One of history's greatest tragedies was the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945, a calamity compounded three days later by a second bomb exploded over Nagasaki. It was, like most tragedy, made virtually inevitable by foregoing blunders: revengeful treatment of Germany following World War I, U.S. failure to join World War II when it began in 1939, thoughtless responses to Japanese aggression in Asia during the 1930s, and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Since 1945, nuclear weapons have remained humankind's greatest single immediate threat.
If we don't want to repeat the mistakes that led to Hiroshima, we had better treat the Iranian nuclear question rationally, realistically, and without childish bravado. U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton's recent letter to Iran, and Prime Minister Netanyahu's recent speech to Congress, were not serious. Netanyahu argued that a nuclear agreement with Iran would be a bad deal and should be rejected. Cotton suggested to Iran that a future U.S. president could revoke the agreement.
None of the agreement's opponents appear to have thought through the consequences of following their leads. Iran, having no further reason for restraint and every incentive for aggression, will move quickly toward a bomb; Israel will urge action to prevent a bomb and will pressure the U.S. to join it in threatening Iran; and we could easily be drawn into war -- a blunder that would dwarf even our foolish adventure into Iraq beginning in 2003.
The realistic fact is that, absent an agreement, the United States, Iran and Israel are on the road to war, possibly a nuclear war.
An important and insufficiently discussed side of the nuclear weapons puzzle is the connection between nuclear bombs and nuclear power. Nuclear power inevitably involves either uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing, because nuclear reactors run on enriched uranium and they produce plutonium, and further enrichment of uranium or reprocessing of reactor fuel to extract plutonium produces the fuel for nuclear weapons. Mohamed ElBaradei, former International Atomic Energy Agency director, has called the spread of enrichment and reprocessing the "Achilles' heel" of every attempt to control the spread of nuclear weapons. Iran is proud of its nuclear power program, which includes a large power reactor, another reactor under construction, and several small reactors used for research and nuclear medicine. Enrichment facilities are permitted under the international non-proliferation treaty, which Iran has signed, and Iran is not about to forego this privilege.
Despite America's presumption that Iranian leaders all wear black hats and seek nuclear weapons, there is a real question as to whether they want a bomb. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has, along with other clerics, issued a public and categorical religious decree, or "fatwa," against the development, production, stockpiling or use of such weapons. Certainly Iranians want, and are entitled to, enrichment facilities for their extensive present and planned future civilian nuclear program. But an Iranian bomb makes no sense strategically, because it will only attract attack by Israel and the U.S. Certainly any actual use of a nuclear weapon would be met by immediate nuclear annihilation of Iran's military capacity, with enormous civilian collateral damage, by Israel's strategic triad of some 200 air-, sea-, and land-based nuclear weapons, and by the United States. A carefully researched and fully referenced recent book, "Manufactured Crisis: the untold story of the Iran nuclear scare," by Gareth Porter, seriously questions the easy U.S. assumption that Iran desires nuclear weapons.
My conclusion is that Iran seeks not a bomb but rather the capacity to build a bomb, in order to pressure Israel to give up its own nukes. Israel is the Mideast's only nuclear power, and one of only four nations that haven't signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Nuclear weapons made some sense for Israel decades ago, but today they are unsustainable.
A nuclear deal with Iran will alleviate but not solve this problem. Only an Israeli decision to give up nuclear weapons can do that. Such a decision might sound far-fetched, but it's absolutely in Israel's rational self-interest. As long as Israel has such weapons, its neighbors will desire them. Visitors hear this constantly all over the Middle East. If not Iran, then Saudi Arabia or some other nation will acquire the bomb. The solution is a Mideast Nuclear-Free Zone. Khamenei called for this in 2012. The Non-Proliferation Treaty's 189 nations, including the U.S., voted unanimously for a conference to establish such a zone. Saudi Arabia supports it. It can happen, if Israel has the good sense to cooperate.
Art Hobson is a professor emeritus of physics at the University of Arkansas. Email him at [email protected].
Commentary on 03/31/2015