James Fallows

In the six months -- yes, it's been that long -- since Barack Obama's re-election, the drum-beats from the United States and Israel about bombing Iran have partly died down. Not totally, of course; recall the Hagel hearings, and also this Congressional resolution appearing to pre-endorse an attack if it occurs. Still, so much else has been going on -- in Syria, in North Korea, with the European economy -- that the topic has moved off the front pages for a while.

Which is why I found it so interesting to see that the possibility of an attack had literally moved back onto at least one front page. Here are our household's three papers as they looked on the breakfast table yesterday.

As an academic in the Earth Sciences, I would argue that threat deflation is rampant (but not in national security issues). Looking at where threat-deflation is common, and where threat-inflation is common, helps us to understand where either occurs. 

If you look at many threats to society, for example anthropogenic climate change or cigarette smoking, there are or were large campaigns to downplay either the impact or existence of these threats.  They are funded by organizations with a clear interest in the matter -- coal companies and tobacco companies in these examples. It takes energy, time and money to inflate or deflate a threat.

Peculiar to national security issues is that there usually no clear organized group that benefit from deflating the threat -- some general will make his career being the first leader of the new Cyber Command.  Is there anyone who can make a career saying it is not necessary?  Will any politician be celebrated for stopping some effort to "make us safer" in anywhere near the same proportion that he or she would be vilified when something bad happens? Are there any consultants who will earn large fees telling us something is not worth worrying about?  Why would we pay someone to deal with non-threats?

Threat inflation may be bad for everyone, but it is good for someone -- a tragedy of the commons, if you will, where the commons is our pool of resources to either deal with threats or to invest in society. 

I am a graduate student studying the proliferation of nuclear technology (especially centrifuges for uranium enrichment) in the Engineering School at [distinguished East Coast university.]  [He goes on to name advisors with extensive experience in assessing weapons threats from the Middle East and elsewhere, and with reputations for skepticism about some claimed threats.] In this email, I speak only for myself.

Regrettably, I've found, this field of study is replete with slanderous rhetoric and name-calling on both sides of the spectrum, a good portion of  which is propelled by the colossal egos of a few with especially influential voices.  Mostly because I am loath to participate in such unpleasantries, I will keep my comments as brief and benign as possible.

For the record: I believe that military action in Iran is completely unwarranted at this point and will remain so for (at very least) the near future.

While I am thankful for the growing body of scientific experts willing to speak out and counterbalance our nation's penchant for "threat inflation,"  I worry that a number of anti-war scientist/activists are guilty of the same fundamental offense as their Bush-era nemeses: allowing their political agendas to shape their technical assessments.  Technical experts who maintain an a priori commitment to nonintervention can frequently do more harm than good.  By softening the facts, downplaying suspicious activity, and gratuitously applying the "alarmist" label to any and all who oppose them, these analysts weaken the public discourse and undermine the ability of the IAEA to insist on transparency from nations like Iran.

In a recent post, you link to two op-eds by Yousaf Butt.  (I feel obliged to stress that both are op-eds and quite likely do not reflect the position of many or most Bulletin scientists.)  Like many of my colleagues, I cringe when the Washington Post, for example, levels sweeping allegations at Iran based on a tiny amount of new (even if credible) information.  So, I applaud Butt in one sense.  Unfortunately, though, based on my own reading of the evidence, I cannot agree that he has "debunked" much of anything:

1. No loudspeaker magnet, barring a truly remarkable coincidence, would require the exact dimensions of the magnets in Iran's centrifuges, down to the nearest one-thousandth of a centimeter in two of the three specifications and to the nearest millimeter in the third.

2. While the diagram he attacks in his second piece is by no means a smoking gun, the reasoning that leads him to call it  " either slipshot analysis or an amateurish hoax," was later shown to be a mixup in units -- he simply didn't have sufficient information.

While I worry often about nuclear matters and "threat inflation," and while I am critical of the current trend that sensationalizes every alleged example of Iranian deception, I do believe in this statement, taken from a recent rebuttal to Butt: "the public needs to know the facts about Iran's nuclear program, even when uncomfortable, in order to design a responsible reaction to Iran that avoids war."

