By Aetius Romulous
November 18, 2009
Courtesy Of Asia Times Online
Iran could be building "the bomb". Iran would then be the second power in the region to possess the bomb, and would certainly be the first of what will soon be a rapid escalation of regional states with the wealth and wherewithal to acquire the bomb. In addition, this proliferation of bomb-owning states is a function of economics, and as such, is inevitable, its containment improbable by any rational measure.
Finally, the "bomb" itself is nothing more than a bargaining chip among established bomb-owning states to advance their own self interests- all hinging around ... oil.
Pakistan has a lot of nuclear bombs, and is one of the most unstable nation-states in the world. It has the bomb because its hated rival India has its own set of bombs. Israel has a whack of over 200 bombs, none of which are regulated in any way by anybody. It's a secret. Americans have the bomb. American has thousands of bombs, is the only nation to have ever used the bomb, and currently has a collection of the best of them scattered in and around their vassal state, Iraq. There are lots of bombs in the Middle East, their plurality irrelevant where the simple act of just firing a single one can and will do the job of melting down the Western world.
All the bombs that do exist in the Middle East - or anywhere else there is land, sea, or space above - are in the possession of well advanced technological states with the enormous amounts of wealth needed to design, build, and maintain a weapon of unimaginable cost. Except Pakistan and North Korea, who simply stole their way in through the back door, and are the most poorly dressed members at the party. As it is the nature of our global economic system that wealth is power, and growth means wealth, the onward march of progress will bring more and more emerging nations into a position where they too can have the bomb.
We have the first Muslim bomb in Pakistan, the first Jewish bomb in Israel, and we could soon have the first Persian bomb. We need an Arab bomb now, one would guess, to complete the set. Turkey will need the bomb, and will soon be able to afford one. That would be an unbroken chain of bomb-wielding states stretching from the Taiwan Strait to the Suez Canal, covering every major religion, culture, and form of politics. A veritable bomb "beltway" if you will. Poor Africa, no bomb for you.
So, there are lots of bombs in the most unstable region of the world, and there are destined to be more. Iran could be one of them. Given the bigger picture, why does that matter? If Iran had the bomb - so what? In fact, Iran without a bomb makes the place just a smidgen less stable than Iran with the bomb, and a smidgen in the nuclear age is a lot.
If nations feel compelled to carve gargantuan amounts of productivity out of their people for bombs, it is because of the lessons learned as worthless peons in the golden age of the Cold War. Money talks, and money is best represented by the bomb. Like feathered plumage, a radiating display of nuclear quills signals to everybody that there will be consequences to their most impolite actions. Far from being an offensive doomsday machine, the lesson of the Cold War is that the bomb is a superb defensive weapon. Fraught with the fear and danger of unknown futures, a parked nuclear warhead is a menacing threat. Once fired, it is useless, spent on well understood, mutual, and arithmetically assured destruction.
To be effective, that parked nuke must have a threat of equal veracity to threaten it. Every nuke needs an enemy. The failure to provide a compensating catastrophic consequence for the use of a bomb makes it perfectly rational to use one. Want to add stability to the world? Give Iran the bomb. Just give them a bunch. That takes not just those, but all regional bombs off the table, turning a parcel of offensive weapons into a bushel of defensive ones.
It's called "Game Theory", and is an essential component to every bomb-owner's manual. A perfectly rational series of mathematical equations that have ruled the atomic age since physicists played poker. A systems analysis of the range of decisions a bomb owner must make to maximize his position without breaking 21. Game Theory predicts that nuclear superiority rests on what the other guy is thinking about you. It insists that both parties must have a credible threat, each threat with consequences that each player feels is not in his long term interests. Mutually assured destruction rests on the balance and parity of each side's threat. Without that parity, imbalance makes the use of a nuke almost certain in circumstances where parity would otherwise prevail.
This was, and is an American doctrine. However, it has come to develop into the basic architecture of deterrence in the nuclear age. When Americans struggle to insist that a nuclear Iran is bad for everybody, they understand perfectly the irrationality of the condemnation. Americans warn that an Iran with the bomb would use it on Israel, and is the sole reason Iran is possibly pursuing one at all. Israel argues it must stop Iran as it is an "existential" threat to their existence, and thus, an Iranian bomb the very end of that existence.
