zraver

I mean both the council of experts and the Council of Guardians of the Constitution. Those two groups is where final authority is supposed to reside, the former as a type of Supreme Court, the latter as pre-vetting and litmus test administering body. If the IIRG had followed a more western model of subservience to the state instead of a more PRC/PLA type model I would feel a lot more confident about peace. But they chose a path that now has the IIRG set up as the most powerful military, economic, and social force in Iran, plus they are the official arm of the government not the state. This concentration of power and super constitutional authority wedded to an aggressive and apocalyptic world view scares the hell out of me.

JAD_333

Spilled milk, I suppose.

Just the point I was making the other day. The highest authority has no consistent Machievellian sense of what is best for the state, but rather is just as likely to base a major major decision on an interpretation of the Qu'ran.

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zraver

or even worse, a supposed prophecy resulting from a religious schism (Mahdi/12th Iman).

Feanor

I doubt that it really works like that on the internal level. While their decisions may seem random internationally, and they will certainly try to use the Koran to justify them, they most likely have deep internal roots.

zraver

If I am right about the situation they are not driven by rational decision, they can't be. A praetorian situation without a strong guiding hand is anarchy as sub factions compete for power. We are already seeing this as more liberal elements of the IIRG seduced by wealth and economic power try and reign in A-jad. this of course puts them at odds with the true believers and those feigning true belief in order to gain power and wealth. They need chaos in order to advance thier own agendas. Be in the Praetorians, the Jannisseries, Stalinist purges of the Red Army officers, the SA/SS, Cultural revolution and the gang of four etc there are only three possible outcomes. 1-War 2-a night of the long knives in which he radicals emerge on top and then war, 3- a purge in which the moderates and liberals win and disband the IIRG and disperse its power.

The question is of course are enough of the IIRG loyal to the state and the Supreme leader in truth, for the moderates to win the impending power struggle. if that answer is no, all bets are off.

Ironduke

I'm not convinced that Iran is an entirely irrational actor or driven exclusively by religious texts -- I don't believe that pursuing nuclear weapons is an entirely irrational act (for them) if they can skirt severe impact from possible economic sanctions. As far as their oil exports are concerned, China could lap up all Iran has to offer.

There is significant industrialization and they are rather self-sufficient in this regard, what's largely been economic isolation from the West and a domestic regime supporting a program of successful industrialization is an example an entirely rational economic policy.

Though not nearly wealthy enough to be considered at the rate of first-world economies, they have a higher GDP per capita than China with a distribution of wealth that's not lopsided. The Iranian economy more closely resembles one of the newer eastern European EU members.

Gaining nuclear weapons would be disastrous to the balance in the region... there are the rivalries with the Gulf States and one doesn't even need to mention Israel. It would be disastrous to US foreign policy, and as an American, I couldn't stand to see Iran acquire nuclear weapons.

That doesn't mean I think they'll use them and take the entire world down in flames with them, if all they wanted was some Islamofascist Mullah-ism Iran would look like Afghanistan, not a moderately developed, functional economy. I think for now we should exert the strongest pressure necessary to prevent the development of a viable nuclear weapons program in the mid-term, and try to engage Iran in the long-term. Ahmadinejad may very well turn out to be an anomaly. At any rate he's up for re-election in two years, and I think Iranians are in a mood for a change.

While exerting the strongest pressure necessary to prevent them from developing nukes, we should also try to pursue policy that would ensure a domestic "regime change" -- allow the conditions for the reformists to be able to get back into power. The type of people we can have some type of relations with.

I don't think we should look at Iran as being blacker than black -- they are semi-democratic and Iranian people aren't as backward, primitive-thinking, and mullah-minded as many would like us to believe -- they're many times better than the average Saudi, for example.

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VarSity

**INSERT WHAT IRONDUKE SAID HERE***

Well said.

JohnFlint1985

I agree with what you say, but I still don't see any other scenario here. They will never voluntarily give up this course that they have taken. Because of Pride, money, etc. OK let's assume that they will not use it or even give it to someone else. Then they will certainly threated to use it - blackmailing the region. As a result we will see nuclear Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and don't know who else. The whole region will be one powder keg after it - and all of this provided that they will not use it or give to some groups even hostile to their regime, just to hurt the western interests there. I mean this option is hardly an option as well. No one should live in fear and I don't expect them to.

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astralis

what i'm not sure about is,

how are they going to use a nuke to blackmail the region? from their mindset, the biggest advantage to having a nuke is being able to escape a US war of choice: they can see the difference in what iraq got and what north korea got.

at the same time, NK has detonated a (very very weak) nuke. the most it got were humanitarian aid and some pledges of no attack (not that the US was eager in the first place, not with seoul under NK artillery range). then it had to by and large give up its nuclear program, or at the very least hobble it. in short, for all that time and effort, NK got very little.

what's iran going to get?

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Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

astralis

as an add-on to this:

"There are ways to live with a nuclear Iran...I believe nuclear deterrence will work with the Iranians...I mean, Iran is not a suicide nation. They may have some people in charge that don't appear to be rational, but I doubt that the Iranians intend to attack us with a nuclear weapon … Let's face it: we lived with a nuclear Soviet Union, we've lived with a nuclear China, and we're living with [other] nuclear powers, as well."

- GEN john abizaid, former CENTCOM commander

JAD_333

Not "entirely irrational" means somewhat irrational; or, in the converse, it means somewhat rational, but not entirely rational. Such is the case with all state decisions based on religious foundations. When they are right, they are right for the wrong reason, and when they are wrong, they are wrong for the right reason.