I will ask the author of those Bulletin of Atomic Scientists posts, Yousaf Butt, if he has a reply. And on the taxonomy of inflated threats, Charles Stevenson, a long-time defense expert often quoted here, writes to say:
I've highlighted "doing the terrorist's work for them" because I've so often argued that this is one of the most damaging aspects of U.S. policies and attitudes through the post-9/11 years (for instance in this cover story in 2006.) Thanks for everyone submitting ideas; more to come.

Following this post on the impending tenth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, and this argument from a "liberal hawk" on why he had been proud to support the war, a few reader reactions. I am behind on this for the usual reasons but also because of the cumbersomeness of Internet connections in Beijing. Here we go with a sampling of response.

Threats aren't always inflated. Many people wrote to make a point similar to this one:

The only example of threat deflation I can think of was George W. Bush pre-9/11.

Further on the G.W. Bush record, from a veteran of Republican politics now in the Midwest:

I have all sorts of thoughts about the 10th anniversary of the Iraq invasion, for another time.  I'm probably not the first reader of yours, though, to note that you set the bar for honorable conduct pretty low with your reference yesterday to former President Bush.

Bush was the one person most responsible for the disaster Iraq became; he has never either apologized or accepted responsibility for his mistakes, and has devoted the years since he left office to presiding over his ghostwritten insta-memoirs and giving lavishly compensated speeches to closed audiences.  If you think Bush deserves credit for not criticizing how President Obama has tried to repair the damage Bush caused, you have a more charitable soul than I do.

My capsule view of Bush: I believe that the temperamental combination he brought to the presidency was lethal. I think of the big three elements of this mix as ignorance, incuriosity, and decisiveness.

• Ignorance was his low level of pre-existing knowledge of the complexities of the world.
• "Incuriosity" was his apparent lack of passion about learning what he didn't know.
• Decisiveness was his desire, nonetheless, to make big, sweeping choices quickly -- for instance, ten years ago that it made sense to invade Iraq.

In these matters of temperament, completely apart from political beliefs, you can see Bush as the opposite of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and also of Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson. I argued nine years ago that even if George W. Bush served only one term as president, his legacy would be large and disastrous. Still, since leaving office he has been an honorable contrast to other members of his team, notably his vice president and first secretary of defense.

I said that Al Gore deserved credit for an early anti-war stand. A reader in Maryland writes:

You forgot Robert Byrd:

Before: "If the United States leads the charge to war in the Persian Gulf, we may get lucky and achieve a rapid victory. But then we will face a second war: a war to win the peace in Iraq. This war will last many years and will surely cost hundreds of billions of dollars. In light of this enormous task, it would be a great mistake to expect that this will be a replay of the 1991 war. The stakes are much higher in this conflict."

During: Today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned. Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination. (March 19, 2003)

After: Of the more than 18,000 votes he cast as a senator, Byrd said he was proudest of his vote against the Iraq war resolution.  (June 12, 2006)

Back to the Bush family. The message I quoted from a liberal supporter of the war said that one honorable reason to invade Iraq was that Saddam Hussein had tried to assassinate the first President Bush. A reader replies:

I was struck, though, by this quotation from your "liberal hawk" and "avowed leftist":

I think just the assassination attempt on Bush 41 is plenty all by itself--what kind of country are we if we let another country's leader pull something like that with impunity?

One trouble with this is that the assassination attempt on Bush 41 was always dubious and has been pretty thoroughly discredited by now.  Another is that the US has attempted, sometimes successfully, to assassinate leaders of other countries -- notably Castro, whom the US tried to assassinate many times.  Would [this hawk] agree, I wonder, that Cuba would be justified in invading the US in retaliation?  If not, kind of country is Cuba if it lets another country's leader pull something like that with impunity?  Obviously that is a rhetorical question, whose answer is "a small, weak, and thoroughly menaced country that knows it couldn't bring the invasion off."  But morally, by this standard, a Cuban invasion of the US would be completely justified....