Both know otherwise of course. Both know that should the Iranians get the bomb, they will not fire the one or two they have at Israel and the United States. That action has virtually no offsetting effect on their enemies to ever come close to the punishment they would suffer in return for the decision. They won't make that call, which explains why they have not invaded another country for 600 years and have a civilization that stretches back thousands. They are not a stupid people.
So what's all the fuss about?
Iran has oil. Iran is the world's fourth-largest crude exporter, a card carrying charter member of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that pumps in excess of two-and-a-half million barrels a day of clean, inexpensive black goo. Iran's reserves of clean crude are the third-largest in the world. Iran also controls the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40% of the Western world's oil flows, and is a long fly ball from Saudi Arabia's biggest oil export hub at Ras Tanura.
Iran is wealthy enough to build a bomb because Iran has oil. Iran is a threat to the West's oil supply, as well as the Arab players who are traditional enemies of the Persians. Iran is also across the street from Iraq and thus, in America's backyard. Israel is in Iran's front yard, the home of 5,000 years of history between Persians and Jews.
Iran sits atop a veritable sea of the world's most precious strategic commodity, and is surrounded by well-intentioned Western interests aligned with its enemies, all of whom possess the bomb. So Iran wants a bomb. No kidding.
Iran sells 16% of its oil exports to China, about 411 million barrels a day and rising, and is China's second-largest source of crude after Saudi Arabia. China needs oil in quantities never before imagined to fuel its growth, and is scouring the world for wall flowers untouched by political ideology. China is buying up Africa under the noses of the squabbling Cold War warriors, and has no dog in the ancient races of the Middle East. It needs oil and that's all, and it has invested over $100 billion in Iran to prove it.
China considers Iran a new friend in a formerly insular world. And a friend in need is a friend indeed. China has its own regional threats, and one of them is India, another of those traditional enemy types that drive Western sensibilities nuts. A China-friendly, oil-soaked Iran is a wonderful way to influence India from another direction. China, of course, has the bomb.
India has the bomb as well, but is also one of the world's other great centers of progress. India needs as much oil as China for all the same reasons, and imports almost as much as China from Iran. A full third of Iran's oil exports go to the super developing economies of China and India. In addition, Iran imports back a great deal of its oil exports to India in the form of refined gasoline, making it the perfect stratified business model, and stupid profitable for all concerned.
For both China and India, an Iranian bomb would mean security for their oil resources and investments. Without one, each would have to make decisions about threats to their oil supplies - as they do now. It also helps to have a well-defended oil head that is willing to defend their price point interests as well. Having access to oil is one thing, being able to pay for it is another.
Russia does not want Iran to have the bomb. Russia is in the enviable position of being a world leader in both the bomb and oil. They have loads of each. By supplying Iran with technological
support for their "civilian" nuclear program, the Russians are taking care of business on several different fronts. If a bomb were built in Iran, it would cause instability in the short run, and that would help support the oil prices Russia needs to maintain its own progressive economic agenda. Furthermore, Russia can mitigate the speed and scope of Iranian nuclear development, a fact not unknown to American statesmen.
For Russia, the Iranian bomb thingy is a perfect bargaining chip for use in extracting both geographic security and open markets from the Americans. If the Iranians are going to develop a bomb, they figure, it might as well be with them. It's good business and it extends Russian influence into the Middle East through the regions latest hegemon.
Russia shares nuclear proliferation concerns with America, however. It is absolutely essential that the former Cold War enemies contain the spread of bomb-equipped nations. Each is facing crippling expense in building and maintaining vast, unnecessary nuclear arsenals. Game Theory demanded an ever-increasing build up in arms to maintain the deterrent value and effect.
The point at which theory left and insanity stepped in is hard to discern, however contemporary leaders in both America and Russia are learning that as long as each reduces arms at a rate that does not disturb the equilibrium, both can save a bunch of time, trouble and money. The increase in nuclear states threatens to keep this threat floor artificially high, and eat into projected billions of dollars saved.
It would be tough to decide who needs oil more, America or China. Each is approaching the issue from different directions. China is quietly using its Goliath state industries to buy up the resources of the Earth necessary to power its future. It can do this because capitalism is becoming no match for state-controlled resource acquisition. At the same time, America has been foiled in its attempt to use its super power status and invincible military machine to project influence over the most important sources of ready oil in the world.
