Who's threatened by Iran?

Let me ask you a question: How many countries in possession of nuclear weapons have been attacked by a country not in possession of nuclear weapons? Take your time. In case you're still scratching your head, the correct answer is zero.

Let me ask you a second question: Does the United States possess nukes? Does Israel? (Yes, they both have lots of them, the US especially so).

Projecting past experience forward, then (the new riddle of induction notwithstanding), will the US or Israel be attacked by a non-nuclear Iran?

Okay, if you're still with me, let me ask you a third question: How many countries in possession of nuclear weapons have been attacked by a country also in possession of nuclear weapons? Again, take your time. In case you wanna cut to the chase, the correct answer (once more) is zero.

Projecting past experience forward, then, will the US or Israel be attacked by a nuclear Iran?

"Don't be silly," you say. "Just because something never happened in the past, doesn't mean it won't happen in the future. This time, my friend, really is different." Maybe so. But when there is a strikingly consistent pattern in the historical record, it's worth getting to the bottom of it. So let's.

Why have countries with nuclear weapons never been attacked by other countries? Here's a first stab at a solution. Political leaders, above all else, crave power. If they didn't, they wouldn't be willing to sacrifice as much as they do to acquire it, and to maintain it. In 1945, when the US demonstrated the destructive potential of nuclear weapons (essentially telling Japan, "if you give us so much as a papercut, we will set you on fire"), every political leader in the world was watching. What they learned is that, for small countries, getting nuked is a recipe for not having a country over which to rule anymore. For big countries, getting nuked is a recipe for losing power very, very quickly.

So, caring first and foremost about power, world leaders silently affirmed the 11th commandment: Thou shalt not fuck with nuclear states. Don't forget that, prior to 1945, war between great powers was the norm, not the exception. Since 1945, it's only been cold wars between nuclear states, which is to say, often tense but essentially non-violent relations.

"Don't be silly," you say again. "Iran isn't a cold, calculating government--it's a fanatical theocracy committed to the destruction of Israel. Nukes in its hands cannot be trusted." Maybe so. But consider this: How have the ayatollahs managed to (with relative stability) control Iran for 33 years? This is not a country whose government is protected from its people by outside governments. This is a country who has been the victim of CIA-led coups, internal uprisings egged on by outsiders, and social and economic volatility the likes of which Americans cannot even imagine. And yet these supposed loons have managed to maintain their grip. Something tells me that while they may be fanatical this-or-thats, they care a lot about political power, too. And something tells me that their cold, realistic calculations have a lot to do with why they still hold the reigns in what would otherwise be a tremendously unstable political environment. And recognition of the 11th commandment does not require a genius. So, why do you seem so sure that this time is different?

"Why, then, do they seem so hellbent on the development of a nuke?" you ask. Simple--when the most militarily powerful countries on Earth speak openly on a daily basis about their eagerness to destroy you, and when you know of the 11th commandment (refresher: Thou shalt not fuck with nuclear states), it would seem that getting hold of a nuke would help a lot with maintaining your grip on a country that is on the brink of revolution. Self-preservation is the name of the game in international relations.

Do I want Iran to have a nuke? Of course not. For one thing, lots of Iran's neighbors would be more or less defenseless against a nuclear Iran. The effect on the balance of power in the Middle East would almost certainly be unfavorable. And yes, the probability of Iran violating the 11th commandment is marginally higher than the probability of, say, Israel doing likewise. Nobody wants Iran to go nuclear. But that's not because Iran is a serious threat to US or Israeli security. It's simply for classic balance of power considerations.

What's in everyone's best interest is for a ratcheting down of tensions. If Iran is less concerned about the international community planning its destruction, it will be more willing to slow or halt its development of the bomb. And if we offer that, in exchange for healthier diplomatic relations, we may be able to create a more stable political situation in the Middle East than would otherwise obtain.

