Sir,
I never heard of your blog until today, when I learned of its existence thanks to one of my favorite blogs I feel compelled to name, neveryetmelted.com. Until I discovered this happy news I used to read each and all articles you publish in The National Review. So, let me say two things first.

I’ll be one amongst your most loyal readers from now on, and,

Happy New Year!

Now I pursue on the matter at hand, Iran and the article you publish about it, and I apologize to Michael Ledeen and to the readers, for the exceptional length of this comment.

That Iran is a growing threat in the Greater Middle East and beyond is become a truism.

In May 2006 Edward Luttwak wrote an interesting article on Commentary whose title is Three Reasons not to Bomb Iran Yet. This article focuses mainly on the Iranian capacity to enrich uranium and to build a home made atomic bomb. At that time Edward Luttwak said “The regime certainly cannot produce nuclear weapons in less than three years, and may not be able to do so even then because of the many technical difficulties not yet overcome.”

But, from May to November, 2006, the matter at hand as shifted from nuclear concerns only to nuclear concerns plus Iran fuelled insurgency spotted here and there in the Middle East. However, a good reason not to act precipitously is that the worst of its leaders positively want to be bombed, and are seemingly doing their level best to bring that about.

Why?

The reason may be partly about religion, and partly about more down-to-earth considerations such as domestic policy.
On the one hand, we have religious rulers who believe in the return of the twelfth imam and the end of life on earth, and who additionally believe that this redeemer may be forced to reveal himself by provoking a nuclear catastrophe. But religious rulers in Iran are loosing their prestige. They are corrupted and their abuse of power is well known by the Iranian population.
On the other hand, we have an Iranian population which, except for a narrow segment of extremists, do not view themselves as enemies of the United States, but rather as the exact opposite. At a time when Americans are unpopular in all other Muslim countries, most Iranians become distinctly friendlier when they learn that a visitor is American.

So, on the basis of such facts, one could hazard the hypothesis that the Iranian governing elite would make great profit of U.S. bombings on their soil. It would reverse a trend to make the Iranian population feeling they are attacked by the foreign country they most admire, and with which they wish to restore the best of relations. Beside, it will fuel further anti-Americanism in other parts of the world.
So, such long-term consequences of a military action cannot be disregarded, and a careful review of this important factor deserves to be compared with how Iraqi civilians perceived U.S. bombings in 2002, and to which extent those bombings changed their attitude toward their liberators.

Still in Commentary, Arthur Herman, a Conservative American historian, wrote an article on this question, and he seems to be well aware of this difficulty, though he didn’t elaborate, since he wrote in his article that “(….) many will worry that decisive U.S. action will boomerang politically, by alienating Iran’s democrats and dissidents and thus jeopardizing the hoped-for eventuality of a pro-Western government emerging in Tehran.”

Overall, the matter is quite tricky since, on the one hand, it is irresponsible to argue for coexistence with a future nuclear-armed Iran on the basis of a shared faith in mutual deterrence; and, on the other hand, a military intervention is likely to trigger a reversal of a situation that is now favorable to the U.S. interest.

Technically, U.S. air intervention and naval blockade in Iran is possible, while full terrestrial deployment on the Iranian territory is not a sustainable option. Iran is a much bigger country than Iraq. It is mountainous, and it has more than 60 millions inhabitants. Beside, the mere idea of launching a military intervention of such scale, as suggests Arthur Herman, is incompatible, today, with a general mood of the U.S. public opinion that is growing dissatisfied with the Iraqi issue. So, what next, once all targets would have been successfully hit?

There are also external problems questioning such military option, which are the Chinese and the Russian expected attitudes. Iran ranks as second oil provider of China, with up to 13 percent of the Chinese oil consumption, and the demand is going to go up. The Chinese have a growing relationship with Iran; all this in the frame of a will of China to increase its influence in the Middle East and to have good relations with all potential oil suppliers.

