Iran , The Bomb and Happy Bears

By Terry Lacey

(April 13, Jakarta, Sri Lanka Guardian) President Obama speaking to ABC´s Good Morning America about sanctions against possible Iranian nuclear weapons compared, “The Iranian regime to the North Korean regime”. (The Jakarta Post, 10.04.10). But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly ducked out of the Washington nuclear security summit in case Israeli nuclear “ambiguity” was mentioned.

In the old days Russia and America had the bomb. The system was bipolar. So there were only two lots of polar bears, the ones supporting Russia and the ones supporting America. Every bear knew where he stood.

And we had nuclear deterrence. If anyone dropped an atom bomb on someone else who had one, then they would get hit so hard that they would have wished tremendously that they had not been so silly in the first place.

So every bear, and everywhere, felt safe at night. They could tell their baby bears they would all still be there in the morning. Even when grown-ups got very cross and banged their shoes on the table at the UN, or sent rockets to Cuba.

The world was still full of happy bears because of nuclear deterrence.

And this idea of nuclear deterrence survived many changes. First the Americans and Russians had the bomb. Then the British and the French. France was considered unreliable, led by nuclear scientists who were communists, outside NATO and not Anglo-Saxon and properly organized.

Then came the Chinese, Indians and Pakistanis. This was starting to include people who should run restaurants but not have atom bombs. And Muslims, which really speaks for itself. And more communists.

Then we got to the North Koreans and Israelis, and now the Iranians. More but madder communists, settlers on hilltops with guns sent by God to the Holy Land and Shiites with Ayatollahs. Now the bipolar bears who used to be happy can´t bear it anymore. Does nuclear deterrence still work with such excitable people?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not go to the recent nuclear security summit in Washington in case somebody mentioned his bomb.

He sent his deputy Dan Mivedor instead, who could have comforted everyone by explaining that they haven’t quite got the bomb because it is in bits in the basement. But hopefully not as many complicated bits as a flat-board baby-chair.

You don’t want to be caught out looking for parts A1 and C3 and accompanying nuts and washers F3 and G9 while someone else drops an assembled one on you.

But why would they, if the theory of nuclear deterrence is right?

Or is it that at every stage in the growth of the nuclear military club the countries in it made every effort to stop, slow down and discredit new members?

Perhaps because the ownership of nuclear weapons is a means to reinforcing political and military power, international recognition and commercial advantage, even if your own economic, political and military clout is in relative decline?

I remember a French general who did not like atom bombs who said a long time ago that you can do anything you like with bayonets, except sit on them, and with nuclear weapons it’s the reverse. So why bother to build them, except as a symbol?

So the fuss about Iran may be more about the political balancing act in the Middle East and not about real military threats.

Will this and any future Iranian government always get an elected democratic majority to maintain the right to build the bomb, even if they never finish one?

And how is that so different from the Israelis claiming the right to build them without ever assembling one until they need it?

Perhaps Iran and Israel get so cross each other because they both pander to religious hard-liners, both maintain democracy alongside an element of repression, and both seek to strengthen their weakening political positions by being mutually aggressive, while maintaining a policy of nuclear ambiguity.

Their problem is not their enormous differences, but their great similarities.

If hitting Iran is the best card in the Israeli political pack then God help them, for the attempted undoing of the nuclear ambitions of the one might be the turning point in the undoing of the political illusions of the other.

Terry Lacey is a development economist who writes from Jakarta on modernization in the Muslim world, investment and trade relations with the EU and Islamic banking.