No no-brainer

Eric Edelman, Andrew Krepinevich, and Evan Braden Montgomery argue that President Obama should “take out” Iran’s nuclear program:

The closer Iran gets to acquiring nuclear weapons, the fewer options will be available to stop its progress. At the same time, Iran’s incentives to back down will only decrease as it approaches the nuclear threshold.

This is an argument to be taken seriously, as it is surely also being made inside the United States government.  Dismissing it summarily, as commenters on the Foreign Affairs website have done so far, is foolish.

There are two propositions here: 1) fewer options in the future to stop Iran’s progress; 2) Iran’s incentives to back down only decrease as it approaches the nuclear threshold.  There are problems with both.

Even after Iran develops and deploys nuclear weapons, we would have the option of striking their key nuclear facilities and as many of their nuclear weapons as we could find.  The difficulty with doing this is that it invites a nuclear counter-strike with any surviving weapons, at Israel if not at the U.S.  But even if we strike now, we are unlikely to be 100% successful, and we would be giving Iran an enormous incentive to accelerate their nuclear program as best they could with whatever facilities they had remaining.  The danger of an Iranian counter-strike might not be immediate, but it would be just as real.  This takes us down the road of repeated strikes on Iran.  I’d like to discuss the regional consequences of that before assuming it is preferable to strike now.

As for Iran’s incentives, I think it likely they can achieve as much or more of what they want by approaching the nuclear threshold but not going over it, which in effect is what they say they are doing. Having the material and technology to produce nuclear weapons will give Iran regional prestige and clout without necessarily setting off the regional arms race that Edelman, Krepinevich and Montgomery fear.  Going over the threshold will not only precipitate nuclear programs by far richer countries, it will also cause the U.S. to target Iran with nuclear weapons (let’s assume Israel already does), vastly increasing Tehran’s uncertainty about what might happen.

Edelman et. al. put the bottom line this way:

Given these trends, the United States faces the difficult decision of using military force soon to prevent Iran from going nuclear, or living with a nuclear Iran and the regional fallout.

Even in this formulation, the answer is by no means self-evident. But to imply that there will not be regional fallout from using military force is clearly wrong.  I might reformulate it this way:

The United States faces the difficult decision of using military force soon and repeatedly to prevent Iran from going nuclear, or continuing to ratchet up sanctions, cyberattacks and other efforts in convince the Iranians that crossing the nuclear threshold will be injurious and not beneficial to their national security.

We are going to have to live with regional fallout, which will be different but substantial whichever choice we make.  This is not a no brainer.