AT PENPOINT
Will the world find itself at war? And will it find itself in a nuclear war? There are immense pressures against this, but the present Israeli government seems bent on a course of action that will perpetuate such a war with Iran.
The Israeli attack on Iran was apparently a response to the missiles that Iran rained down on Israel on October 1. That in turn was in response to Israel’s airstrike killing Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on 27 September. It must be noted that retaliations are not instantaneous. That implies that each country carefully gauges the effects of its actions. While that is not guarantee that either country will not climb up the escalation ladder, it is a helpful safeguard against nuclearisation of the conflict.
However, there are two caveats. First, once a country is at the receiving end of a nuclear strike, the pressure of the international community will be released. Second, the desire for revenge might incline the war leaders towards using their nuclear weapons. This of course assumes that a decapitation strike has left a national leadership capable of exercising a nuclear option. It also assumes that the enemy’s first strike has left a nuclear option capable of being exercised. Even Israel has not developed a nuclear triad capable of surviving a first strike, while Iran has probably not yet developed a weapon.
Even though it has not, the possibility that it may, makes Israel almost obliged to use it so long as it gives it a military advantage. Clearly, the very use will indicate the failure of the political advantage. Using it before Iran has developed a weapon makes a certain kind of sense. It is unfortunate that the Israeli PM is exactly the sort of narcissistic, short-sighted person, fixated on the immediate, who would use nuclear weapons.
Actually, Israel should have never gone nuclear in the first place. It was a deterrent against much larger enemies for a small state. But it was only going to work so long as those enemies didn’t have a weapon of their own. Iran poses that dilemma. Can the Israelis risk Iran getting a weapon? Considering how it has been winning acceptance from the Arab countries (Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Sudan and Morocco have all recognized it recently, while Saudi Arabia was about to.), the deterrence was against Iran. But if Iran got a weapon, that deterrence would end.
The original reason for nuclearization, its smallness, would remain. The real dilemma is that there are so many Jews in Israel, concentrated in a small space. Of the world’s 15.8 million Jews, 7.43 million live in Israel. That is not the largest population of Jews in the world; that is still in the USA, which has 7.46 million. Third is France with 440,000 and fourth Canada with 398,000. The implication is that Israel’ nuclearization has set world Jewry up for another Holocaust: Jewry would survive, but millions of Jews would die horrible deaths.
In a nuclear scenario, it would not take much to destroy Israel, it is such a small country. Countries smaller than potential opponents offer up fewer targets, like Pakistan, which is smaller than India, and after certain targets, offers almost nothing. Apart from counterforce targets, like nuclear installations or bombsites, only countervalue targets are left, like dams or railway marshalling yards. Or centres of population. India poses the problem to Pakistani planners of many population centres large distances apart. Similarly, Indian planners could opt for a number of population centres after exhausting other countervalue targets.
War seems to have been averted for the time being, but Israel seems to be doing its best to exasperate Iran. It is unlikely, at this point, for the USA to condemn Israel, even if it initiates a nuclear war. It is to be hoped that Israel would refrain, but just as it cannot bet on Iran not using a weapon once it develops one, no one can bet on Israel behaving reasonably.
It is salutary to remember in the Iran-Israel context Japan’s reason for surrender after Nagasaki. It showed the government that Hiroshima was not a one-off, but the USA would go on relentlessly. The Japanese also had no weapon to reply. Iran will. Interestingly, the US nuclear weapon was developed because Nazi Germany also had a nuclear programme, but managed to win without using nukes. However, there was still Japan… The rest is history.
Similarly, Iran did not engage in its programme solely against Israel. It also intended it for the region, including against Saudi Arabia. One brake on Iran has been the fatwa, given by the present Supreme Leader, against nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons do not allow those using them to prevent use against civilian casualties. So-called collateral damage is not permitted, which means nuclear weapons cannot be used, because even if nukes are used (as Pakistan and India postulate) in a desert against enemy armour, the radioactivity will spread to population centres.
However, in a display of fine theological reasoning, Ayatollah Khamenei has permitted the development of these weapons, as this act is itself an act of warfare against Israel. Mind games with the enemy are apparently allowed, even if you have promised not to use the weapon. All Muslim schools contain the concept of declaring even apostasy or disbelief to escape being killed for being Muslim. Further, there is a Quranic injunction to prepare not just for war, but to dominate the enemy. So even if you cannot use weapons, you can acquire them if it means dominating the enemy.
That implies that Israel is dominated. It is, to the extent that it cannot afford to include in its nuclear calculus the assumption that Iran will not use a weapon which it has developed at the cost of having several scientists assassinated and being the subject for years on end of punitive US sanctions. However, what will Iran do if it is attacked by Israel?
Netanyahu is behaving as if he is afflicted by a Masada complex, when a number of Jews holed up in a hill fortress, and committed collective suicide in 70 AD, when besieged by the forces of Titus, who was the Roman commander in Judaea when the Temple was destroyed. (That is the Temple which Jewish extremists wish to restore, on the site of the Masjid Al-Aqsa.) However, as the Palestinians, both in Gaza and increasingly in the West Bank, have shown, it is very difficult to exterminate people entirely.
Apart from the diplomatic effort he has put in to make the USA cancel its deal to lift sanctions on Iran, his government has constantly been provoking Iran, mostly through assassinations, starting with nuclear scientists and moving on now to Iranian allies like two Hamas chiefs and a Hezbollah chief. It is almost as if his government is bent on provoking Iran into a conflict. Apart from the general distaste for war, there is also the problem of nuclear fallout. If either country is targeted, the fallout will probably blow over into Iraq, Syria and Jordan, and possibly Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Pakistan may need to worry about fallout if Israel attacks any eastern targets in Iran, as will Afghanistan. Then there is the danger of global disaster, in the shape of nuclear winter. Israel probably has enough warheads to initiate it.
War seems to have been averted for the time being, but Israel seems to be doing its best to exasperate Iran. It is unlikely, at this point, for the USA to condemn Israel, even if it initiates a nuclear war. It is to be hoped that Israel would refrain, but just as it cannot bet on Iran not using a weapon once it develops one, no one can bet on Israel behaving reasonably.