Addicted to oil, America depends solely on the strength of free markets now to keep a tenuous grip on its future supply. America needs not just oil, however, but politically predictable prices for oil to defend its economy and the US dollar that the economy supports.
America has an arsenal of bomb and bomb-like technology that has become so large it has made its investment pointless. Even an untoward glance towards the button, and an economic thermal nuclear explosion would blow through every household in America. $7.00 a gallon gasoline. War-making in America is approaching a trillion dollars a year and it has done nothing to protect America's most strategic asset, the oil it needs but doesn't have.
America is also friends with both the Saudis and the Israelis, each of whom are sworn enemies of each other. America exchanges military hardware and their nuclear umbrella over the Saudis in exchange for oil, unfettered access to history's most epic sinkhole of energy, and simply scads of money. The Saudis need this protection from its neighbors, the late, great Saddam Hussein and his heretical secularist Islamic state, and the dreaded Persians. The shield is useless against a bomb-laden Israel though.
Israel is justifiably nervous about the geographic reality the British left them in 1948. Israel imports absolutely everything of value, oil included. It also sits atop the most irrationally contested real estate in all of human civilization. Attacking threats without the bomb mercilessly has proven to be well worth the penalties on every occasion. That is because the penalty for attacking an existential threat that can unleash holy hell on its principal ally is several orders of magnitude greater. An Iranian nuclear response to an aggressive Israel would have ramifications that no theory of games could ever envision. Absolutely no one is in a position to imagine what may come next.
What would China do about its investment in Iran? India? How would Pakistan react to India? What would the Russians do - sit back and watch the show, the price of their massive oil supplies rocketing skyward? What on earth would the Americans do? Who can tell and what's more, who wants to find out? Nobody.
America should simply give Iran the bomb. That is the rational solution to the problem. Iran could most possibly get one regardless, and if it does it would lean on Russia for support. A nuclear Iran would restore parity to the insanity of nuclear gamesmanship, and provide everybody with the same rational consequence to its foreign policy decisions. Being supported by America, an Iranian nuclear program would be inoculated against a very real and probable Israeli threat.
Iran would have no further use for its traditional tools of regional power like Hezbollah in Lebanon. This also guarantees China and India oil security, and checks the expansion of Russian influence over Iran which, incidentally, sits between Iraq and Afghanistan. America exchanges arms for oil market stability, and everybody wins.
But of course that won't happen, and for reasons that we all share intuitively, and for which we need no explanation. It simply won't. Instead, something else will happen. Something else unsustainable and inequitable, something that leaves a Versailles-sized hole in it. Despite the desperate situation the Earth finds itself in, where exponential growth demands exponential depletion of resources, a series of decisions will cause a series of actions that have more to do with dogma, religion and nationalism than any kind of rational realism.
Just like it has always been, with the exciting addition of Game Theory and nuclear warheads. Ugh.
Aetius Romulous is a freelance contributor based in Canada.
Below, is some information about Israel's nuclear facilities (Not Part Of The Above Article):
Israel's Nuclear Facilities
Negev Nuclear Research Center, Dimona
Negev Nuclear Research Center. Plutonium production and extraction facilities, along with other weapons-related infrastructure.
31.001504°N, 35.146723°E
Eilabun
Eilabun is Israel's second weapons storage facility. Tactical nuclear shells and land mines are among its contents.
32.760226°N, 35.412077°E
Kfar Zekharya
Suspected nuclear missile base and bomb storage storage facility.
31.766267°N, 34.88142°E
Nahal Soreq
Soreq is the equivalent of the U.S. national weapons laboratories. The lab handles weapons design and construction as well as research.
31.766267°N, 34.88142°E
Yodefat
Suspected nuclear weapons assembly facility.
32.85093°N, 35.27916°E
Tirosh
Reportedly one of two Israeli nuclear weapons storage facilities. It is speculated that that Tirosh is the strategic weapons storage site, while Eilabun is the tactical weapons storage site.
31.751963°N, 34.863524°E
Rafael
Rafael has been responsible for the actual assembly of Israeli nuclear weapons.
32.889534°N, 35.09119°E
Sources: Federation of American Scientists, Center for Non-Proliferation Studies, and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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