Roane Carey is strongly opposed to an Israeli attack on Iran and gives the following reasons to support his opinion:
It would, as a start, serve as a powerful recruiting tool for extremist Islamist groups.
How many people, who weren’t previously thinking of doing so anyway, would throw in their lot with terrorism as a result of such an event? No doubt some would. Would their numbers be such as to constitute a strong argument against such an attack? I doubt it.
In addition, an outraged Iran might indeed send commandos into Iraq…
It might indeed and what a good thing that would be. The basic difficulty of counterinsurgency operations consists of identifying and attacking the enemy while minimizing harm to noncombatants. If Iran could be goaded into solving this problem for the Americans by sending regular or semi-regular forces into Iraq, I’m sure this would greatly please the Pentagon brass as it would involve a shift to a kind of warfare at which America excels.
… aid armed Iraqi groups determined to attack U.S. and government forces…
On a sufficient scale and with sufficient speed to make any significant difference to American plans in the region? I don’t know but I don’t think that it’s knockdown obvious that the answer is “yes”.
…shoot missiles into the Saudi or Kuwaiti oilfields…
This is a real danger. Oil prices would surely spike but better to spike from their current price than the price of a year ago. Furthermore, it’s not obvious to me how attacking its neighbors’ principle source of earnings would enhance Iran’s influence and prestige in the region. After all, the ayatollahs are a rational bunch of guys and take that sort of thing into account, right?
… and attempt to block the Straits of Hormuz though which a significant percentage of global oil passes.
See my previous point about the price of oil and Iran’s relations with its neighbors. Also, the ability of Iran to block the Straits for any length of time, in the face of a determined effort from the United States to keep it open, remains to be seen.
Washington would certainly have to write off desperately needed cooperation in the war against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Good point.
Any attack would only strengthen the reign of the mullahs in Iran…
A successful Israeli attack on the facilities of a project into which the ayatollahs have invested huge resources and prestige would strengthen the rule of those very same ayatollahs. I think I’d need to see that argued in a bit more depth.
…reinforce the country’s determination to acquire a nuclear deterrent force that would prevent future attacks.
Even if this is true, I’d be prepared to swap an increase in the determination of the regime to acquire nuclear weapons for a diminution in its real possibilities of doing so.
And keep in mind, Iran’s nuclear program has overwhelming public support, even from those opposed to the current regime.
There’s overwhelming public support in Iran for the acquisition of nuclear weapons and not just for a civil nuclear programme? I’d be interested in seeing the evidence for this.
None of this means that it’s necessarily a good idea for Israel to attack Iran. It shows that the arguments frequently made for not doing so need to be examined with care.
And one more point; Carey asks whether Israel would really
… attack Iran without at least tacit approval from Washington? Could Israel do so without such approval? At the very least, Israel would need approval simply to get permission to fly over Iraq, whose airspace is controlled by the U.S. military, not the Iraqi government in Baghdad.
It has long been public knowledge that flying over Iraq isn’t the IAF’s only option.
“Any attack would only strengthen the reign of the mullahs in Iran…”
I truly hate to admit it, but this is probably true.
Much of the Iranian opposition views the Iran-Iraq war as the event which solidified the Islamic Republic’s rule right after the revolution. By rallying the vast majority of Iranians behind the notion of defaa-e moghaddas (”sacred defense”), the regime was able to consolidate its power, essentially arguing that any domestic disagreement has to be put aside until the nation is secure, etc. By the time the war was over, the country was spent and no one was left willing to stand up to the regime.
When it comes to Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, even the most bitter opponents of the IRI (say, Monarchists or Leftists) may be willing to set aside their differences to defend Iran.
Hi Ganselmi…
1.
No one is proposing the invasion of Iran and the overthrow of the regime so I am not sure how the factors you outline relating to the Iran-Iraq would apply. If Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities that would sure represent an escalation in the ongoing hostilities between the two nations but a general war would only result if the ayatollahs wanted it.
If this did happen then then the considerations you sketch above might still not apply because the distance between the countries and the disparity in their respective air power dictates that anything but a brief and very bloody rocket-delivered slugfest is unlikely.
2.
I also have great difficulty with the general idea that if you hurt your enemy badly you are in fact only making him stronger. It seems to be a logic applied only to Israel. Nobody suggests that Baathism in Iraq is in fact stronger now that Saddam is dead and his regime destroyed , do they? One could think of other examples…
Eamonn,
I would argue that a general war need not occur in order for the regime to use an Israeli strike as an excuse to consolidate its rule at a time when so many socio-economic and demographic factors threaten it. Oil prices are low, inflation and unemployment are high, the Supreme Leader is old, and, most importantly, 70% of the population is under 30. Meanwhile, ethnic unrest among the Baluchis, Kurds, Arabs, and Azeris has been higher than ever since the Revolution.
In other words, the “internal contradictions” in Iranian society (to use a bit of Marxian lingo) are the regime’s worst enemies. We can see this in the IRGC’s shift in strategy from preparations for total war towards preparations for low-intensity velvet/orange/etc.-style revolutions and domestic unrest. We are dealing, in other words, with an insecure creature. In this context, an excuse to once again rally the people behind “sacred defense” is exactly what the Mullahs want. That’s why they sow enmity towards Israel and the US, that’s why they sponsor Hizbullah and HAMAS.
Now all that said, it may still be the case that Israel’s fundamental security vis-a-vis the possibility of a nuclearized IRI overrides any concerns about whether or not a strike may or may not prolong the regime. I would completely understand this line of thinking from an Israeli perspective. But as an Iranian, it troubles me.