Unthinkable (46 page)

These caveats should warn us against the easy assumption that because nuclear deterrence worked for the United States and the Soviet Union, it will work with Iran. Nevertheless, what we have seen from the Iranian leadership during the era of the Islamic Republic is that their behavior is aggressive, anti-American, anti–status quo, anti-Semitic, duplicitous, and murderous, but it is not irrational, and overall, it is not imprudent. It is sometimes risk-tolerant, but never reckless. Moreover, merely being risk-tolerant does not necessarily make one a threat to the international order. George W. Bush was highly risk-tolerant after the 9/11 attacks. For its part, Iran frequently tries to figure out where American red lines lie and then to come right up to the edge of those lines. Sometimes, the Iranians miscalculate and cross the line—as they arguably did at Khobar
Towers in 1996. And while that example is important to keep in mind, it is equally important to note that Iran pulled back afterward when it realized that it had crossed a line and was in danger of facing an American conventional military response. Similarly, we have seen that Iran is willing to absorb considerable damage in the pursuit of its goals, but again it is not insensitive to damage: even Khomeini (who was far more reckless, risk-tolerant, and damage-acceptant than Khamene'i has shown himself to be) brought the Iran-Iraq War to a close in 1988 when it became clear that Iran's military was in ruins and its civilian population was under threat from Saddam's missiles. Khamene'i has forced the Iranian people to endure the pain of the sanctions, but unpleasant as they may be, they do not match the hardships of the Iran-Iraq War.

There are a number of other useful examples of Iranian rationality and prudent deterrence behavior. Throughout the 1987–88 Tanker War in the Persian Gulf, Iranian naval vessels had strict rules of engagement intended to allow them to harass American vessels without provoking a conflict—in line with Tehran's belief that the United States was an enemy and an ally of Iraq, but one too powerful to take on openly.
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After the U.S. Navy's Operation Praying Mantis resulted in the sinking of half of Iran's major surface combatants, Tehran halted all of its naval attacks in the Gulf for nearly a month so as not to give Washington any excuse for further combat operations, and then resumed them in a more cautious manner.
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During Operation Desert Storm, while the United States had more than 500,000 military personnel, nearly 2,000 combat aircraft, and six carrier battle groups deployed to the Gulf to obliterate Saddam's military, the Iranians made no effort even to harass U.S. forces, including American warplanes that occasionally violated Iranian airspace. Tehran only issued a perfunctory protest when a U.S. fighter-bomber attacked what turned out to be an Iranian patrol boat in the northern Gulf.
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Even after segments of Iraq's Shi'a population revolted against Saddam in the wake of the Persian Gulf War, Iran did not send its own personnel in to assist the revolt, for fear of crossing the United States.
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Similarly, in 2003, during the U.S. buildup and invasion of Iraq, the Iranians made no move
that might have triggered an American reprisal. Afterward, when they feared that the United States would turn on them next, Tehran suspended its nuclear program to avoid giving Washington cause.
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All of this speaks to not just rational, but prudent, behavior on Tehran's part.

EXCEPTIONS.
There are at least two important outliers to this pattern of behavior. As I described earlier, in March 2007, during the occupation of Iraq, Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized fifteen British sailors and marines from Iraqi waters in the Shatt al-Arab. This action went well beyond the widespread Iranian clandestine support for Iraqi terrorists, insurgents, and militias looking to kill Americans. It was an overt act of international piracy, if not terrorism or war. Because the British were part of the U.S.-led coalition, the United States could have retaliated against Iran on behalf of the larger coalition. There is ample evidence in this case that the problem was reckless freelancing on the part of a mid-ranking Iranian naval commander, not the deliberate intention of the Iranian regime itself.
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Consequently, this incident cannot count against Tehran as an imprudent act. However, it raises the specter that the Iranian regime is not in full control of its own military—a different kind of problem related to nuclear weapons.

