Cordesman/Wilner, Iran & The Gulf Military Balance
AHC 6/3/12
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clearly failed, and Israel can do a far more effective job with far fewer negative consequences than seems likely for the unclassified data now available. The alternative is for key US allies, the flow of world energy exports, and the US and global economies to live under the growing shadow of an Israeli-Iranian nuclear arms race. Moreover, a arms where the forces involved ensure that the primary targets will be the other country’s population centers. Accepting this risk requires a belief in Iran’s restraint, in mutual deterrence based on a new regional form of mutual assured destruction, and accepting the risk other nations will join the race. It means accepting the risk of some miscalculation or accident triggering a disaster with massive humanitarian and economic costs. Accepting this risk also means the US must do everything possible to provide its Arab allies, Turkey, and Europe with missile defenses and to improve Israel’s missile defenses. It means making good on the US offer of extended deterrence to protect other states – potentially dragging the US into at least the periphery of a regional nuclear arms race and potential nuclear conflict. It also means living with the near certainty of tying the continuing asymmetric arms race in the Gulf, and the constant risk of clashes or more serious conflicts, to the risk of the linkage between Iran’s use of asymmetric warfare and future acquisition of nuclear forces. A “waiting option” that relies on diplomacy, sanctions, and the offer of incentives is scarcely a pleasant one, and it too is filled with risks that will increase on both a short and long term basis. It is, however, probably the least bad of a range of bad options, and it does give time for regime change to take place in Iran. The prospects of such a change really altering Iran’s actions and ambitions is uncertain – and many of the claims the regime is fragile and easy to change seem a triumph of hope and ideology over common sense. Yet, successful negotiations, containment and waiting for regime change do seem to be the best option available.
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