Which reminds me: Obama's opposition to the war, mentioned by your reader CJ, is highly disputable. I was always criticial, myself, of the whole 'quagmire' argument directed by many American liberals against the Iraq war: it'll cost (us) too much, it'll last too long, it'll cost too many (American) lives.  Imagine a Soviet politician who'd argued against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on those grounds; or a Japanese who'd argued against the attack on Pearl Harbor, or against Japan's imperial conquests in Asia, on the grounds that it would last too long and cost too much, and Japan would become stuck in a quagmire.  What American would hail such people for their great wisdom and insight into world affairs?  Usually we condemn the USSR and Japan for their aggression against other countries, but only "hippies" would condemn the US for aggression.

In the run-up to both Iraq wars I knew some opponents and protesters who argued that, contrary to the promises of our leaders, these wars would not be cakewalks and would last longer and be bloodier and more expensive than we were being told.  I told them that I hoped they were wrong, because they were effectively hoping for a long, bloody, costly war.  I preferred that as few people died or were hurt as possible, and that there were other better reasons to oppose those wars.  When they thought about it, they tended to agree with me.

Having myself made a "quagmire"-style argument before the war, I naturally think that such a perspective was a useful reason to oppose the war. Let's spell it out. Much of the stated case for war was in two parts: (1) Saddam Hussein is evil and dangerous, and (2) there is a quick and feasible answer to that question. I was saying about part (2): No, there is not a quick and feasible answer. In cases of life-or-death imminent existential threat or emergencies like Pearl Harbor, questions of practicality don't matter. But they sure do in a "preventive" war of choice -- which I hoped we would not launch.

One more for now:

I was puzzled at the time, and remain puzzled, by the fact that people who accepted the basically humanitarian argument for war (Saddam is dreadful, and the Iraqis would be better off if we deposed him) did not think: if we depose Saddam for these reasons, a lot depends on how we handle the aftermath. Luckily, we do not have to speculate about this: we already have an aftermath carried out by the Bush administration ready to hand, in Afghanistan. How's that going?

It wasn't as clear then as it is now how badly Bush and Cheney blew that one, but it was clear enough for me to think, at the time: the people in the Bush administration are not interested in any sort of serious investment in making the countries they invade better, more governable, whatever. Rumsfeld will try to prove his theories about how you can do everything with next to no footprint, Bush and Cheney will go haring off after the next big thing, etc. So if someone thought that invading Iraq would be justified IF we were willing to undertake some sort of serious effort to make Iraq a better place, then she ought also to think: what are the odds of that? and then: given the available evidence, not that good.

I did not accept the humanitarian justification for invasion myself. (Not that I doubted Saddam's awfulness -- I was on the Turkish side of their border with Iraq during one of the last bits of the Anfal campaign -- but I didn't think that necessarily meant that invasion would be a good idea.) But I really never understood why the people who did accept it were so apparently uninterested in the evidence of our competence at nation-building provided by our conduct in Afghanistan after the Taliban were defeated.

And, why not, here is one more (from a large harvest). Soon I will be in Shanghai, where the Chinese government's foot-on-the-neck of the Internet is usually lighter than in Beijing, and I should be able to catch up on a range of arguments:

The [liberal hawk] reader comments that Iraqis are surely better off now than they were under Saddam's power....

First, he, and you and I are really in no place to say what makes Iraqis 'better off'. That is a question for actual Iraqis living in Iraq. But from what we can say as outsiders:  Iraq under Saddam was no paradise, but the infrastructure of the country was completely obliterated during the war, leaving people who previously had electricity, running water, general physical safety and comfort with none of those. Second, a huge number of Iraqis died as a result of the war. Huge. Well over a hundred thousand. We should keep them in mind when making throwaway claims about life being 'better' for Iraqis, when the invasion coalition killed so many of them. I had an Iraqi roommate for a time who had lost so many friends in the war he had lost count.

Basically, I just want to acknowledge that there is no straightforward way to measure whether lives are 'better off' as a result of any traumatic event like a war, and that any discussion of such has to include mention of the unspeakable damage that this war has done to a generation of Iraqis. And any discussion of possible future military adventures for the US should too.