We are not saying that Iran is "entirely irrational" or entirely driven by religious texts, nor that Iran is irrational for wanting nulcear power plants or nuclear weapons. What we are saying is that the decision-making structure in Iran is organized such that 1) the last word MUST belong to a religious leader and 2) all decisions take on the aura of acceptability to a supreme being.

This is what we've said to Iran.

"Look, we haven't been getting along for quite some years now. We see that you're building a nulcear power plant and that you want to make your own fuel rods. We have no problem with the power plant, but we're not comfortable with your making the fuel rods yourself because that could lead to your making nuclear weapons. Maybe you have no plans to do so, but
we and our allies just wouldn't feel secure in the Gulf and anywhere in the region knowing you might have nuclear weapons aimed at us. So, we'll pay you money, cut a few lucrative economic deals with you, and guarantee you a steady supply of fuel rods in exchange for your giving up your processing plans."

"What will we do if you keep on working to make your own rods?"

"Well, we certainly wouldn't want it to go that far, but, frankly, we'd have to destroy the equipment you're using to try to make fissionable materials before you're able to produce any."

Now, a rational leader of a country facing a country with the means to carry out this destruction, would deal while there is still time, whereas an irrational, or somewhat irrational leader could decide based on factors which do not address the real threat facing him. The latter is the case when dealing with a theocracy, because a theocracy is governed first by religious impulses and then by reality.

Do you see what we mean when we say that dealing with Iran is scary?

astralis

JAD,

the problem is, we can't really divine irrationality or not from iran's drive for nuclear weapons. there are wholly rational reasons for why iran would go for nukes.

in my mind, the worst danger that iran poses is not so much centralized-irrationality, but the prospect of the irrationality displayed by entire rogue sections of the IRGC (much like the ISI in pakistan, only with more power given their control of the economy) pushing things from which the iranian gov't might find embarrassing to back down from. i think zraver made a reference to the power of the IRGC here, and it should be appropriate.

i think an useful analogy might be something right out of the cold war, when we were afraid that the hard-line elements that were opposed to either khruschev or gorbachev would try something (not so) funny. part of the absolute freakiness behind the whole cuban crisis was because we were not sure if khruschev was really in control.

so far it looks like the mullahs have control over the IRGC, and thus can proceed as a rational actor. my current beliefs on how we should deal with iran stem from that. however, i'll be all in favor of kinetic regime change if this situation changes.

JAD_333

I agree there are rational reasons for Iran to move to nuclear power generation and to make its own fuel rods. And it is rational for them to add nukes to its military capability.

That's not an issue for me. What is an issue is what would they do once they have nukes and how their having them influences other states that have similar ambitions.

I don't know how we get caught up in discussions over what Iran will do with them. Fact is no one knows. Fact is also their having them is a latent threat to our security and our national interests in the region. I think we and our allies are focused on the latter fact and are determined that Iran not have them or be in a position to make them.

Iran having nuclear weapons is also letting the genie out of the bottle. Once other countries in the region see Iran with nukes, they may seek them to offset Iran's avantage. Such a trend would set us back in terms of non-proliferation and eventual scarpping of all nuclear weapons. It also makes it more likely that nukes will be used in the future.

I don't know what General John Abizaid is about when he sees little threat in letting Iran have nukes. Sure, our retaliatory power would discourage them from using them. Or would it? Nukes in the hands of countries with Jihadi elements seems to me dangerous for all of us. All life, including the Jihadist's own life, is meaningless in the Jihadist's eyes. Maybe the good General is thinking from a purely military standpoint. He's wrong, IMO.


We seem to be all on the same sheet of music when it comes to the irrationality of religiously motivated leaders. But they'll have their moment of truth; either they give up their nuclear amibitions or they'll face the consequences.

iIt hardly made a difference. The USSR was run by pragmatists; for them there was always another day. Khruschev was out front in the effort to get missles on Cuba, but he was backed by the Central Committee. Calling it off, made sense to them at the time. They just didn't have the resources to press the issue. After the crisis they embarked on a military buildup resolved never to be caught short again. Ironically, they succeeded in the buildup, and maybe even drew ahead of us for a time, but when we saw what was afoot, we step up our build-up (Reagan's big push) and we soared ahead. How discouraged the USSR leaders were when they saw us effortlessly move ahead. That was what broke the USSR and what led to its breakup. But I digress.



Back to the beginning.

S-2

"...kinetic regime-change..."

Could you be more clear just what this entails from your perspective. Regime-change implies nations from without overthrowing the gov't or assisting the efforts of others. Astralis, time and again you've made this reference. Nothing indicates that the time-lines REMOTELY coincide. Not even close. Still, your elaboration of the above might be helpful to better understand what you've persistantly advocated.

"...there are wholly rational reasons for why iran would go for nukes."

Indeed. Trumped by the wholly rational reasons why it won't be permitted. That Iran is weighing the risks associated with their pursuit of weapons is certain. They've reached a "gray" area where, in their rational calculations- 1.) they believe that we'll back down from our declared intentions or, 2.) they believe that we'll carry through our intentions and they'll defeat our efforts.

On the face of things, it would seem that Iran cannot prevent our airforce from owning the skies over Tehran. So they are either gambling on acquiring something for nothing or, alternatively, believe that they know something about their IADS that we don't which will protect them.

I think that it's a baseless gambit that needs to be rudely called.

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astralis

S-2,

not sure what you mean here?

by kinetic regime-change, i mean just that: the invasion of iran by ground troops aimed at removing the current regime in tehran. if it must be war, then go all the way.