In an interview released by the CFR, in January 2006, Adam Segal, a CFR expert on Chinese technological and military policies, expressed his opinion about a possible Chinese attitude in the case of U.S. sanctions on Iran. The sanctions envisaged by the interviewee were not of the same kind of these Arthur Herman, but Adam Segal’s answer gives us a hint, at least. He said at that time that “the U.S. and European effort to bring Iran to the Security Council for its decision to continue research and work on its nuclear program puts China in an uncomfortable spot. While there is no question, Segal says, that China’s much more interested in good relations with the United States than it is with Iran (….)

While asked about if the Iran issue gets to the United Nations, he answered:

“it’s an extremely difficult tightrope for the Chinese to walk down, (…..) But I think…they would very much like the Russians to take the lead. They’re unlikely to support sanctions, but they’re likely to let the Russians take the heat for that. (…..) they will expect Russia to take the lead in blocking aggressive sanctions from the U.S. or EU (…..)
China has enormous trade with the United States, too, and it must be a tough decision for them to decide which side to stand on this. (….) I think it is clear which side they are tilted to; in their overall relationships, the United States is so much more important.

Russia has interests similar to those of China, but it has also some strategic others of its own. Whether Russia’s second choice is to prevent Iran itself from becoming the dominant player in the region, as Arthur Herman thinks, is an option with which one would be wary not to reckon with. Some facts suggest that Russia has long term goals and aims somewhat different of China’s; some long term concerning goals and aims which could get ominous to many in the future, in my own opinion.

In his article, Arthur Herman suggests that “By ensuring a continuous flow of oil from the Gulf, and leaving untouched Russian and Chinese investments in the development of Iran’s Caspian Sea fields, an aggressive military strategy could actually work to those countries’ advantage.”

To my benighted point of view, I think that this suggestion may keeps the road, until one focus one’s attention on conflicts of interests already existing, and not yet resolved, relating to the Caspian Basin and the Caucasus region in particular, and to central Asia in general.

There is no doubt Iran does little to appease tensions in several parts of the Middle East, and in Iraq and in South Lebanon in particular, thus pressing the United States to envisage prophylactic measures well before Iran will get the nuclear capabilities it is looking for; that is to say, according to Edward Luttwak estimates, within the next three years.

From this on few options other than this Arthur Herman is suggesting are possible, but there may be some in the frame of which U.S. allies may find a vested interest in offering their suggestion, participation or assistance at some point. It is regrettable indeed that there is seemingly no way toward a taw in the U.S.-Iran relations, because the “Arthur Herman alternative” would constitute the worst case scenario and is likely to lead us toward further uncertainties.

I think, as Arthur Herman did, that we can easily compare the situation with the rise of the German Third Reich and the event, then the worldwide spread, of the WWII.

How would we see and analyze modern history and what would be our perception of the world and of this of some countries in particular, if France, England, or the United States, had invaded Germany as soon as Hitler decided to take, militarily, control of the Rhineland in 1936. France, alone, had the power to overwhelm the german army at that time, but no one wanted war.

Hitler happened to be the one who attained power at a more opportune time for successful action against the Versailles treaty (which we may somehow compare to the “no flight zones” in Iraq). His continuous use of deception and bluff, in addition to his willingness to resort to blackmail and crude threats, brought about the desired result. Only a man such as Hitler, a parvenu with no respect for bourgeois values or education (is this attitude doesn’t ring any bell to you?), could have pursued the course of action. Other German politician, such as Stresemann, had too much in common with their British and French counterparts; all of them were Europeans as much as they were French, British, or German. This difference in background in background prevented most European leaders, at least initially, from correctly evaluating Hitler’s intentions. By the time their eyes had been opened to his radically different methods, Hitler had already achieved his basic policy goals. He had renounced the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact without incurring retaliation, legitimized his revisionist policies, and increased Germany military power. Any attempt top thwart his demands would have meant a general European war, and the West European states wanted to avoid war at any reasonable (or unreasonable) cost.

