On the Verge
We are on the verge of another ugly Middle Eastern war It’s not like we don’t know it: after twenty years in Afghanistan, ten years in Iraq, and a decade before that entangled in Middle Eastern military adventures after the Persian Gulf War, we’ve “been there, done that”. In fact, we never really left. There are still US bases in Turkiye, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. And there is a US military “presence” (troops) in Iraq, Syria, Cyprus, and the Sinai (Al Jazeera). (If you are wondering where we “aren’t”, the answer is: Iran, Yemen and Israel.)
The United States is already engaged in a “shooting war” in the Middle East. American forces are sparring with the Houthi rebels (supported by Iran) in Yemen, over access to the Red Sea. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth bragged about the attacks launched on the Houthis in the infamous “Signal Chats”. While millions of dollars of munitions were used against them, it doesn’t seem to have done much damage to their attack capacity.
There is an older lesson to be re-learned here. The US dropped more bombs in Vietnam than both sides used in World War II, but the North Vietnamese simply adapted their war-fighting capacity to the bombing. It didn’t work in Vietnam, and it doesn’t work in Yemen either.
Proliferation
We are hearing that old “nuclear boogeyman” of the twentieth century raise its ugly head again. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning of Iran getting a nuclear weapon. The world, he says, will be a different and more dangerous place, if Iran gets “the bomb”.
The United States has a policy against “nuclear proliferation”. We’ve done a great deal to keep the invention of the Los Alamos Labs in New Mexico during World War II from becoming a “common weapon”. Today the nuclear “club” is still limited. The United States, Russia and China are the main “members”; each with thousands of nuclear war heads on missiles and in “bomb” form. The United Kingdom and France also have smaller nuclear arsenals. Then there are the nations that weren’t “supposed” to get the bomb: India, Pakistan, and North Korea. And, of course, there’s Israel, who refuses to acknowledge they have nuclear weapons, even though the whole world knows it’s true.
Two nations had nuclear weapons, and actually gave them up. Ukraine had a large arsenal of weapons when the Soviet Union dissolved, but agreed to give them up in return for assurances from the United States and Russia that their borders would be honored. We see how that worked out for them. And South Africa developed nuclear weapons (and helped Israel do the same) but dismantled them at the end of the Apartheid era in the mid 1990’s.
Enrichment
Just to be clear, Iran can have a nuclear weapon if they want one. The key to having working nuclear bombs is to have uranium enriched to 90%. Currently, Iran has lots of uranium, but its only at the 60% level. It would take further refinement to get it bomb-ready, a simple and straight-forward process. The “refinery” is the facility that the US is threatening to target with the “Bunker Buster” bomb. What Iran does not have is a proven delivery system, missiles that could carry an effective nuclear warhead. That will take more time and experimentation.
India developed an atomic bomb in 1974. Pakistan, India’s arch-enemy, started a crash program to match them. It took twenty-four years, but ultimately Pakistan got “the bomb” as well. So when Israel developed nuclear weapons in 1968, it’s enemies in the Middle East also felt the need to “catch-up”. Iraq and Iran both began nuclear development projects. The United States has done everything possible to prevent either from actualizing nuclear weapons.
Hussein and the Bomb
After the attack on America on 9-11 in 2001, the United States launched a war in Afghanistan. It was clear that Al Qaeda, the attackers, were headquartered there. It was over a year later that America launched the invasion of Iraq, in March of 2003. Why Iraq? Because, as President Bush and General Powell and the rest of the US Government intelligence establishment told us, Iraq was building a nuclear weapon. We could not tolerate the idea of Saddam Hussein, the brutal dictator of Iraq, with “the bomb”.
There were lots of speeches about “yellow cake” from Nigeria, and aluminum rods and centrifuges. Colin Powell made the US case to the United Nations, echoing Adlai Stevenson’s presentation during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 It was a compelling case, and the Use of Force resolution passed the United States Senate 77 to 23, and the House 296 to 133. We went to war. And we were wrong. We turned Iraq literally upside down, but there were no nuclear bombs.
Decapitation
What we did discover was that “decapitation”, removing the leadership of a nation, does not necessarily mean the replacement will be “better”. In fact, the US created a power vacuum in the Middle East, that expanded the power of Iran, and created a whole new evil force, ISIS.
So here we are again. Trump is no George Bush, and JD Vance isn’t Dick Cheney. And certainly the whole intelligence community is riddled with fear of the MAGA world. No one here has made the “case” that Iran is on the verge of nuclear “clubdom”. Trump is basing his decision on Israeli intelligence, and his own “gut”.
And, would a nuclear Iran be so terrible, worse than a nuclear North Korea? We (Americans of all political sides) let Kim Jong-Un build his nuclear force, and test out all sorts of delivery systems. But little was done to stop him, and the world hasn’t ended, yet.
What we can see from experience is this: starting a war with Iran might stop them from “going nuclear”, but it might open another “Pandora’s Box” of extremism in the Middle East. “Nation-building” didn’t work in Afghanistan or Iraq. There’s really no reason to believe it would work in Iran either. But here we are, on the same well-travelled path, using the threat of “nuclear devastation” to justify “doing Iraq” all over again.
We all know the old saying: “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it”. We’ve been there – done that.