In response to a post yesterday, arguing that it's time for another look at the fateful decision ten years ago to invade Iraq, these reader messages.

1. Threat inflation. I said that nearly all the major official "threats" of the modern era proved in retrospect to have been hyped. Missile gap, Tonkin Gulf, WMD, etc. Reader JA immediately replied, "You left out terrorism." And reader AS wrote:

It's true that we came close to nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis. But according to a well documented article in the Atlantic [plus others],  the missiles themselves were an inflated threat, i.e., according to US generals at the time did not materially hurt US security and could easily be traded, as they eventually secretly were, for US missiles in Turkey.

Again, reflect on this. Virtually all of the danger-to-the-nation warnings we've received in modern history prove to have been false, or overblown and hyped. Also, from MM in Massachusetts:

We're in heated agreement about the danger of threat inflation  and the Cuban Missile crisis in particular. Building on that notion, Able Archer 83 was another incident not in the public discussion (as much) but was a terrifying moment in history: a moment where two nuclear giants almost had it out over little more than a lack of communication.

2. The 'bomb Iran' resolution. I mentioned the efforts of Senators Lindsey Graham, Robert Menendez, et al to promote a Congressional resolution backing the government of Israel on whatever it decides to do about Iran. YR and others pointed me to the text of the resolution, which includes this sentence:

Nothing in this resolution shall be construed as an authorization for the use of force or a declaration of war.

Noted. On the other hand, and for the record, here is what the parts of the resolution just before that say:

Congress ... (7) declares that the United States has a vital national interest in, and unshakeable unbreakable commitment to, ensuring the existence, survival, and security of the State of Israel, and reaffirms United States support for Israel's right to self-defense; and
(8) urges that, if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in self-defense, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence.

3. Liberal hawks. On accountability for people's views ten years ago, I said that unlike the architects of Vietnam, those who urged the U.S. toward war in Iraq had largely escaped reckonings about their views. A reader in Nebraska writes:

I might argue that Tony Blair has been held more accountable than most U.S. politicians - at least in his home country.

From reader DG in Texas:

At the time, the propaganda machine made anyone opposed to the war "unpatriotic" - unfortunate way to limit free speech.  It is now too hard to even discuss because of the damage to our young generation - remembering how we treated Viet Nam Vets.  The whole thing is just too sad to think about.

And from CJ :

One suggestion (not exactly original to me -- I believe Timothy Noah of Slate made this point previously [JF note: for instance here] re: accountability: not only are the people who got Iraq wrong treated as wise men, but those who got Iraq right (with the highly notable exception of President Obama) remain marginalized as too radical or (as Paul Krugman said today) as "hippies". Why aren't people like former Senator Graham [Robert Graham of Florida] called upon more in the places where public opinion is shaped?

Good question. Finally, from Alan Thomas, who says he is proud to be known as a liberal hawk:

Ten years ago I was profiled in a WaPo piece, by Linton Weeks, on ordinary Americans who supported the war; I filled the role of token leftist:

An avowed leftist, Alan Thomas, 33, doesn't like Bush, but he believes in the war. "I don't support the president. I'm skeptical about his sincerity in wanting democracy in Iraq. But I feel he's committed to it," Thomas says.

Thomas works the night shift in a group home for mainstreamed developmentally disabled adults in Kirksville, Mo. He's the son of college professors. He and his wife, Kate, 27, live in an apartment and drive a 1989 Chevrolet van. They have two mutts rescued from the humane society. They also run a small shop that sells things they think are cool, such as bumper stickers that read "Bush/Cheney: America's Second Choice."

"I'm sympathetic with the plight of the Kurds and the Iraqi people," Thomas says. "And I'm disappointed in, and embarrassed by, the left."

Asked if he voted for Bush, he laughs. "No, no way. Never."

Though Thomas enthusiastically supports the war, he says he'll reevaluate his position after the regime change. "If Bush tries to install a puppet dictator or if there are human rights violations, I'll be decrying it as loudly as anyone else on the left," he says...