At the United States Congress, during the 30’s, many congressmen (especially Democrats. Sorry for them) expressed a passive feeling of sympathy toward Germany. Joseph Kennedy, John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s father, then U.S. Ambassador in England, had openly expressed his for Adolph Hitler and his policy, before being hurriedly recalled by Franklin D. Roosevelt. United States wanted to avoid war at any reasonable (or unreasonable) cost too. But, if we may forget chaos; chaos does not forget us, never.

Is all this, once more, not ringing any bell to all those who know (or prefer not to know), by heart, the succession of events in greater Middle East? Well, it all sounds déja vu, to me.

While attempting to see the problem under another angle, and under a wider scope, we can see that the main producers of oil of a region whose perimeter surrounds both the inner Middle East and the Caspian basin represent about 68 percent of the world’s proved oil reserves, and 41 percent of the world’s proven gas reserves. It account for more than 30 percent of world oil production.
Since modern economy on earth relies largely on oil, one does not need to be a bright mind to understand that any trouble in this region, or attempt to exert control on it by a way or another, as Iran is unmistakably expected to envisage, would put at stake the stability of the whole world.

The coming of the booming Chinese economy on the stage is doing little to dispel one’s concerns about this point, even though China is still not known as a country looking for worldwide influence, or “grandeur”. Zbigniew Brzezinski pointed out in 2004 in his book, The Choice, that “China’s economic success falls less under the banner of globalization than of enlightened dictatorship.”

Troubles on the oil market engender economic troubles and, in turn, social troubles at a worldwide scale. The matter is not about whether the United States will have its share of oil or not, as some of its detractors argue. The stake reaches a much bigger scale; and, at such scale, none country can, alone, expect counterbalancing negative effects when their size and multiplicity cross certain threshold, as the domino theory predict us. In the case of troubles capable to reach such scale as this occurring in the Greater Middle East, the more we wait and the longer we stay passive, the harder and the trickier it will be to fix the problem. But my point is not to pledge in favor of a grand scale military engagement with Iran, as you will read bellow.

George Bush has certainly been at some point as embarrassed with the reasons justifying intervention in Iraq as Franklin D. Roosevelt had been soon after he promised American mothers he would never send their sons to wage war in Europe if he were reelected. How appallingly uncomfortable may the harsh realities of politics make a president feel sometimes. Whatever one may think of George Bush the fact remains, I think, that he had to face difficult choices and that he didn’t have so wide a margin of maneuver and much time to take a decision. Beside, as President, he knew he would be inescapably held for responsible of the ensuing outcome, whichever it might be.
In my opinion, I think he was right not to adopt the same passive and cautious options the world leaders chosen during the 30’s. Now, anyone may easily understand the concerns of the intelligence community, and those of the President, if the stakes are going thus higher with the growing and ominous involvement of Iran.

That Iran is already capable of building and dropping an atomic bomb on a given target with accuracy is perhaps a questionable assumption. That Iran is likely to fuel further trouble in the Greater Middle East in relying on means such as terrorism and insurgency is become more than a certainty, as testifies for Iranian activities in South Lebanon. But U.S. military experience in Iraq is demonstrating that a “conventional response” (i.e. counterinsurgency on the basis of classic methods Colonel David Galula and others experts taught us) on all fronts on which Iran is aggressively present is unlikely to bring quick success.

That’s why, having finished this long introduction and appraisal of the situation, I seize the opportunity of this informal virtual meeting place to deliver my thoughts about this need to find a solution, thus possibly running the risk to be mocked.

