Will Israel bomb Iran?

Possibly. But not out of fear of an existential threat – as last Tuesday’s BBC documentary would have you believe. Israel’s real worry is that a stronger Iran will make it more difficult for Israel to force its agenda on the Palestinians, Hezbollah and Syria. Halfiranian argues, perhaps controversially, that by changing the balance of power in the Middle East Conflict, an Iranian bomb may increase the chance of peace in the region.

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For those who missed the BBC documentary, the thesis went something like this: Israel’s precedent of pre-emptively bombing Iraq’s nuclear reactor in the 80′s, combined with its perception of an existential threat in Iranian president Ahmadinejad, lead to a relatively straightforward conclusion – Israel will not let Iran get a bomb.

The problem with this logic is that there is no existential threat from Iran.

Who runs Iran?

To understand the danger Iran poses to Israel, it’s self-evident that we need to know who the Iranian decision-makers are. As the documentary clearly points out, “Israel has been watching Iran closely since the 1979 revolution”. Israeli politicians are well aware that Ahmadinejad would never have his finger on any red button, were Iran to develop a nuclear bomb. Any military decisions are taken by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is certainly no hot-headed newcomer to power.

Khamenei has been supreme leader for over 15 years – following the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 – so why is all the attention being paid to President Ahmadinejad? Besides, the Western media has just spent the past eight years excusing former President Khatami’s inability to reform Iran by saying the position of president is an impotent one.

Watching Tuesday’s documentary, anyone would have thought Ahmadinejad has the power to attack Israel – he doesn’t. The president of Iran is not the most powerful man in the country. He’s not even the second or third most powerful man in the regime. So don’t look at Ahmadinejad when assessing the Iranian ‘threat’.

The Israelis are more than ready to forget these minor details when discussing Iran with the media. Besides, their interest is to garner international support against Iran, and Ahmadinejad’s headline-friendly sensationalist rhetoric is the just what they need.

Khamenei’s position

If it doesn’t really matter what Ahmadinejad says, what does the Supreme Leader Khamenei think? To be clear, Khamenei, like Khomeini before him, is staunchly anti-Israeli. When Ahmadinejad called to wipe the “Zionist regime” [not, significantly, the country] off the map, he was restating a long-held position of the Iranian government. Khamenei is also extremely anti-American, though it shouldn’t be forgotten that he condemned the September 11 attacks on the US in no uncertain terms.

The Islamic Republic of Iran would rather Israel as a political entity did not exist. There is no point denying this, and there is no need to. The logical leap made by many commentators is that this equates to a motivation for dropping a nuclear bomb on Tel Aviv. That’s clearly rubbish.

Think through clearly what would happen if Iran, either directly or through Hezbollah, were to bomb Israel. Sure, it would kill lots of Israelis, but it would mean the end of the Islamic Republic. The US and NATO would certainly attack Iran, stopping only when they had toppled the regime.

The Iranian government is fully aware of this, so the question to ask is, why are so many people convinced that the Islamic Republic would wish to commit suicide? Are Western commentators assuming that a government which supports suicide attacks by individuals is prepared to commit suicide itself?

There is no political objective for Iran to achieve by suicidally attacking Israel. No Iranian leader would throw away the Islamic Republic that they have spent three decades constructing in exchange for an Israeli bloodbath.

Khamenei has said that “mass killings of human beings are catastrophic acts which are [to be] condemned, wherever they may happen and whoever the perpetrators and the victims may be”. And he was saying this about an attack on the US, a country every bit as much an enemy of Iran as Israel is. Is this man about to kill millions of Israelis (and Palestinians) in a nuclear attack aimed vaguely at Tel Aviv?

That’s not to say Israelis have nothing to worry about. While they shouldn’t be concerned about a bomb falling on Tel Aviv, they have reason to worry about the increased power that a nuclear Iran would have.

An Iranian bomb would not threaten Israel directly, but it would certainly constrain them from acting without consequence in the region.

“How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”

This is where the paradoxical part comes in – how an Iranian nuclear programme can promote peace. A stronger Iran means stronger allies, and that means Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas – all the parties that Israel has to negotiate with. A nuclear Iran would mean that Israel’s enemies could no longer be ignored, as they are today. Israel’s lack of peace with Lebanon, Syria or the Palestinians is in large part due to Israel feeling it does not need to make the necessary “concessions” in these disputes, and that this stalemate can continue without serious consequences.

A nuclear armed Iran would change that. A relatively weaker Israel will seek security reassurances from elsewhere. When it cannot rely purely on military deterrence, Israel with make what it sees as political concessions.

The evidence is there to see. After this summer’s attacks by Hezbollah on Israel, the Israeli media and government has been making signals about talking to the Syrians. Israel knows that if makes peace with Syria, there will be one less frontier for Iranian influence and threat. Would Israel have been making these moves if Iran was not becoming more powerful? Would Israel be making even more of an effort for peace with these foes if Iran had a nuclear weapon? I think so.

What’s the alternative? Look at the situation today. The core dispute, the Palestinian struggle for independence, has been festering like an open wound for nearly six decades. It has fuelled anti-Semitic and Western hatred around the world. It is a central gripe of Bin Laden’s as stated in his 1996 “declaration of war“. There’s no doubting its importance in inciting militant Islamists to commit acts of violence everywhere.

An Iranian nuclear weapon may instinctively sound like a bad idea, but even the threat of it may encourage Israel to make a meaningful peace with the Palestinians. And that would make all our lives safer.

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As something of an endnote, I should add that there is one group that could, arguably, suffer as a result of a nuclear Iran. That’s the Iranian people. In much the same way as Kim Jong-il is untouchable; the argument goes that a nuclear bomb would shore-up the authoritarians in Tehran. My personal opinion, which requires a separate entry, is that while clearly not democratic, the political system in Iran is open enough to reform itself – however painstakingly slow the process may appear to be. Genuine political reform has to come from within, and if an Iranian bomb inhibits others from trying to impose rushed “solutions” on the country, then perhaps that’s a good thing.