The United States, Thomas says, "should clean up the world. We have the power.  I'm kind of a weirdo. It's wrong for us to sit on our hands and not do anything."

I for one still stand by everything I said.  But then, I never advocated for the war based on the WMD argument anyway, and acknowledged at the time (though Weeks didn't use those quotes) that it was a thin pretext used to sell it to the public and the U.N.  Honestly, although my personal motive had to do with human rights (and notice that Weeks did print my caveat that anticipated the possibility of something like Abu Ghraib), I think just the assassination attempt on Bush 41 is plenty all by itself--what kind of country are we if we let another country's leader pull something like that with impunity?

I have trouble understanding why you think it's so obvious now that the liberal hawks were wrong.  Maybe circa 2006 it looked that way, but aren't Iraqis better off today than they would be if Saddam (or his sons) still had a grip on power?

To answer the questions in the final paragraph: let's assume that many Iraqis may indeed be better off. For Americans that's not the relevant fact. After all, many people in Cuba, North Korea, etc might be better off if the U.S. invaded there too.

The question I am asking is whether this was a sane investment of American lives, money, national focus and attention, and international reputation. I argued before the war and soon after that it wasn't, and I think time has strengthened rather than weakened that case. Still, I respect an "idealistic hawk" willing to speak up for his views -- rather than, like many who were making similar points ten years ago, pretending this never really occurred.

With nothing to do with the debates. That's for tomorrow.

1) Hacking. Many people who have done business in China have seen warnings like the one below, which I first encountered a few months ago and which started showing up in my Gmail inbox again today:

1) Kill Decision, by Daniel Suarez. Over the months Atlantic writers have considered how much less attractive military-drone technology will seem, from the American perspective, when it is no longer a U.S. monopoly. See installments by Steve Clemons, Robert Wright, and me, including allusions to David Ignatius's novel Bloodmoney.

In Ignatius's book, drones were an incidental motivating factor. In Daniel Suarez's Kill Decision, they are the center of the action. Timely, cautionary -- and of course very interesting.


2) The Party Is Over, by Mike Lofgren.

While traveling I am reminded of that modern truth: we are omni-connected in a bad way (crowds staring at devices in their hands when walking, driving, talking -- people will start making fun of this pretty soon) without being reliably connected in a good way (being able to count on usable connections on a laptop when moving from place to place*). Thus today's catch-up grab-bag:

1) Iran The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg reminds us in this authoritative and news-filled interview/post about the fundamental problem with all "let's bomb Iran" scenarios: they would make the situation much worse rather than in any way "better." This is an evergreen theme for our magazine. In his latest report, Jeff Goldberg reports on a lengthy discussion in Israel last month with Meir Dagan, former head of Israel's intelligence service, the Mossad. A sample, with my emphasis added:

What angers [Dagan] most is what he sees as a total lack of understanding on the part of the men who lead the Israeli government about what may come the day after an Israeli strike. Some senior Israeli officials have argued to me that a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities might actually trigger the eventual downfall of the regime. Dagan predicts the opposite: "Judging by the war Iran fought against Iraq, even people who supported the Shah, even the Communists, joined hands with (Ayatollah) Khomeini to fight Saddam," he said, adding, "In case of an attack, political pressure on the regime will disappear. If Israel will attack, there is no doubt in my mind that this will also provide them with the justification to go ahead and move quickly to nuclear weapons." He also predicted that the sanctions program engineered principally by President Obama may collapse as a result of an Israeli strike, which would make it easier for Iran to obtain the material necessary for it to cross the nuclear threshold. 

This report, and a similar cautionary interview by Jeff Goldberg last week, for me are the conclusive response to yet another recent item from The Goldberg Oeuvre. That was his asking whether Barack Obama, with his track record of taking big, dramatic risks despite his super-deliberate reputation, might be expected to make a similar, "What the hell, let's try it" choice about Iran.

