Obama's Iran Nuke Counterfactual Ashley Rindsberg March 2009 What if Iran got nuclear weapons?

This geopolitical thought-experiment is not as radical as it might sound at least not for people in the policy world. It is, after all, a scenario of the political game Washington is grappling with on the Iran issue and it's almost certain that President Obama, as a rational realist, has posed this question to himself and to others around him. While the question is interesting, it's President Obama's answer that everyone wants to know. It's here that another counterfactual can be posed: What if the president considers that outcome (of Iran possessing nuclear weapons) to be acceptable? As Iran continues to close in on nuclear production capability and as President Obama, far from presenting a plan with a definitive endpoint, continues to offer explicitly open-ended discussion, this question is now critically important. Many people might insist the Acceptable Iran Nuke counterfactual is absurd and not worth considering, but there are three solid reasons which argue for its being meaningful and relevant in Washington today. The first is that the president seems to consider the Iranian revolutionary leadership to be rational. Obama's eagerness to engage in negotiations with the Islamic regime is the strongest indicator of this, since it would be patently irrational to engage with a nonrational actor, especially for a realist. If Iran's government is rational then it can be trusted to some degree with a nuclear weapon just as other rational governments, like those of France and Britain, are trusted with nuclear weapons and do not face sanctions or a military strike for having them. Obama's view towards creating a Middle East balance of power is the second factor validating the Acceptable Iran Nuke scenario. As a realist, Mr. Obama looks to the concept of a balance of power to provide stability. In the Middle East, which is a

centerpiece of Mr. Obama's agenda, Israel has a military strong enough to defeat coalitions of the region's armies, boasts an economy that dwarfs that of its neighbors, and has a sound alliance with the world's greatest power, making it dominant in the region. For a realist president who seeks to engage everyone and who wants to bring all nations into the fold no matter how far they have strayed, the existence of a single, dominant state in the world's most critical and volatile region cannot be acceptable. The Iranian nuclear program is a natural consequence to the regions power equations, Khaled al-Dakhil wrote in a piece for the Carnegie Endowment. Apparently, Iran is trying to emulate in the Gulf region the strategy of dominance that Israel maintained in the Middle East through its conventional and nuclear arsenals. If the nuclear program has bolstered Irans position in negotiations with the West, imagine what it could gain if it obtained a nuclear weapon? The simple answer to this last question is, at very least, Iran would gain significantly more regional power relative to Israel, and maybe even achieve a truly bipolar Middle East. Perhaps this is not just something Mr. Obama can live with but something to continue our counterfactual that he wants. And this leads to the third and last validating factor, the one which brings us out of the realm of counterfactuals and into reality: Washington's present course of action on the Iran issue. The American diplomatic and political worlds divide the Iran problem into two either/or's: either accept that Iran will get nuclear capability or take action to prevent it. And if the choice is for prevention, then either the US attacks Iran or it uses diplomatic means to slow or stop the country's nuclear march. Dennis Ross, President Obama's Iran envoy, posed just this dichotomy in a 2006 Washington Post op-ed in which he also seemed to lament that there was no third way. But the most valuable and most real product of the Iran Nuke counterfactual is precisely a third way, and it might be the one towards which the Obama administration is driving: permit the regime to achieve the nuclear cycle but tacitly refuse it production of nuclear weapons. From a bird's-eye view, it seems that the US is on exactly this policy path. Iran, after all, is so close to nuclear capability that some think it might already be there, while at the same time the US has neither passed meaningful sanctions nor has it attacked. Allowing Iran to have nuclear production capability would fulfill many of President Obama's conditions for dealing with Iran. With nuclear energy production the regime would be able to cut down energy import costs and further economic growth, making the regime ostensibly more able and willing to return to the community of nations. More importantly, allowing Iran nuclear energy production would provide the appetizing carrots, in Dennis Ross' words, to get the regime to abandon any drive towards attaining nuclear weapons.

We need to offer political, economic and security benefits to Tehran, Ross wrote in Newsweek last December, on the condition that Iran change its behavior not just on nukes but on terrorism as well. That Ross spoke about Iran changing its behavior on nukes nuclear weapons and not on nuclear production in general is significant. This policy allowing Iran to have nuclear production capability but not nuclear weaponry could be seen from a realist or neorealist perspective to create a healthier balance of power in the Middle East. Israel might be less inclined to act aggressively to protect or enhance its own security in the region if it sees that while the Iranians might not actually have a nuke, they could very well produce one in the future. In other words, it would present Iran with a very appetizing carrot, show Israel a very sharp stick, and in sum total balance the region's power. There are many reasons for the world's nations and their citizens to hope this part of the Iran Nuke counterfactual remains just that. The most important, however, has to do with the first reason for thinking the Iran Nuke counterfactual is valid: that President Obama considers the Islamic regime rational. After all, this is just an assumption, and the test for its soundness in the context of an Iranian nuclear weapon could result in a very loud, very bright, and very real bang.