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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (68427)	5/21/2006 2:57:30 PM
From: Asymmetric	Respond to of 362853

Don't exaggerate Iranian threat Friday, May 19, 2006 BY THOMAS W. LIPPMAN AND JUAN COLE (New Jersey) The Star-Ledger There are many good reasons why it is desirable to prevent Iran from acquiring the capability to develop nuclear weapons. But in assessing the Iranian threat and deciding what to do about it, the United States and its allies should take care to sort out the real strategic issues from the spurious ones that are filling up so much airtime and so many magazine columns. In particular, decisions should not be driven by the idea that Iran -- even an Iran with a handful of nuclear warheads -- presents a strategic or existential threat to Israel. It does not. Israelis are understandably apprehensive about the bellicose statements emanating from Iran's odious president, Mahmoud Ahma dinejad, and it may be that the Ira nian's hateful rhetoric foments anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish senti ment around the Middle East. In military terms, however, Iran presents no credible conventional military threat to Israel. Let us assume the loudmouthed Ahmadinejad really means what he has been saying about Israel. And let us assume that when he calls for Israel to be wiped off the map he is not offering an abstract concept, as if the parti tion of Palestine in 1948 could be revisited, but that he means it is Iran's duty to do something about it. And let us assume that he has some support in the Iranian armed forces, among the people who would have to deliver any strikes against Israel upon which the Ira nian leadership might agree. His rhetoric cannot change the balance of military power. Iran is a weak, developing coun try with an annual per capita in come about one-eighth that of Israel. Iran has a much larger population, but its advantage in manpower is roughly similar to that which Egypt had in 1967. Israel is a rich, sophisticated first-world coun try with an extremely powerful military and a highly advanced technology sector. Israel's air force is probably the best in the world and can fly more missions in the same time than can the U.S. Air Force. Iran, in contrast, has a small, poorly trained air force with obsolescent equipment that would be instantly devastated in any encounter with Israel's. And it strains credulity to imagine that Iran could attack Israel overland or from the sea unless everyone in the Israeli military went to sleep for weeks and failed to notice the movements of troops or ships. No credible Iranian force could get within striking distance. But what if, five or ten years from now, Iran has nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them against Israel? Even if we assume that some people in Iran would then truly plan and intend to fire those warheads at Israel, are we also to as sume that the entire Iranian leadership -- military, political and clerical -- would acquiesce in such a plan? And are we to assume that these people in the leadership, whoever they may be five years or a decade from now, are collectively insane and suicidal, in ways that Stalin and Khrushchev never were? Are we to believe that they would initiate a nuclear catastrophe, a step no other nation has taken in the 60 years of the nuclear era? Do we think Iran is unaware that Israel has nuclear weapons and multiple means of delivering them? Do we believe the Iranians are prepared to shrug that off and plunge ahead to their own doom? Do we think the people and leaders of Iran are willing to give this whole new meaning to the term "suicide bomber"? It is true that Iran menaces Israel, mostly through its support of terrorism. But the reason Iran re sorts to terrorism is that it has no other way of inflicting real harm on the Jewish state, which is capable of defending itself and has the full support of the United States. Some Israeli commentators say that it is easy for Americans to take comfort from the Cold War experience, in which mutual assured destruction deterred the United States and the Soviet Union from attacking each other. The Israelis say they don't have the luxury of that gamble. Given Israel's history, their apprehension is not surpris ing. But American decision-makers would be well advised to proceed on the basis of realistic evaluations, not emotions. Thomas W. Lippman is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute and is a former Washington Post Middle East correspondent. Juan Cole is professor of modern Middle East and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. nj.com