The Contranomics of Global Jihad
BIG LIZARDS BLOG
By Dafydd
So the burning (sorry) question is -- can Iran actually be brought low by mere economics?
The answer is not yet known for certain; but a new wrinkle in the ongoing crisis about Iran's development of nuclear weapons makes the answer to the riddle above seem more and more like "Yes, it can."
What am I talking about? (Does anybody really know what I'm ever talking about?) Yesterday, Russia announced that it was suspending its shipment of low-grade enriched Uranium fuel to Iran -- ostensibly on the grounds that Iran has missed two payments of $25 million to Russia. However, sources say the real reason is that Iran refuses to stop enriching the low-grade fuel at its centrifuge complex at Natanz:
"Russia has informed Iran that it will withhold nuclear fuel for Iran's nearly completed Bushehr power plant unless Iran suspends its uranium enrichment as demanded by the United Nations Security Council, European, American and Iranian officials say....
For years, President Bush has been pressing President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to cut off help to Iran on the nuclear power plant that Russia is building at Bushehr, in southern Iran. But Mr. Putin has resisted. The project is Tehran's first serious effort to produce nuclear energy and has been very profitable for Russia.
Recently, however, Moscow and Tehran have been engaged in a public argument about whether Iran has paid its bills, which may explain Russia's apparent shift. But the ultimatum may also reflect an increasing displeasure and frustration on Moscow's part with Iran over its refusal to stop enriching uranium at its vast facility at Natanz.
"We're not sure what mix of commercial and political motives are at play here," one senior Bush administration official said in Washington. "But clearly the Russians and the Iranians are getting on each other's nerves -- and that's not all bad."
I maintain that it's impossible to separate the "commercial and political motives," because each drives the other: Russia has a political interest in stopping Iran from being nuclear armed; but that is also an economic interest, because a nuclear Iran would force Russia to deploy more military power to the region to prevent itself being bullied and extorted by Iran. Force projection costs money, especially for a country with inadequate access to the open sea.
Similarly, the better Iran gets at enrichment, the less enrichment it must buy from Russia. Already, the United States has dangled a proposition for Russia to do all the Uranium enrichment for Iran -- at a staggering charge.
"But American officials have been trying to create a commercial incentive for Russia to put pressure on Iran. One proposal the Bush administration has endorsed since late 2005 envisions having the Russians enrich Iran's uranium in Russia. That creates the prospect of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in business for Russia, and a way to ensure that Iran receives only uranium enriched for use in power reactors, instead of for use in weapons.
Iran has rejected those proposals, saying it has the right to enrich uranium on its own territory."
Iran is desperate to develop the ability to enrich their own Uranium in part because they can't afford the fee to have Russia do it... at least not if Iran keeps pouring money down a pair of rat-holes...
* Why hasn't Iran paid the $50 million in bills it owes Russia? (Iran denies this, but nobody believes them or cares what they say.) They haven't paid because their economy is currently broken -- and headed like the Titanic towards the iceberg.
* Why is Iran's economy broken? Because they've been spending so much money on two things: nuclear enrichment at Natanz... and global jihadism.
Force projection is dreadfully expensive, even if you call it global jihadism: Iran is supporting Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon, the Qods Force in Iraq, a war against Israel a few months ago, assassins all over the world, and Shiite revolutionary movements from Malaysia to Venezuela. But at the same time, the drain on their resources from trying to develop a nuclear "Qods bomb" and buy a delivery system from North Korea, Russia, or Red China has caused Iran to stop investing in its oil infrastructure.
Not investing in oil extraction and gasoline refining is crippling Iran; they must import between 40% and 60% (depending on who is making the estimate) of their gasoline from third-party countries -- who, not surprisingly, charge Iran an arm and a leg and an arm, since they have the mullahs over an oil barrel.
But for the Iranians to return to investing in maintenance and expansion of their oil economy, they would have to cut back on both WMD development and on global jihadism... which their religiously driven ideology won't allow them to do!
It's the ultimate Catch-22... and it illuminates the central conundrum:
1. Only those nations with vibrant economies can afford to both develop new weapons technology and also to project force around the world.
2. Only those nations with capitalist financial systems will have a vibrant economy.
3. But nations with capitalist financial systems must, of necessity, be free and open, connected with the rest of the world, democratic, and operate under a transparent rule of law: in other words, members of what Thomas P.M. Barnett calls the Functioning Core.
4. But if a nation is in the Functioning Core, it is not a national security concern if they develop nuclear weapons; attacking the West is the farthest thing from their minds. Aside from the United States, Core countries spend much less money either developing new weapons technology or projecting their force (yet another instance of American exceptionalism). When we try to get them to do so -- for example, in Afghanistan or Iraq -- it's like pulling fingernails.
Thus, Iran appears to be imploding due to the built-in contradiction of wanting to be a super-power -- and simultaneously wanting to be a closed society run by fanatical religious totalitarians. They will only be able to afford military technological development and serious force projection when they transform themselves into a society that has no interest in military technological development and serious force projection.
It looks more and more like Iran will be defeated, not by military invasion, not even by missile attack, but by the economic realities of Western style capitalism. (The irony is so thick, you could cut it with a sword.)
Econ. 101: It's not just a good idea; it's the natural law of the universe. |
