Iran's bomb


The NY Times today reports that the International Atomic Energy Agency believes that Iran can construct a nuclear bomb, which is pretty much what many people who have studied the situation believe.

Well, except for a good portion of the intelligence community, but that's a story in itself.

Iran has the materials, has the know-how, and very clearly is determined not only to build a bomb, but will. The only question is what, if anything, the rest of the world will do about it.

The real problem as far as the U.S. is concerned is this: in the short-term, it's not in the U.S.'s interests to bomb the hell out of their facilities. Iranian cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan clearly outweighs the danger to the U.S. that an Iranian nuke would. Even long term - and even without a functioning and foolproof anti-ballistic missile system - Iran's direct threat to the U.S. in minuscule.

If you're Israel, on the other hand, the situation is completely reversed. A bomb (or missile) in the hands of a government that doesn't think you should exist is an obvious danger.

The Bush administration weighed the situation and, reportedly, nixed Israeli plans to take out the Iranian weapons program last year. Things really haven't changed from America's point of view, and won't, no matter who's in the White House.

Could Israel take out the Iranian weapons program?

All of the calculations you see consider an attack by Israeli aircraft. Such a raid would be difficult, since it would require a large number of sorties; given the size of the Iranian program, the distance from Israel, and the size of the Israeli air force, most calculations start with three completely separate waves of attack aircraft over a number of days.

But that's not the only way Israel could attack, even assuming it used conventional weapons. Israel not only has medium-range missiles that could strike Iran, it has been developing cruise missiles that can, or at some point in the very near future, will be able to do the job. The real problem for Israel is what happens next - the reaction of its allies even more than Iran must be weighed against the potential threat.

The irony in all of this is that the more money and manpower Iran devotes to the nuke program, the less resources it has to put into its actual economy. Iran sees itself as a world power; it has spent the last several years trying to build up connections and alliances around the globe, most notably in Venezuela. When you look at some of those operations, though, the country's lack of expertise and stature become apparent. They can't even manufacture bicycles efficiently, as a story in the Wall Street Journal detailed. (If you're looking for (unclassified) reasons U.S. and some, not all, European intelligence agencies are skeptical of the Iranian bomb program, that's exhibit one.)

Sanctions that further weaken the Iranian economy would help Israel indirectly, but at the end of the day, they're not going to prevent the Iranians from building nuclear weapons if it really wants to (and it does). For Israel, a strike after sanctions are in place would seem to be the best strategy - weaken the economy, and destroy the bombs. But of course its allies won't like that at all.

Not an easy dilemma. Based on past experience, I'd be betting on a strike against Iran at the beginning of next year - a strike that is launched mostly by missiles rather than planes, and that targets Iran's rocket program as well as its nuclear facilities, secret and otherwise.

NY Times story.
Wall Street Journal story. (You may need a subscription.)