MAD worked during the Cold War, could it work Iran vs. Israel ?

[EVDebs]

If Israel has a submarine force equivalent to the US's during the Cold War (read Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag, Christopher and Annette Drew) which allowed for a truly 'mutual assured destruction' component as a prophylactic to a 'first strike', wouldn't that make the Iranian mullahs and Ahmadinejhad think twice before attempting something as foolish as a first strike, knowing it would also be their last ?

Is MAD as a preventive measure even possible in the ME ?

Links:

Blind Man's Bluff
http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=1891620088

MAD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction

[MidwestTransplant]

1. Depends on what's motivating them. Iran with a nuke is good for nobody.

[EVDebs]

2. But Pakistan has one, along with India...

A nutcase could overthrow Musharraf and then what ? India would be tempted...

The world is scary enough already. Also, someone I know, now deceased (the only way to put this) invented the launching system for sub missiles that allowed for sub-based MAD to happen. Didn't get creditted in the book Blind Man's Bluff, but that's ok. He didn't have a college education, either. Tons of common sense though.

[MidwestTransplant]

3. Iran already has kind of a nut case.

Re. Pakistan, don't think there aren't contingency plans to eliminate their technology. I am sure we keep a pretty close eye on their nukes.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

4. I'm pretty sure Pakistan does, too.

Musharraf may be a bastard, but a nuclear-armed Taliban is about the last thing he'd ever want.

[leesa]

14. Israel and the US with nukes is good for nobody. If Israel, or another

country, is invading to get something (water, oil...Israel has neither) they don't have and MUST have to survive, will the deterrant work?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

5. I do not think MAD would work.

Actually, I believe that MAD is irrelevant in this case, because I see no reality in which Israel would allow Iran to get the bomb. If they thought Iran was getting close, they'd figure out a way to take them out before they got it.

[EVDebs]

6. They let Pakistan...

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

7. Several points:

1) They couldn't have stopped Pakistan, even if they wanted to.
2) Pakistan is not exactly high on the list of threats to Israel.
3) Israel is not exactly high on the list of priorities of Pakistani Islamists.

[Yupster]

9. No MAD wouldn't work because if

Iran decided to nuke Israel they would do it through a Lebanese terrorist group which would slip the bomb across the border and blow up part of Israel.

Israel would have no way to link the bomb to Iran and therefore wouldn't be able to respond, at least with any of the west's backing anyway.

If a terrorist nuke went off in Tel Aviv three years from now

Israel would blame Iran
Iran would blame Israeli agents trying to humiliate Islam
The rest of the Middle east would agree it was the Jews
Europe would call for restraint
Conspiracy theorists would have their best times ever.

[MidwestTransplant]

13. 2 things

First, you would't be able to nuke a small part of Israel. Israel isn't very big.

Second, it would be easy to determine where the bomb came from because the uranium can be traced to a certain reactor. Iranium from US reactors is different from Russian for example. Iran's would similarly be different.

[Yupster]

15. I'm thinking of more of a bomb

that could be snuck in within the trunk of a car or even in a briefcase rather than a US-style nuke.

Also, I think the origin of the material would be immaterial.

If the Israelis proved the material came from Iran,

Iran would still say it was a MOSSAD operation to humiliate Islam.

The rest of the Arab World would blame the Jews.

Europe would urge restraint.

And there would be tin-foil hat theories all over the world, most blaming Bush whether he's still president or not.

[Douglas Carpenter]

16. there is simply no evidence whatsoever that-that is the Iranian thinking

Racist assumption against the Arabs or Persians are not a legitimate argument

It should also be pointed out that it is NOT Iran that is rejecting direct fact to face talks about this issue.

from: Fishing for a Pretext in Iran

by Juan Cole; March 18, 2006

link: http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=9929

snip:"it is often alleged that since Iran harbors the desire to “destroy” Israel, it must not be allowed to have the bomb. Ahmadinejad has gone blue in the face denouncing the immorality of any mass extermination of innocent civilians, but has been unable to get a hearing in the English-language press. Moreover, the presidency is a very weak post in Iran, and the president is not commander of the armed forces and has no control over nuclear policy. Ahmadinejad’s election is not relevant to the nuclear issue, and neither is the question of whether he is, as Liz Cheney is reported to have said, “a madman.” Iran has not behaved in a militarily aggressive way since its 1979 revolution, having invaded no other countries, unlike Iraq, Israel or the U.S. Washington has nevertheless succeeded in depicting Iran as a rogue state"

snip:"Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei has given a fatwa or formal religious ruling against nuclear weapons, and President Ahmadinejad at his inauguration denounced such arms and committed Iran to remaining a nonnuclear weapons state.

In fact, the Iranian regime has gone further, calling for the Middle East to be a nuclear-weapons-free zone. On Feb. 26, Ahmadinejad said:
“We too demand that the Middle East be free of nuclear weapons; not only the Middle East, but the whole world should be free of nuclear weapons.”
Only Israel among the states of the Middle East has the bomb, and its stockpile provoked the arms race with Iraq that in some ways led to the U.S. invasion of 2003. The U.S. has also moved nukes into the Middle East at some points, either on bases in Turkey or on submarines"

snip"Bush’s allegations about the Iranians providing improvised explosive devices to the Iraqi guerrilla insurgency are bizarre. The British military looked into charges of improvised explosive devices coming from Iran, and actually came out this past January and apologized to Tehran when no evidence pointed to Iranian government involvement. The guerrillas in Iraq are militant Sunnis who hate Shiites, and it is wholly implausible that the Iranian regime would supply bombs to the enemies of its Iraqi allies."

link to full article: http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=9929

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

17. Pretty much.

Although my theoretical scenario for what would happen in that situation is actually a lot worse. My original point was that I don't think Israel is prepared to let Iran get anywhere close to being able to give a bomb to Hezbollah.

