Prof Morris discounts the possibility of the Americans mounting air strikes to take out the Iranian nuclear capability, given the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan. The article has contradictions at certain places. On the one hand while he claims that any pre-emptive airstrike would achieve the purpose only if it takes out Iranina nuclear capability, he also concedes that the Israeli military and airforce does not have the intelligence and strikeforce required to completely eliminate Iranian nuclear capability. Therefore the Israeli attack will only leave things in a limbo, exacerbating the instability, and making Iranians even more determined to continue their nuclear program.
His contention that the best possible outcome would be for Iran to back off from its nuclear program, while being best from Israeli point of view, will always be unstable given the Middle Eastern reality. It will continue to keep the balance of power tilted decisively in favour of Israel, and always leave wide discontent in the Arab world. This unstable balance will result in the nuclear program getting revived in Iran or eslewhere.
Benny Morris' is the perspective from TelAviv. Here is what the nuclear stand-off matrix would look like, taking into account the view from Teheran.
Here is the classic stand-off. Israel does not trust the "fundamentalist, self-sacrificial mindset of the mullahs who run Iran" and believes that the Iranians will make good their promise to "wipe out Israel from the face of earth" once they acquire nuclear weapons. Iran in contrast, feels that it is never safe and will continue to have a weak negotiating position, both with Israel and more importantly US, in a scenario of nuclear weapon assymetry.
Further, the Israeli fear that the Iranians may mount a nuclear attack on acquiring nuclear weapon capability, may be misplaced. This will surely not gain the support of any of the other Arab powers. The Middle East politics has moved a considerable distance from the early days of the Palestinian intifadah of 1987. The numerous rounds of negotiations between both sides, directly and indirectly, since the Oslo accords, have been positive developments when seen in the overall perspective of the tumultous history of Middle East for the past 63 years.
There are many reasons to suspect that, ironically enough, the persisting nuclear and resultant political imbalance may be a strong contributor to the continuing support for militant groups like Hezbollah and periodic bouts of open hostility and verbal skrimishes between both sides. A nuclear Iran may have the impact of substantially toning down the Arab bellicosity and increasing their self-confidence and bargaining position in dealing with Israel. The example of Pakistan, vulnerable to the same levels of perceived militant Islamic influences, is a case in point. Once the nuclear assymetry with India was bridged, sometime in the early to mid-nineties, and the local balance of power restored, the verbal aggression subsided.
There is an undefined level of restraint that Arab governments, including Iran, have exercised in recent years, when translating their words into actions. Thus even as public opinion was strongly in favor of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, all the Arab governments refrained from even supporting, leave alone acting in favour of them.
It is clear from the game matrix that Middle East suffers from a major "confidence deficit" between the Israelis and Arabs. Since the Yom Kippur war of 1973 (the pre-emptive air attack on the Iraqi Osirak reactor in 1981 was a smaller one, given the context), despite periodic cross-border air-strikes by Israel and retaliation by Arabs, there have been no major wars directly between Israel and the Arabs. The American led misadventures since the early nineties, during which they were often seen pursuing Israeli political agenda in the region, did open up some of the wounds. But on the whole, by Middle East standards, over the past three to five years a low intensity equilibrium has been stabilizing. The wounds of history, while too deep to heal easily, were surely getting some semblance of treatment.
Any Israeli air attack on Iran will have to be seen in this context. It needs to be borne in mind that, unlike the other Arab nations, Iran is the ideological fountainhead of pan-Islamic Nationalism and its (populist) definition as the anti-thesis of the Israeli and Jewish identity. It is in this background that we need to analyze any consequences of any Israeli pre-emptive attack on Iran. It will be catastrophic and long-lasting. It will almost invariably suck in the other Arab states, and become the first direct war between the Israel and Arabs in 35 years. The time healed wounds of the last attack 35 years back, will get immediately re-opened.
What Middle East needs is more time, so that the mutual confidence will increase. Till a critical mass of mutual confidence, between Israel and atleast a couple of major Arab powers, gets established the low intensity conflict will continue. The major powers, especially America, needs to do everything it can to prevent any mis-adventure by Israel that would uspet the delicate equilibrium, and take the reqion back to 1973.
Update 1 (28/3/2010)
Times draws attention to a Brookings Institution simulation of an Isreali attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
3 comments:
Morris is not "well respected". He's a thug Zionist who espouses ethnic cleansing and hatred. Typical.
And read Treacherous Alliance before spouting off crap about how Iran is the "fountain head of pan-Islamic nationalisn and anti-thesis of Israel" etc. BALONEY.
It is true that Morris has been drifting towards the right, and today holds positions on the conflict that are far cry from those days when he was seen as one of the more outspoken opponents of the Israeli state. It is reflected in some of his arguements in the article. But none of it detracts the fact that he, along with the likes of Ilan Pappe and Tom Segev are some of the more respected and balanced Israeli historians.
Another related issue. If Israel feels that a nuclear weapon Iran is destabilizing in so far as it opens up the possibility of it landing up in the hands of irresponsible, fundamentalist and extremist elements who have vowed to exterminate the state of Israel, then the same danger exists with the presence of nuclear weapons in the hands of an equally vulnerable Pakistani state. The danger becomes even more immediate given the widely circulating reports that Osama bin Laden is (was) hiding in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan. Will Israel initiate pre-emptive strikes on Pakistan? And on North Korea?
There is no way any country can achieve absolute security. Any attempt at such designs will only destabilize the balance of power and ultimately end up doing more harm than any good.
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