Striking Iran Would Be a Strategic Error, Patience Needed

August 17, 2012 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Leah Fae Cochran

Happy 1-year anniversary - We published the 1st edition of Early Warning a year ago tomorrow. We had 22 subscribers, almost entirely Ploughshares Fund staff. Then things really took off. This is our 239th edition and we are deeply appreciative to our strong and dedicated readership.

--Like what you’ve been reading? Show support by telling a friend to subscribe. http://ow.ly/66yh9

Patience - Attacking Iran “would be a devastating strategic error,” says Roger Cohen of The New York Times. The U.S. is dedicated to keeping Iran from the bomb. Iran also has not yet made the decision to break for one. Instead of threatening to strike Iran, the wise choice for Israel is patience, says Cohen.

--Cohen’s quick list of the downsides to striking: ”But a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran today would be disastrous. It unites Iran in fury; locks in the Islamic Republic for a generation; gives a substantial boost to the wobbling Assad regime in Syria; radicalizes the Arab world at a moment of delicate transition; ignites Hezbollah on the Lebanese border; boosts Hamas; endangers U.S. troops in the region; sparks terrorism; propels oil skyward; rocks a vulnerable global economy; triggers a possible regional war; offers a lifeline to Iran just as sanctions are biting; adds a never-to-be-forgotten Persian vendetta to the Arab vendetta against Israel; and may at best set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions a couple of years or at worst accelerate its program by prompting it to rush for a bomb and throw out International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors.” http://nyti.ms/N8Igtl

Sage advice - “Pakistan: Maybe Not the Best Country in Which to Store Nuclear Weapons.” That’s the title of Jeffrey Goldberg’s latest post at The Atlantic. http://bit.ly/R6N5IC

Fear not? - ”We have confidence that the government of Pakistan is well aware of the range of potential threats to its nuclear arsenal and has secured its nuclear arsenal accordingly,” said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland in response to a question about the recent attack by militants on a Pakistani air base believed to be a location where nuclear weapons are stored. The Express Tribune has the story. http://bit.ly/NIxSg3

Welcome to Early Warning - Subscribe to our morning email or follow us on twitter.

--Have a tip? Email earlywarning@ploughshares.org. Want to support this work? Click here.

Book - Jeffrey W. Knopf edited, “Security Assurances and Nuclear Nonproliferation,” a book that examines state behaviour on nonproliferation from a different angle than the usual literature based on threat-based strategy or deterrence theory.

--”In some cases, a state may be better off seeking to give others a greater sense of security, rather than by holding their security at risk. The most prominent use of these security assurances has been in conjunction with efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons,” writes Knopf. Read the introduction here. http://bit.ly/RnpmXa

The fading of the “atomic age” - The advent of nuclear weapons brought with it a new era - the “Atomic Age.” Over time, people started using the term less - moving from the atomic age to the nuclear age, the jet age, or the space age. Alex Wellerstein at Restricted Data charts the rise and fall of these “ages” through their use in books since 1945.

--Summing up the passing of the ages, Wellerstein writes that one could say “the twentieth century was bracketed on one side by Machines, and on the other by Information. In between, we flirted with the Bomb.” http://bit.ly/Q7wwrn

Happy friday - XKCD offers a detailed cartoon of the nuclear chain of command. http://bit.ly/NMTbJJ