My answer is: No. He is not going to do this. Nothing in Obama's record reveals a willingness to make a choice with as much unbounded negative potential as this one. Running for President as a freshman senator? At worst he'd suffer a bad early loss -- as many ultimately successful candidates have done. Ordering the strike on bin Laden? Riskier, for his reputation and for relations with Pakistan -- but not in the sense of opening up a whole new military front. The commitment in Libya: hedged and contained from the start. Similarly with Iraq and Afghanistan. I won't go down the entire list but will say, Nothing in Obama's career illustrates a recklessness like what would be involved in  bombing Iran. (Readers from the Netanyahu government, please ignore this paragraph. I'm bluffing.)

2) China Two days ago, the Atlantic's editor James Bennet and I had a discussion at Atlantic HQ, hosted by David Bradley and organized by Steve Clemons, about China, China Airborne, and when my next article for the Atlantic was going to be turned in. The video is here.  This morning I talked Charlie Rose and Erica Hill, on CBS, about the same topics -- at least the first two. That video is here.

3) Recession In addition to Derek Thompson's very good piece on our site about what makes job loss in this recession so unusual, please see the "America's Hidden Austerity Program" by Ben Polak and Peter Schott of Yale. It has been widely cited but is too important not to mention again. Short answer: in all other recessions, public employment has helped pull us back up. This time it is pulling us down. 

4) Australia Sam Roggeveen, of the Lowy Institute in Sydney, has been doing an online Q-and-A with me about China, America, technology, and related topics. I think U.S. readers in particular would find this enlightening, for the difference in assumptions about and perspectives on China, as seen from the Antipodes. It's on Lowy's The Interpreter site: part 1 is here, part 2 is here, and part 3 is in process.

5) TSA I have news, but it will wait. That is it for now.

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* On this point: I love Amtrak and take it whenever I can. But, really, Amtrak needs to stop advertising its east coast trains as having WiFi -- because they don't in any kind of reliable way.

Suppose Amtrak under-promised and said: You get to travel from downtown to downtown, with no TSA screening lines and in relative calm, plus with power outlets at each seat ... and from time to time along the route free WiFi service might be available! Then people would be happily surprised when it did work. Instead its promising sometime that its current technology just can't deliver, therefore creating needless Louis CK-style irritation when it doesn't work rather than appropriate gratitude when it does.

[Please see update below.] After a 5 am airport checkin, my thoughts naturally turn to: Armageddon, despair, the bleak inevitabilities of life. Though on the brighter side, the TSA operation at San Diego turns out to have an metal-detector-only line, which for once I managed to sidle towards and make my way through without being intercepted for "random" extra screening.*

Back to the dark side: the Spring 2012 issue of Rand Review, from the Rand corporation, has published an article on the threats posed by Iran and the ways to deal with them. Please read the whole thing, which elaborates on this opening premise:

An Israeli or American attack on Iranian nuclear facilities would make it more, not less, likely that the Iranian regime would decide to produce and deploy nuclear weapons. Such an attack would also make it more, not less, difficult to contain Iranian influence.

As a reminder of the main point: a nuclear-armed Iran would be a very bad thing. A military strike on Iran in the name of averting that possibility would similarly be a very bad thing in itself, and in all likelihood would make the original problem even harder to solve. The reason the Iran situation is genuinely so difficult is that both these unpleasant realities apply. Serious proposals for dealing with Iran's ambitions, as opposed to the threats and bluster we have heard from many Israeli and American politicians (and very few military officials in either country), proceed from awareness of both truths.

Update Thomas P.M. Barnett has a recent item on the relative effectiveness of "hard-kill" and "soft-kill" approaches toward Iran:

While I have written that I think Israel will be hard-pressed not to attack in the end, I still maintain - as I have since 2005 - that the soft-kill on Iran will work.  To me, the soft-kill is the detente here, just like it was with the Sovs.  Open up ties, admit the regime is valid, blow off the nuke pursuit (which grants Iran nothing in terms of leverage with anybody - including already nuked-up Israel), and let the connectivity that results do the rest in terms of regime delegitimizing from within leading to eventual democratization.

Ultimately, this strategy - and not Star Wars - brought down the Sovs, and it can do the same on Iran - in far faster order.