So, why aren't we doing that? Well, recall the 11th commandment. Once Iran has the bomb, we will no longer have the option of shaping their internal political situation (witness nuclear Pakistan, a fanatical government if there ever was one, who almost certainly hid bin Laden, but whom we don't give orders to). If we don't take out the ayatollahs while we have the chance, Iran is, for the foreseeable future, beyond our sphere of significant influence. But why do we care so much about influencing Iran? We obviously don't care much about influencing Syria at the moment (actions speak louder than words). The answer, not obvious to only the most deliberately obtuse, is that Iran has lots of oil. Our goal is not to steal their oil, or to secure it at a discount. Our goal--indeed, the Western world's goal, is to stabilize oil production and flows in international markets so as to minimize oil shocks to Western economies (the oil shocks of the late 2000s drove up headline inflation, triggering tighter monetary policy, triggering the worst recession since the Great Depression). Sure, we care about human rights, etc., too. But the reason we seem really eager to bomb some countries (Libya, Iran), and not others (Syria), is because access to a very important commodity is at stake. No conspiracy, no hegemony, just good old fashioned pursuit of strategic interests.

Let's, then, not sign off on another war without our eyes open to what's really at stake, and what our government's true motivations are.

Iranian agression or puffs of smoke

Iran upped the ante in their most recent attempts to catch the ire of the world by conducting a new series of war games - this time in the air. You know, paper airplanes and surface to air missiles that always miss their mark. More than likely this is in response to some of the fluff floating around on the interwebs concerning Israel's likely hood of launch air strikes to delay Iran's ever vigilant quest for the power of the atom. Mr Poopy Pants, otherwise known as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (for those of you living under rocks he's the supreme ruler of Iran not to be confused with Mr Douchebag Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), recently talked about eliminating the state of Israel from the world forum - who would have thunk it?

Every one should really appreciate radical thinkers, you know the ones that think outside the box but Iran might be fingering the wrong country here to pick a fight with. Let's look at war as a pure numbers game: Iran expends roughly $7 billion a year (2010 estimates) versus Israel's $13 billion. Iran certainly talks the big talk but Israel walks the big walk - heck almost their entire air force is comprised of US born jets. Let's not forget Israel's largest backer - the US government (military expenditures on the order of almost $700billion for a point of reference).

Staying on that numbers game, Israel totes a lean 176,000 active troops at any one time versus Iran's 550,000. Money doesn't buy u everything but it certainly buys you the latest gagetry to blow your enemy away with. Maybe a good way to look at it is to compare the dollar per active troop in assessing an all out brawl between the two: Israel - $74k versus Iran's $13k - more than 550% difference. I know if I had to pick the military to join, I'd go with the one spending more money.

Given the recent slue of empty threats coming out of Iran as of late, I wouldn't be surprised by a sudden mass air strike spear headed by Israel (maybe even a little US involvement). Like the little kid in the school yard, eventually he can no longer take it and beats the piss out of the bully. It's not like Israel has really cared in the past about this sort of stuff anyway (see any number of disproportionate responses to aggressions by enemies of Israel - like the 'Gaza War' where ~1100 Palestinian's died versus 13 Israelis, 4 of which were friendly fire).

Pakistan is also in the process of shooting themselves in the foot by saying any act of aggression towards Iran will bring them into the mix. Oh no, we don't support terrorists (see the leaked UN memo on Pakistan's terror involvement or the countless CIA drone strikes for counter evidence) which makes our involvement in something like this more of a religious zeal than anything else. That's going to be an interesting situation when the US suddenly drops all aid to the country (actually $700million is already frozen by lawmakers since Pakistan can't get their act together). Will Pakistan stick to their guns and come to Iran's aid? Only time will tell.

If a fight does break out in the Middle East, it's not going to be pretty. Right now we're talking about Iran, Pakistan, Israel and through association the United States. Remember kiddies, the US is just after Iranian oil afterall...

Beat me with a stick, please? Iran is Straight, I Swear

The war mongering capitalist pigs are just looking to get at our oil like they did with Iraq! Spammed everywhere on the internet are references to how the current situation in the Straight of Hormuz is identical to the situation which led to the Iraq invasion and the 'war' launched in Afghanistan. Could the United States really looking to invade another country for its oil, some sinister plot to prop up a puppet regime and suck the region for every cent that it has? Oh wait, does it really matter?

Just pretend for a moment that the United States was a single person, bent on ruling the world and hording all the wealth and prosperity for itself. That this person was pure evil and did not care about the lively hood of any country it invaded. Wait a second, right... America has a hard enough time gaining enough consensus to elect a single official let alone concoct some multifaceted, complicated scheme to have absolute power over the world. Oh, what's that you say...American tax dollars have been spent attempting to help rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan rather than exiting the country and letting them rebuild on their own? Weird!

