It isn't just their support for Assad. Propelled by an ordained mission;
from Baghdad
to Beirut and from Buenos Aires to Washington DC, Khamenei and his agents leave no question as to their resolve.
Their commitment is paying off - Iran’s
admittance to the nuclear arms club looks likelier with each passing day. To guard against diplomatic and/or military failure, we need to prepare to manage an Iran that's armed with nuclear weapons.
The danger is real. Having called President
Obama on his ‘red line’ bluff, Assad has eviscerated American deterrent value. In Obama's eager détente with Rouhani, Iranian perceptions of American malleability have grown. As Dexter Filkins explains,
Iran pays great attention to American resolve (or the absence thereof). As I’ve argued
before; whether in terms of a regional arms race, a further sectarian
dissection of Middle Eastern politics, or reactive strategies by Israel, an Iran possessing nuclear weapons would cause a geopolitical earthquake. In my opinion, faced with that world, the United States would need to enact a four-part
strategic response.
1) Obama would
have to codify a new security doctrine.
Many commentators argue that the
threat posed by a nuclear armed Iran is greatly exaggerated. As they see it, the fear of
mutually assured destruction would deter Iranian nuclear aggression. I disagree. Their supposition happily ignores Iran’s enshrined
ideal of martyrdom (the ‘submission of the self’). Time and time again, Iran's leaders have risked catastrophic consequences in the pursuit of their political agenda. This is a regime that sent
children to clear minefields during the Iran-Iraq war. This is a regime
that continues
to call for the annihilation of America and Israel. As a corollary, deterring a nuclear armed Iran would require more than SSBNs - it
would demand Iran’s recognition of an alternate cost-benefit analysis. In short, Iran
would have to believe that a direct or indirect (via terrorist proxy) nuclear attack against the
United States or its allies would result in one-sided retaliatory apocalypse. Articulating this new framework would be a horrific clarification.
It would also be absolutely necessary for global security.
2) The US Government would have to counter-balance an emboldened
Iranian security strategy.
Iran’s nuclear accession would catalyze
the Revolutionary Guards/Iranian Intelligence. In this
scenario, the US could not stand silent. US security interests would require increased disruption operations against covert Iranian activities around the world. Here, the overarching US intention would be a simple one – ensuring that Iranian
hardliners understood their choices were bound inexorably to consequences
beyond their control.
3) The US would have to pursue a regional
defense agreement.
Highly evident
tensions between the US and Saudi Arabia emphasize the importance of this
point. At a deeper level, were the US to fail in reconciling its security relationships
to a nuclear Iran, the consequences would be disastrous. As encapsulated
in the Syrian Civil War, in America’s absence, states like Qatar and Saudi
Arabia revert to terrorist proxies as mechanisms of self-defense - without American reassurance, a nuclear Iran would likely be joined by a flourishing spring of Sunni Jihadism. Moreover, Saudi Arabia is already flirting with its own procurement of nuclear weapons.
4) US nuclear weapons would have to be upgraded.
Facing a nuclear Iran, the
assurance of continued US nuclear supremacy would be a non-negotiable.
It’s true; a replacement for America’s aging
nuclear deterrent must
recognize growing fiscal pressures. That being said, the acceptance of substantial costs would become unavoidable.
Like all
totalitarians, the Ayatollahs understand power in brutally simplistic terms
– through the barrel of a gun. Bound to a credible deterrent doctrine as
outlined in point (1), the United States would have to halt the creeping doubt surrounding
its nuclear credibility.
This 'management' plan would be complex, expensive and risky. Regardless, a nuclear Iran would
systemically alter the geopolitics of the Middle East (and thus the world). America
could not remain inert.
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