Then there is the Arbabsiar terrorist case, which I have mentioned several times already. In this incident, Iran plotted to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States by blowing up a popular Georgetown restaurant. Had that attack come off as planned (and apparently ordered) it might have moved the United States to respond with force. There are several possible explanations for what happened—none of them good for the United States, but all of them problematic in different ways. The first is that the Iranians were reckless and cavalier. That is certainly possible.

A second possibility is that the Iranians calculated America's red line correctly. Given President Obama's constant rhetoric about getting America out of wars in the Middle East, his precipitous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, his impending drawdown in Afghanistan, and his reluctance to commit U.S. forces elsewhere in the Middle East, the Iranians
may have concluded that, even in the event of a terrorist attack on American soil, the Obama administration would not respond with force and would instead retaliate in some other way—more sanctions or another cyberattack. It is worth pointing out that even after the plot was revealed, the Obama administration made no move to retaliate against Iran for it, certainly not one of which the public is aware. In contrast, President Clinton launched cruise missiles against the headquarters of Iraq's intelligence service for Saddam's stillborn effort to assassinate President George H. W. Bush and the emir of Kuwait in 1993. Likewise, it is hard to imagine that President George W. Bush would have refrained from retaliatory military action if the Arbabsiar plot had been uncovered on his watch. Hence, this incident may say less about Iran's willingness to risk crossing American red lines and more about where the Iranians believe those red lines lie under Obama—and that they may be right in their assessment.

The third possibility is that contrary to our understanding of how the Iranian regime plans and approves terrorist attacks, this operation was not approved by Khamene'i and was effectively a “rogue” operation by the Revolutionary Guards. If that is what happened, then as with the seizure of the British sailors and marines in 2007, it sets off alarms about whether there might be similar freelancing if Iran acquires nuclear weapons. Would more aggressive and less prudent Revolutionary Guard figures have access to Iran's nuclear weapons? Might they set one off on their own? Or give one to terrorists? These are important questions. Ultimately, as with so many things Iranian, we just don't know the answers.

Nevertheless, the evidence we have indicates that such scenarios are unlikely. First, Iran has supported terrorist groups of all stripes since 1979 and it has possessed chemical and biological warfare agents since about 1989 (and radioactive material for at least the last decade), and we have never seen these two aspects of Iranian security policy combined—on purpose or by rogue freelancers. Whether that indicates that no Revolutionary Guard ever considered doing so, or that the security measures Iran has in place to guard its WMD are so strong that they have prevented it, we don't know. But empirically, the system has worked. It indicates that Iran has a greater degree of prudence and caution where WMD is concerned, and that should be reassuring.

In other countries with similar problems, such as Pakistan—which has both nuclear weapons and a powerful intelligence service that seems to have considerable ability to freelance—there has never been a problem related to the nukes. The government makes extraordinary efforts to ensure that its nuclear weapons will only be used when the regime wants to do so deliberately. Senior American officials and intelligence officers under successive administrations have testified that they have great confidence in Pakistan's security for its nuclear weapons.
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This assurance should not be surprising since it has been true of every state that has acquired nuclear weapons, with the sole exception of the United States, which treated its nuclear arsenal in ways so cavalier that any other country would have been horrified.
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It is not surprising that these views regarding Iran's ultimate rationality and relative prudence are shared by others who favor containment and deterrence of Iran, including many who believe that it would be much easier to contain and deter a nuclear Iran than I do.
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What is more noteworthy is that this view appears to be the dominant position of my colleagues among the Iran experts.
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As Karim Sadjadpour put it with his usual flair, “Iran is a rational actor in the sense that staying in power is paramount. The regime is homicidal but it is not suicidal.”
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It is also a view held by many Israelis, and people close to the Israelis.
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In April 2012, Israel's armed forces chief of staff, Lieutenant General Benny Gantz, told the Israeli newspaper
Haaretz,
“I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people.”
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His predecessor, Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi, told the Israeli Knesset, “The Iranian regime is radical, but it's not irrational.”
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In the words of Israeli strategic analyst Yair Evron, “In view of Israel's widely assumed large nuclear arsenal and numerous delivery vehicles, including various protected platforms that form a second strike capability, it appears highly improbable that even a fanatic leadership would choose [to attack Israel]. The dangers
are enormous, not only to Iran as a country but first and foremost to the regime itself. No regime, even if endowed with the most extreme ideology, chooses to commit suicide.”
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And most striking of all is that it is a view held by many of the most savvy advocates of air strikes as well.
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For example, Matthew Kroenig states categorically, “To be sure, a nuclear-armed Iran would not intentionally launch a suicidal nuclear war.”
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Is there a chance that Iran's leadership would prove irrational or wildly reckless once it acquired nuclear weapons? Sure. There is always a chance, especially given the Iranian regime's various pathologies—its opacity, its Byzantine mechanics. The evidence we have, however, suggests that it is extremely unlikely. We have a huge amount of evidence, both general and specific, that indicates that the Iranian leadership is rational and not reckless, despite the fact that it is aggressive, murderous, paranoid, and operates according to a set of assumptions and goals that few outside of Tehran share. In contrast, we have almost no evidence to indicate the contrary, and those actions that appear at first blush to contradict it are probably exceptions proving the rule rather than undermining it.