Since this is the internet, let's take a deeper dive into the world of internet geopolitical commentary on the subject and see if we can really get to the root of their perspectives on Iran. The best that I can tell is that there are three major camps , voicing their concerns for all the world to hear:

1. Sweep-and-clear American - "Where is the Straight of Hormuz? Doesn't matter, just blow all of Iran up and figure it out later.  They took our jobs......"


2. David-versus-Goliath Iranian - "We don't care how much the Americans spend on their military, our advanced 30ft speed boats and extensive history of armed combat will dominate the battle field and bring honor to our country. Just because I'm a sociopath doesn't mean that you're right"


3. Random internet banter aka Hippie - "I read/saw this [insert random form of media here] that said America does what ever it wants when it wants. Those dirty Americans even went to war and weren't able to find any WMD so therefore they are the responsible for all diplomatic failures in the past 10 years"

If you've made it this far in reading, you probably get as much joy from reading uninformed articles(much like this one) that take some totally unrelated element and apply it to current situation hoping to go undetected to the ignorant masses that wander the internet - call it a passion, but disproving people on the internet is right up there with free beer in my book. Let's take a crack at it!

Each of these factions in some way, shape or form rationalizes that their view on the matter is the correct one - they have to be right, right? I think, therefore ev'r body else is wrong. Didn't we go through that fiasco a few times in the course of history? Not even going to go there.

I'm not even going to bother trying to analyze the first faction list above other than there is a certain belief that a pipsqueak of a country (cough Iran) is making a big stink over nothing (well it's something but I'll get into that in a moment) but that doesn't matter and America should just flex the arm of the most expensive military in the world to prove a quick point. Step one, wipe Iran off the face of the world. Step two, profit.

Iran has always been looking to steal the show on the world stage saying "HEY EVERYONE, LOOK HOW GREAT IRAN IS!" with shenanigans like claiming to have hacked data feeds controlling surveillance drones, sentencing a supposed CIA operative to death with no evidence or the best yet, the iconic war games (and associated statements of "American acts of aggression" essentially being acts of war) with toy boats. Because the rest of the world wants me to stop enriching uranium I'm going to keep enriching past the 1% mark (all that is required for supposed medicinal purposes) to see how high I can go. More on the uranium later.

Internet hippies are just the mindless masses that wander from page to page, taking the skewed views on often a single source of media, labeling it as their own view, without actually thinking for themselves in most cases. Don't fret if you fall into this category - it's not really all that bad unless you're voting for elected officials...hey, wait a second. Most of you won't fit into any of the these categories, but then again you probably don't troll around the internet posting on random new articles either.

Now that I've probably offended most of you, let's get to what this discussion was actually about - Iran's quest for weapons grade uranium and the slaps on the hands received to date. The new stiffer sanctions, although spearheaded by the US, are meant to tighten the vice on the political figures within Iran and prevent war rather than make it. Playing devil's advocate, you're probably sitting there thinking "but it's hurting the people of Iran at the same time, America doesn't care about them, just about the oil exiting Iran." - now you're thinking like a hippie. There is more at stake in the game of cat and mouse currently being played than just dollars or barrels of oil - the entire region would be in shambles should Iran achieve in its ability to gain weapons grade uranium.

To date, no nuclear nation has ever gone toe-to-toe in war with another nuclear nation so the outcome of that Iranian achievement is up for debate. What is known, is that Iran has the utmost hatred for Israel (US is in there too) and a government that isn't known for it's stability in terms of foreign policy or freedom of the people. There is a certain expectation that should Iran get to the point of fully enriched uranium that they would do bad things with it, but who could blame them? It's the ultimate insurance policy if you're looking to retain power in a failing country or twist the arm of the nation that has goods and services other than oil exports to hear you on the global level.

Please use some common sense when posting on larger scale issues in a public form. Most of you out there sound like idiots to the educated groups that rarely make their way around the internet. If you can express all sides of an argument without being jaded, you're probably well enough versed on the subject to voice an opinion - everyone else should be beaten with sticks...