A lot of people describe really scary scenarios, and they tell you to be afraid should Israel attack Iran. We should be concerned, a lot, but Israeli concerns on that issue are not the same as our concerns. Israeli concerns are specific to Israel. I also see a fundamental flaw in the analysis that the Persian Gulf will burn if Israel strikes Iran by the same people suggesting Iran would be a responsible actor with nuclear weapons. If Iran lashes out in retaliation of an Israeli strike against other countries, including the US and their allies in the region with any conventional military weapon, then Israel is proven correct and Iran really is led by insane madmen who shouldn't be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. I do not understand the logical argument that Iran would be responsible as a nuclear power, and that Iran would irresponsibly respond to attack by Israel by directly attacking numerous other nations by closing down the Persian Gulf.
The discussion thread to this post is quite good, but I do want to add a couple of points. First, I don't altogether agree with Galrahn that an... energetic Iranian response to an Israeli strike would indicate that Iran would play fast and loose with nukes; launching an unprovoked nuclear attack without regard to the retaliatory capacity of the enemy really is a different level of crazy than trying to mine the Strait of Hormuz or some such. That said, an Iranian response to Israeli strikes really will tell us a lot about how the regime thinks about the interplay of strategy and operations. The Iranians have to do something; if they simply let the strike go, they risk losing domestic support, and undermine the future credibility of their conventional and nuclear deterrent. At the same time, as Galrahn suggests, they really run the risk of overplaying. At this point, the only way that I see the US getting directly involved is if the Iranians engage in an over-the-top military response in the Gulf or in Iraq. This may, in fact, be what the Israelis are hoping for.
If I had to guess (and really, why not speculate?) I'd say that the first reaction of the senior leadership will be caution, combined with moderate escalation in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Gaza. They will want to indicate that Iran has the capacity to hurt, but won't want to provoke a US response or a more extensive set of Israeli strikes. However, Iran isn't a unitary rational actor, and the IRGC often seems capable of carrying out its own foreign and military policy. I don't think that the IRGC is either insane or suicidal, but I do think that some within the IRGC might see a more intense confrontation with the West as a boon domestically. This is to say that if the IRGC believes its domestic position will improve in case of war, it may have incentive to get adventurous.
As a final point, I'd like to suggest that there is, in general, too much of a willingness to throw around the term "irrational" in discussing Iran's foreign policy. I'm not exactly wedded to the neoclassical economic/rational actor/neorealist decision-making model, but in general I tend to think that leadership groups do what they believe is in their own best interests, and that the behavior of the bureaucratic organs of foreign policy tend to make internal sense. That may not go very far, but it should dispel a bit of the "wild eyed fanatic" model of Iranian decision-making. Iran is at loggerheads with Israel and the United States because it has genuine disputes with both about the international structure of the Middle East. It's entirely reasonable to believe that the Iranian vision for the Middle East would be bad for the US and Israel, while at the same time believing that the Iranian approach to foreign policy is essentially rational.
One other thing; there's been some frustration in the comments when I haven't responded quickly, or at all, to questions and critiques. I apologize, and will try to do better, but life intrudes...
No comments:
Post a Comment