President Obama clarified today that he’s looking to prevent, not contain, a nuclear-armed Iran, during his speech to AIPAC. While this was a welcome acknowledgement, it’s not particularly meaningful. Containment policy toward Iran has become so unpalatable that even American apologists for the Iranian regime rarely openly advocate it in mainstream discourse.
Instead, these regime allies promote a different kind of containment policy: containment of a nuclear-capable Iran. In other words, the bomb is the redline – but everything that Iran does leading up to the bomb, including high-level enrichment, is acceptable.
This strategy brings Iran within arms-length of obtaining a nuclear weapon (which is also well after Israel would have the ability to take military action). And it gives regime apologists more time to argue that a nuclear-armed Iran is less of a threat to the world than commonly believed.
The National Iranian-American Council, an American group that advocates for pro-regime policies, has been one of the most vocal supporters of this policy of containing a “nuclear-capable” Iran. The organization has pushed back against a Senate resolution that would specify Iran’s capability to build a weapon as a redline:
“This measure contradicts and confuses the existing United States ‘redline’ that Iranian acquisition of a nuclear weapon is unacceptable. Instead of reinforcing existing standards, the measure lowers the bar to assert that even the capability to pursue a nuclear weapon would be grounds for war. This is dangerous policy to be toying with.
“Acquisition is very different from capability. Nuclear weapons capability is a nebulous term that could theoretically be applied to every state from Canada to the Netherlands that possesses civilian nuclear capabilities. We should not be staking questions of war on such a shaky foundation.”
So while Obama was right to reject containment of a nuclear-armed Iran today, it’s noteworthy (and concerning) that he declined to rule out containment of a nuclear-capable Iran:
Iran’s leaders should know that I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And as I’ve made clear time and again during the course of my presidency, I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests.
Trita Parsi, the president of NIAC, praised Obama for keeping the door open to containment. He wrote in the Huffington Post today:
The Obama administration puts the red line not at enrichment — which is permitted under international law — but at nuclear weapons. This is a clearer, more enforceable red line that also has the force of international law behind it.
While expressing his sympathy and friendship with Israel, Obama did not yield his red line at AIPAC. With the backing of the U.S. military, he has stood firm behind weaponization rather than weapons capability as the red line.
The fact that the head of NIAC drew this conclusion from the president’s AIPAC speech is something that should deeply worry supporters of Israel.
It doesn't matter where Obama draws his line as Israel is drawing its own line at an earlier stage than Obama. And given that Israel (Netanyahu in particular) isn't going to rely on anything Obama says, Israel has no choice but to attack… so Obama's willingness to live with Iran being able to do X or Y is somewhat irrelevant. n nBut go ahead and keep talking about it.
I agree — absent one point, a better summary than I could have written. n nThe point is that Iran does not need to accomplish a sustaining fission reaction (ie "bomb that goes 'bang'") in order to be a nuclear threat to both Israel and the USA. Two words: Dirty Bomb. n nAll they need is enough highly radioactive material to mold around regular explosives (of whatever type) to be spread over a large area when said regular explosives explode. Burst such devices in the air and you would have a Chernobyl, an area where every living thing (bird to human) quickly dies, but there is no blast damage to property or infrastructure. n nYes, it is cool to have the glowing mushroom cloud and the rest, but dirty bombs are every bit as deadly (in some ways more scary) and this isn't just Israeli security but American security. Get a homicide bomber (or some poor schmuck who doesn't know what the powder is) and simply dump a backpack full of it into a subway tunnel — Good Lord! Remember too that radiation exposure is like a sunburn, you don't know you have been exposed to too much until well after it is too late — even though exposed to a lethal dose and beyond the help of medical care, the schmuck tossing this stuff into the tunnel would appear perfectly healty for some time later — maybe as much as a day. As would everyone else who was exposed. n nThis stuff is scary….
This is a man intending to cut one-half trillion to one trillion (with sequestration) from America's home defense and floats plans to pare America's home nuclear deterrent to about the level of France's. Assume Israel should be worried by the petulantly parsing pretender's substitution of contradictory verbal assurances for resolutely consistent diplomacy intended to contain Iran's nuclear weaponization at any level. That's the least of our problems here.
Remember one other thing — nukes are radioactive, and thus are breaking down over time. We don't really REALLY know if some of our older nukes would actually go bang or not, if they are still radioactive *enough* to go bang. This is why we would, on occasion, test one underground just to make sure — which we aren't allowed to do anymore. n nWe aren't building any new ones, we are trimming the number we have, and we increasingly don't even know if they would even work. Sounds like fun…
Illuminating distinction clarified in this post for a layman such as myself. n nThanks for the clarity.