One of the most important lessons of the Cold War was that incessantly worrying about low-probability, high-impact cases was a mistake.
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The United States and Soviet Union wasted obscene amounts of money, energy, manpower, and brainpower preparing for the proverbial “bolt from the blue,” which subsequent histories showed neither side's leadership ever seriously contemplated. Looking back on that era, Paul Bracken concluded, “At no time in the cold war did either side seriously consider a calculated nuclear strike on the other.”
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Moreover, by obsessing about it, we may have created crises unnecessarily and made other situations far more dangerous than they needed to be. In 1983, the Soviets misread a U.S. military exercise called ABLE ARCHER 83 as preparations for a surprise attack on the USSR.
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The Russians panicked, causing a crisis in
Moscow that, in the words of then-KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky, brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation: “The KGB concluded that American forces had been placed on alert—and might even have begun the countdown to war. . . . [The world] had, without realizing it, come frighteningly close [to a nuclear exchange]—certainly closer than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.”
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In this sense, I am arguing against what author Ron Suskind called the “1 percent doctrine” of the Bush 43 administration.
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This idea, most associated with Vice President Dick Cheney, posits that after the 9/11 attacks, the United States had to protect itself by doing whatever was necessary to eliminate threats with even a “1 percent” likelihood. Both Suskind and Cheney himself suggested that this calculus was a critical motivation in the administration's decision to invade Iraq and oust Saddam Husayn. In his memoirs, Cheney recalls reading an op-ed by former Bush 41 national security advisor Brent Scowcroft that opposed an invasion of Iraq, “As I read Brent's piece, I found myself thinking that it reflected a pre-9/11 mind-set, the worldview of a time before we had seen the devastation that terrorists armed with hijacked airplanes could cause. We had to do everything possible to be sure that they never got their hands on weapons that could kill millions.”
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Of course, Saddam never gave weapons of mass destruction—not chemical, biological, or radiological weapons—to terrorists, nor do we have any indication in the material recovered since the fall of Baghdad that he ever had any intention of doing so.

All of this history should serve as both a reassurance and a warning. To start, the likelihood that Iran would use nuclear weapons unprovoked or give them to terrorists is extremely low. Probably a lot less than a 1 percent probability, even if the likelihood is not zero. It would be a terrible mistake to make policy based on such a remote possibility. Doing so would lead us to make major exertions, bear huge costs, and run significant risks to blot out a minor risk, while creating a host of new but avoidable problems. Such an excessive focus on what is the least likely risk will distract us from dealing with a number of other, much more likely, and
still dangerous problems that Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons would create. I ultimately believe that containment, with its inherent reliance on deterrence, is a better course for the United States to pursue than war, but it is hardly a perfect policy. Nevertheless, we should not obscure its real problems by becoming obsessed with nightmare scenarios unlikely ever to occur.