranian bomb.
A typical example of this new complacency is Mark Baker’s letter. Mr. Baker is sure that Iran is only a “nuisance” (the same word, incidentally, that John Kerry has used to describe terrorism in general), and that if—or rather when—the mullahs get the bomb, we can rely on deterrence to keep them from using it. In my article I explained in detail why deterrence is a weak reed in dealing with Iran, and I see no point in repeating the argument here. But what I will repeat here is that, along with the lesson of which Bruce F. Sterling reminds us, we should have learned from the 1930’s how dangerous it is to brush off what revolutionary regimes say about their own aims (which of course is precisely what Mr. Baker does when he writes that the mullahs only “talk a big game”).
Ali M. Ansari also refuses to take the mullahs seriously, but complacent is much too tepid a word to describe his position. To him, an Iranian bomb is nothing more than an “imagined threat,” and he charges that those of us who worry about it are practicing the “politics of fear.” His own idea of a realistic response is that we undertake a thoroughgoing reform of our intelligence services (on this, at least, I agree, though mainly for the reasons given by James Wyeth rather than those of Mr. Ansari); that we “refine and articulate” a new strategy; and that we figure out how to make use of our “soft power” instead of depending upon “short-term” military solutions that, because the Iranian nuclear facilities are concealed and dispersed, would be ineffective anyway.
Well, had we but world enough and time, this foolishness, Mr. Ansari, were no crime. But in reality all we have is two years at the most to stop the mullahs from getting the bomb. Therefore, for the reasons given in my article, if military action is not taken soon, the stage will have been set for the outbreak of a nuclear war in the Middle East. To borrow from Mr. Ansari’s own words, the “humanitarian and political consequences” of such an outbreak “would far exceed” the very worst that could happen as a result of preemptive air strikes against the Iranian nuclear facilities.
Like Mr. Ansari, Allen Rutchik believes that preemptive air strikes might fail to deal “a knockout blow,” and he asks whether I am accordingly prepared to advocate “dropping a nuclear bomb.” My answer is no; and because “the moral and political implications” are indeed “staggering,” it is no as well to Mladen Andrijasevic (even though I agree with him that Israel would be within its rights to use low-yield tactical nuclear bombs “to ensure the destruction of the Iranian nuclear sites”).
Obviously a knockout blow would be the most desirable outcome, but it would in my judgment be enough if we—or the Israelis—were to set the Iranian program back by five or ten years. That surely is the least a bombing campaign could accomplish, and it might even lead not to the widely expected rallying ’round the flag but to what Joseph Kellard thinks would justify a bombing campaign: a toppling of the regime. Yet even if it did not do so immediately, the forces within Iran that are opposed to the mullocracy would have more time and a better chance to overthrow it than they seem to have now.
Michael Hanraty and Louis Finchley are certain that George W. Bush will be unable to order air strikes before he leaves office, and so is Mr. Andrijasevic. Unlike them, however, Mr. Andrijasevic is equally certain that “a U.S.-approved strike by Israel must be in the cards.” While it would certainly be “wishful thinking” at this point for me to persist in my once-confident prediction that Bush will eventually act, I have not yet given up all hope in the possibility.
Nevertheless, with every passing week, I am more and more inclined to suspect, as Mr. Andrijasevic does, that the Israelis are preparing to do the job, and that they have been given a tacit, and perhaps an explicit, green light by Bush. He may even have promised some kind of logistical support. After all, as Mr. Andrijasevic reminds us, he has repeatedly vowed that Iran will not be permitted to get the bomb on his watch, and he must still know that “the notion that Iran can be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons without U.S. or Israeli action [is] only marginally more probable than the prospect of the centrifuges at Natanz getting up and walking out of the facility.”
The words I have just quoted are from Jeffrey T. Richelson’s very illuminating letter. Having learned much from Mr. Richelson’s book Spying on the Bomb, I am all the more gratified by his generous response to my article. I also want to thank Jonathan Stein, Bob LaFavor, and Kyle Brand for their thoughtful comments.