I cannot but acknowledge that the last of my points presented in this comment is likely to be considered as a somewhat unconventional means to counter Iranian fuelled insurgency since it would consist of borrowing from arms of massive destruction the concept of deterrence and mutual deterrence each time counterinsurgency is clearly identified as a form of warfare by proxy.
Actually, after I mulled over this tricky problem, I reached to the conclusion that, as seen under this angle, recourse to deterrence and mutual deterrence would be justified by the notion that insurgency can be qualified as weapon of “massive social disruption” (and of massive destruction as well) much likely to create mayhem in any given country, exactly as a nuclear bomb or missile is a weapon of “massive destruction” (and of “massive social disruption” as well) much likely to create mayhem in a given country, even though by other means.

From this postulate on there is reasonable ground for to argue that insurgency, when deliberately used as a means of warfare, and an atomic bomb are both capable of making similar numbers of casualties and material destruction; the only perceptible difference between these two means of warfare being the laps of time required to reach the same outcome. An atomic bomb can kill thousands of people within a few seconds; while insurgency can kill the same number of people within a handful of years.

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki set a precedent which, in the aftermath and all along the Cold War, gave further credibility to the concept of nuclear mutual deterrence, thus preventing the recourse to nuclear aggression until today. In this last case equilibrium was reached because the United States and the Soviet Union both had the capacity to play attack or defense indifferently, even though the first of these two countries always made a point at opting for a defensive and non-aggressive strategy.
But this equilibrium proved harder to reach and conflicts became increasingly asymmetric as the U.S. conventional means of warfare improved qualitatively and quantitatively while those of its opponent diminished, thus compelling the loser to resort to other strategies such as information warfare and active measures, insurgency and guerrilla, and terrorism.

The United States is reticent at resorting to such unconventional means, at least for two reasons. In the case of insurgency, as Steven Metz, Chairman of the Regional Strategy and Planning Department, and Research Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, wrote recently, “neither the military nor the government as a whole is optimized for the type of integrated, holistic, psychologically astute, intelligence-intensive, and politically focused effort counterinsurgency demands.”
In the cases of information warfare and active measures, and terrorism, resorting to such means of warfare places the United States into embarrassment for ethical and political reasons.

Intermediary and “relatively acceptable” means of retaliation (or/and technologically more advanced) likely to lead to insurgency could be found and refined on the basis of such unconventional means, however; especially when used in the frame of a “tit-for-tat” optic, which could eventually give birth to mere deterrence, exactly as it happened with nuclear bombs and missiles from the first experiments on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on.

In other words, the concept of mutual deterrence applied to insurgency, or weapon of “massive social disruption,” could be experimented on a country whose active support to insurgency would be known and unmistakable, so as to make it politically and ethically justified. If further examination demonstrated the theoretical viability of this concept, symmetric warfare could be restored through “mutual insurgency deterrence,” thus making insurgency the best solution against insurgency everywhere it is used a means of warfare by proxy, that is to say in numerous cases. For the United States, reluctance to rely on terrorism could be compensated by non-lethal, but aggressive psychological warfare actions which can be as disruptive for a given society as terrorism is. In the case of Iran, coincidentally and interestingly, I think, leaders fail to collect the unanimous support of the population.

To be objective, however, I cannot pass over some specifics in silence, which are: would the concept of deterrence, or even mutual deterrence, successfully apply to Arabic fundamentalists as it does with countries of the Northern hemisphere? Steven Metz underlines this question when he suggests that “Sometimes honor, justice, and revenge matter more than schools, roads, and jobs.” It just happens that the pertinence of this last question finds its example in the dispute between United States and Iran (and now between the U.N.O. and Iran) over uranium enrichment. Iran attitude over this issue is indicative, indeed, that the concept or strategy of deterrence might not work with fanatics which, as we know, are harder opponents at chicken game. That’s why I cannot but honestly acknowledge that the idea of deterrence or mutual deterrence applied to insurgency might be as worthless (if not too risky) as this of nuclear deterrence when attempted with countries ruled by fanatics largely supported by their population.

Thank you for reading me and for your patience. I’ll manage to make my next comments much shorter.