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*Yes, I know it is actually random -- even though, for whatever reason, in the past 18 months it has never not happened to me at Dulles. More on screening status of different airports here.

A month ago my Atlantic colleague Jeffrey Goldberg joined me for two rounds of Q-and-A about the heated military rhetoric between Israel and Iran. My main question was whether Prime Minister Netanyahu could really be serious in his threats to bomb Iranian facilities if he thought that Iranian progress toward nuclear-weapon capability has passed a "point of no return" -- and that the United States wasn't going to attack on its own.

I phrased it that way -- could he really be serious? -- because the judgments I had heard from US and international military figures for nearly a decade had so consistently indicated that this was not a plausible plan. A spasm, yes; something that made either tactical or strategic sense, no. (I am aware of the main counterargument: the claim from strike advocates that, even if bombing Iran is a bad idea, Israel would have no choice about averting an "existential" threat.)

Therefore I thought that at some level this had to be bluff -- to force the U.S. toward a harder-line policy, to ramp up international pressure, generally to move the options and terms of argument in the direction Netanyahu preferred. You can read the previous rounds, and Jeff Goldberg's explanation of why he thinks Netanyahu has been in complete earnest, here: first, second, and third.

A lot has happened in this past month, and Jeff Goldberg has agreed that it's time to continue the discussion. So here goes.
__

Dear Jeff:

Thanks for agreeing to further discussions on the state of relations among Israel, Iran, and the United States. And after the preamble above, I'll try to limit myself to one question: shouldn't we feel better about this whole situation than we did a month ago?

It's just one question, but naturally it will take me some space to set it up.

By "better" I mean that the chance of an Israeli strike in the foreseeable future has gone down. You and I agree that such a strike would have terrible military, economic, and diplomatic consequences. The question is whether the Netanyahu government will conclude that nonetheless it must go ahead -- and that Israel could sanely and prudently go ahead with a strike. "Prudently" in terms of the reaction from the United States, possible retaliation against Israel, ramifications for the world economy, and other effects.

That seems less likely and imminent now, for two reasons.

The minor reason is the upshot of the "P5 + 1" talks in Istanbul this month. To save you saying it: I realize that talks like this usually go nowhere. And I recognize that it's not easy to think of an agreement that will simultaneously satisfy
    - the Iranians, who insist on the right to some uranium-enriching capacity within their borders, for "peaceful" purposes, as in principle they can do under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty;
    - the United States (and a slew of other countries), who insist on for-real, intrusive inspections to make sure that the enrichment stays within those peaceful terms; and
    - the Israeli government, which is so skeptical of any guarantees, commitments, or even inspections involving the Iranians that it believes it cannot safely live with any Iranian enrichment capacity at all.

But there are many recent reports suggesting that the talks were not an automatic and instant failure. Here are a few: from a LA Times reporter, another from the LAT, from the BBC, and from Bloomberg.

Maybe this is all a ruse and playing-for-time ploy by the Iranians. But maybe not. Negotiations on "impossible" issues do not always fail - Dayton, Northern Ireland, the Camp David talks of 1978, the Shanghai Communique of 1972. Conceivably this could be another for the list.

The major reason for the changed prospects is something else. In my view it is the recently widened international publicity about longstanding disputes within the Israeli security establishment over the apocalyptic, "never again!"-Holocaust framing that Prime Minister Netanyahu has brought to coping with Iran.

Last week it was the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Force, Benny Gantz,  with his "let's slow down here" message. As you pointed out at the time, Israel's military leadership, like America's, is distinctly less enthusiastic than some politicians about launching an attack. (Although of course if politicians gave the order, military leaders would carry them out.)

It seems to me that things reached a significant new level over the weekend with statements from the recent head of Shin Bet, Yuval Diskin (right), that the overall approach from Netanyahu and his defense minister, Ehud Barak, to Iran was reckless and irresponsible. For readers who, unlike you, haven't followed this, these quotes from Haaretz convey the point:

"I don't believe in either the prime minister or the defense minister. I don't believe in a leadership that makes decisions based on messianic feelings," [Diskin] added...

