Can the World Live with a Nuclear Iran?

When we think of Iran having a nuclear ability most of assume the pose in Munch's The Scream. But what to do about it? Can the US afford to let Israel bomb Iran, should Obama order the American military to do the job, or is there another alternative? Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, argues in an editorial he wrote for the Financial Times that we can live with a nuclear Iran by using deterrence.

One alternative to a military strike would be to live with an Iranian programme. Deterrence would define such a policy. Iran would need to know that any use of nuclear weapons would meet a devastating response. It should know, too, that handing over nuclear materials to any terrorist group, such as Hamas or Hizbollah, would be discovered (given the growing expertise in nuclear forensics) and deemed no different than an Iranian use of the material. Intelligence that Iran had put its nuclear forces on alert would be met with a pre-emptive attack on those forces.

Haass makes a good argument that if Iran is attacked it immediately strengthens the hold of The Revolutionary Guard on the country. A US or Israeli attack could backfire, as Haass argues, and keep the "thugocracy" in place for years to come.

One point that Haass doesn't take up is how difficult bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities would be. Intelligence reports estimate that some of Iran's nuclear sites would require a massive aerial assault, and it would likely include the bunker busting bomb called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) the Pentagon began developing in 2007. It is a 30,000-pound bomb designed to hit targets buried 200 feet below ground and the Pentagon is building four of them. It seems unlikely that Obama will order a strike on Iran, but the Pentagon still has to be prepared for any and all eventualities.

Whatever happens in the next three months, Israel is rumored to be readying to bomb Iran in December, Iran is not going away any time soon.

Pakistan Protests US Aid

In what is probably not a first, we Americans don't pay attention to these things, Pakistanis are protesting a potential US non-military aid bill that promises $7.5 billion over five years. Not a bad package for a country that is often uncooperative with the US, threatens its neighbors, sells nuclear secrets to rogue countries, and harbors terrorists.

Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the as of yet unsigned bill compromises his country's sovereignty and attempts to micromanage its military operations. This is key sentence in the story published on Al Jezeera English. It is the very powerful Pakistani military that objects to the language in the aid package. The US will listen, or at least pretend to, the Pakistani's because the military operates the country and most importantly holds the keys to its stockpile of 70-90 nuclear warheads.

 The Al Jazeera report states that members of Pakistan's parliament consider the aid package a "humiliating violation of sovereignty." So, exactly what is the language in the bill that has the Pakistan military and its surrogates in government in such an uproar? We don't know, but Pakistan knows how to leverage its power. Qureshi met this week with not only Sen. Kerry, but the region's Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke, and National Security Adviser James Jones and laid out his concerns in plain language about the aid package and all the strings that come attached - US aid is rarely altruistic, it is always about the American best interest, which isn't necessarily a bad thing - and the Senior senator from Massachusetts said "not to worry" the bill is only being misinterpreted!

Kerry says the bill does not threaten Pakistani sovereignty and that once the US clarifies the language in the bill all will be well. Sounds like the bill is going back to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for a bit of "massaging" on the language, namely how to appease the Pakistani generals. Considering how Qureshi was able to quickly meet with such a wide array of top officials I am guessing there will be quite a bit of massaging.

Pakistan's military is an interesting dynamic. They hold the power over the country, government, and citizens and have for several decades now. Occasionally they allow a civilian to hold the presidency of Pakistan until they get too cozy with real democracy and then the military stages a coup and puts in one of their own. Then the cycle starts over again: the West pressures Pakistan for democratic elections, the military says we can't right now because of all the corruption those elected officials brought in, the West presses more, and finally on the verge of becoming an international pariah the military gives in and holds elections. But this seems to happen all the time in some African countries, Burma/Myanmar, and parts of Latin America, so what makes Pakistan different? It is the estimated 70-90 nuclear warheads they possess. Pakistan is a non-descript, poor Islamic country that was created by the British during Indian independence to give a home to the region's Muslims - and it is the only Muslim-majority nuclear state.

The proposed US aid package to Pakistan is a nice idea, former US ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlain said it is designed to close the "trust gap" that has existed between the two countries. Pakistan's generals aren't interested in trusting the US, they want the aid with no strings attached, after all their country is key to finding the al Qaeda leaders hiding in their frontier and stopping Islamic radicals from crossing into Afghanistan to fight US forces.