[Savannah Progressive]

8. MAD only works if neither side wishes to die.

While we might be able to affix that belief to the Israeli's, do you think we can affix it to the Iranians? We have a lunatic in Iran who is spouting rhetoric that makes Ronald Reagan look like a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Reagan called the Soviet Union an "Evil Empire" and we lost our minds. We couldn't believe he would instigate the Soviets in such a manner. Thank Gorbachev for not rising to the bait on that one.

However, Reagan never said that God had called upon him to wipe them from the earth. Iran has made many such statements in regards to Israel.

The problem with a radical in charge of WMD's is obvious, we face it ourselves. A radical lunatic will eventually begin to believe his own sycophants and press. How empowering it must be for W to be constantly referred to as the Most powerful man in the world. Eventually it has to go to your head is what I am saying.

The Iranian leader already has delusions of megalomania, he already believes his sycophants and fawning ME Press. That nation with a Nuke is unacceptable, for that was our argument when we were ramping up to Iraq. We told Bush that Iran was a much bigger potential threat, but Bush, believing his sycophants, was too busy keeping his eye on the Iraq ball to notice the Iran one bouncing higher and higher.

We may not be able to wait until B is out of office before dealing with Iran, If there was ever a time when bi-partisan dialog was needed, it's now.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

18. And unfortunately,

we're less likely to get bipartisan dialog now due to the huge divisions idiot boy has nurtured in this country.

[martymar64]

10. Why are you guys pushing for a fight with Iran?

From the postings it seems that you are almost salivating at the prospect of nuking Iran.
Don't you know that this fight will bring about the fall of our civilization as we know it?
Not from the nukes themselves, but from the reactions to the nukes falling.

1. The Straits of Hormuz will be closed indefinitely. A couple of Exocets against tankers will see to that. The Persian Gulf will become a pond of death for the US Navy as Sunburn missles decimate our fleet. Our troops in Iraq will be effectively cut off from supplies. Iraqi insurgents will take advantage of the opportunity to attack our troops, probably with help of Iranian ground troops. The oil from Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE will cease to flow out. Watch gas prices go to $10+/ gal overnight, destroying the US economy.

2. The world will turn against the US and Israel. China will call in its chips, destroying the US economy overnight. Russia will start rattling sabers against us, sparking a new cold war. Even our allies like Great Britain will forsake us. The UN will pass resolutions strongly condemning our actions. We will be pariahs.

Now all of you people that support an attack on Iran, answer this: Is it worth destroying our country and possibly plunging the world into a new Dark Ages in order to score a few points against Iran? All I see as a result of nuking Iran is death and destruction all around for everybody.
Our children and generations beyond will curse us for eternity.

IS THAT WHAT YOU SEEK????!!!!????

[EVDebs]

12. That same 'pond of death' kills the Iranian economy, based on oil

Looks like someone, either way, shoots themselves in the foot on this stumbling block. But maybe getting the Iranians provoked somehow into firing the first shot is tempting to the neocon Vulcans. And the mullahs seem to enjoy the brinksmanship, too. Fun for all to be had.

[Douglas Carpenter]

11. Fishing for a Pretext in Iran by Juan Cole; March 18, 2006

link: http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=9929§ionID=67


snip: "in November of 2003 the IAEA formally announced that it could find no proof of such a weapons program. The U.S. reaction was a blustery incredulity, which is not actually an argument or proof in its own right, however good U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is at bunching his eyebrows and glaring."

snip:"The Bush administration has arbitrarily taken the position that Iran may not have a nuclear research program at all, even a civilian one. This stance actually contradicts the guarantees of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Washington officials continually intimate to the press that Tehran has an active weapons program, which is speculation. And, of course, the United States itself is egregiously in violation of several articles of the NPT, keeping enough nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert to destroy the world several times over and actively pursuing new and deadly weapons, even dreaming of “tactical”
nukes. Its ally in the region, Israel, never signed the NPT and was helped by the British to get a bomb in the 1960s"

snip: "Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei has given a fatwa or formal religious ruling against nuclear weapons, and President Ahmadinejad at his inauguration denounced such arms and committed Iran to remaining a nonnuclear weapons state."

snip:" is often alleged that since Iran harbors the desire to “destroy” Israel, it must not be allowed to have the bomb. Ahmadinejad has gone blue in the face denouncing the immorality of any mass extermination of innocent civilians, but has been unable to get a hearing in the English-language press. Moreover, the presidency is a very weak post in Iran, and the president is not commander of the armed forces and has no control over nuclear policy. Ahmadinejad’s election is not relevant to the nuclear issue, and neither is the question of whether he is, as Liz Cheney is reported to have said, “a madman.” Iran has not behaved in a militarily aggressive way since its 1979 revolution, having invaded no other countries, unlike Iraq, Israel or the U.S. Washington has nevertheless succeeded in depicting Iran as a rogue state"

In fact, the Iranian regime has gone further, calling for the Middle East to be a nuclear-weapons-free zone. On Feb. 26, Ahmadinejad said:
“We too demand that the Middle East be free of nuclear weapons; not only the Middle East, but the whole world should be free of nuclear weapons.”
Only Israel among the states of the Middle East has the bomb, and its stockpile provoked the arms race with Iraq that in some ways led to the U.S. invasion of 2003. The U.S. has also moved nukes into the Middle East at some points, either on bases in Turkey or on submarines."

read full article: http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=9929§ionID=67