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| Matthew Kroenig |
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| George F. Kennan |
Seven months ago I wrote the post Re-reading George F. Kennan's Memoirs - Why is there nobody today to
write The Long Telegram on Iran?
Well, I was wrong. A Time to Attack is the new
Long Telegram. Just like George F. Kennan, in 1946, at that time American chargé
d'affaires in Moscow, managed in a 5362 word telegram to analyze the USSR and define
what the US policy should be, so does Kroenig today with his book make the
definitive case for attacking Iran if diplomacy fails.
Reading A Time to Attack felt like reading a proof
of a mathematical theorem, with the axioms, lemmas, proof and the concluding QED.
There is no point in going into details
like nuclear brinkmanship or undetectable
breakout, the book should be read in its entirety since all the arguments
that one can come up with are duly taken care of and countered. For instance, he gives this explanation on the threat to the US :
"As Iran's nuclear capabilities grow over time, it is even possible that nuclear war with Iran could threaten the very existence of the United States. While the risk of nuclear war on every given day is low, it is not zero. And that risk needs to be aggregated day after day, week after week, year after year, decade after decade as the countries go through various political conflicts of interest, crises and possibly even wars. Given enough time, there is a real risk that something could go terribly wrong."
And yet I remain torn in that although Kroenig has
managed to prove his case perfectly, he has done so without touching upon the
eschatological aspect of the Iranian regime and in particular the famous Bernard
Lewis statement “In
this context, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, namely
M.A.D. (Mutual Assured Destruction) , would have no meaning. At the End
of Time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter
is the final destination of the dead-- hell for the infidels, and the delights
of heaven for the believers. For people with this mindset, M.A.D. is not a constraint; it is an inducement... “
Does it make sense to go into this extra murky world and
open a can of worms? Why do it if the case has already been so brilliantly
made? Because we as a civilization have to make our decisions based on all the
evidence at our disposal. Whether Bernard Lewis is right or not I cannot say. Some scholars like Raphael Israeli
and Matthias Kuntzel agree with him, others like Ze’ev
Maghen and Timothy
Furnish (second article in the link) do not. But to me it is
rather odd that such fundamental decisions about the future of our planet are
being made without the relevant opinions of the leading western experts on Shi’a
Islam even mentioned!
It is not that Kroenig totally disregards the problem. He
writes: “And, finally, the
adversary has to be rational enough to careful calculate costs and benefits
before taking major strategic actions. If you are dealing with a madman, he might
not care whether his actions provoke overwhelming retaliation. Or, if he is
exceptionally crazy, he might actually welcome it.” Bernard Lewis’s “M.A.D. is not a constraint; it is an inducement...” is precisely this case. Bernard Lewis’s
words carry weight and his input should have figured in the discussion.
My second remark is
regarding the assessment of the Israeli capability to destroy the uranium enrichment
facility at Qom which is protected by 295 feet of rock.
Of course it would be preferable for the
US to do it with a stealth B2 using the Massive Ordinance Penetrator (MOP). But what should an Israeli PM do when he sees
the American President flip-flop on Syria, watch as his administration supports
the anti-Semitic and anti-American Muslim
Brotherhood all over the region and then listens to the State Department engage
in verbal gymnastics to justify how the US can still work with the PA-Hamas
unity government whose Article 7 reads “The Day of Judgment
will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the
Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems,
O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him”? To top that all, you
then have the US Secretary of State pin
the blame for the failed negotiations with the Palestinians on Israel!
As
Kroenig writes “It is never a
good idea to put an opponent's back against the wall in international politics”.
It
would be only logical then that the Israel PM conclude that Obama-Godot cannot be
relied on and that Israel has to take the matter into its own hands. Since Netanyahu according to Ari
Shavit has had in depth discussions with Bernard Lewis and is convinced
that “if the ayatollahs obtained nuclear weapons, they would use them”
it is not inconceivable that Israel would, according to the Sunday
Times, use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy the facility at Qom.
Let us
hope that Kroenig’s
Long Telegram achieves the same impact as
Kennan’s original one did and that such a decision by the Israeli PM will never
have to be made.