"They are misleading the public on the Iran issue. They tell the public that if Israel acts, Iran won't have a nuclear bomb. This is misleading. Actually, many experts say that an Israeli attack would accelerate the Iranian nuclear race," said the former security chief. 

There is another Haaretz account to the same effect. And as the NYT story today put it:

Analysts here say there has long been a rift between the elected leaders and the defense and intelligence professionals over the urgency of the Iran threat, the efficacy of an independent Israeli strike and its likely repercussions.

I take the attention to these comments as good news, and only in part because I agree with the warnings that Gantz, Diskin, and others are giving. The real significance of the statements, I think, lies in exposing the American public to a reality everyone in Israel understands: that there is deep disagreement within the country's military and intelligence experts on the wisdom of confronting Iran in the way Netanyahu has.

It has been convenient for Benjamin Netanyahu to present the following maxims to America:
    - If you care about Israel's security, you must agree with me;
    - If you don't agree with me (about bombing Iran, settlements, etc), it therefore follows that you must not care about Israel's security, and further that you probably are callous about the lessons of the Holocaust and the welfare of Jews worldwide.

This argument is bad from America's perspective, because it presents a glossed-over version of disagreements within Israel. I think it's not just bad but dangerous from Israel's perspective, since an Israeli attack would drag the US into a war our own military and political leadership opposes -- and which, we now can see, many influential Israelis view in the same way.

To bring this back to my one question for you: Is it right to think that the odds of an Israeli strike are lower than they were a month ago? Because there is at least some chance that the combination of sanctions-plus-negotiations will produce an agreement? And because we are getting a more realistic and rounded view of the range of opinion within Israel?

Please tell me that my "war is not at hand" inference is correct. Or, if you can't in good conscience do that, please tell me how you read this recent news.

Thanks, Jim
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UPDATEs: I wrote on a night flight back to DC, before I had seen (1) the news that Benjamin Netanyahu's father, Benzion Netanyahu, had died at age 102. Such a loss is hard, at whatever "ripe" age it occurs; (2) the lead story in Monday's NYT making a similar case about the apparent reduction in imminent-war tensions; (3) the story about former PM Ehud Olmert also attacking current PM Netanyahu for recklessness in his approach to Iran. This part of the story about Olmert, referring to his frosty reception from an apparently more hawkish audience in the United States, was particularly striking -- and valuable, again, for showing the range of opinion within Israel:

‪ Mr. Olmert was booed again when he declared that while Israel should prepare the military ability to strike Iran's nuclear program as a last resort, it should first push for American-led international action against Iran, including sanctions and possible joint military action.‬

‪This time [in contrast to his waving off a previous round of boos], he responded caustically.‬

‪"As a concerned Israeli citizen who lives in the state of Israel with his family and all of his children and grandchildren," he said, "I love very much the courage of those who live 10,000 miles away from the state of Israel and are ready that we will make every possible mistake that will cost lives of Israelis." ‬

Yesterday I quoted a reader in Texas, who said that even if Iran's leaders weren't so suicidally irrational as to launch a nuclear strike on Israel, their sheer possession of nuclear weapons would change political dynamics in a profound way. He used the example of North Korea: a "failed state" if ever there was one, but a state that could resist outside pressure because of its nuclear potential. He said: "Any serious observer has to acknowledge that the possession of nuclear weapons has made it infinitely easier for North Korea to maintain the horrific status quo within its borders."

A large number of readers wrote in to disagree. A few samples:

I can't let this particular statement by your correspondent [the one quoted above] go by...

I like to think I'm serious, and I don't acknowledge it.  The rest of the world did nothing about the horrendous conditions in North Korea for the 50 years prior to them possibly obtaining a nuclear weapon, or whatever nuclear device they actually have, and their nuclear program has changed nothing. North Korea's program is a possible proliferation problem (as Iran's program could be) but I think it has had zero effect on their ability to continue their terrible internal policies. It is Korea's conventional missiles and artillery, and vast supply of potential refugees, which have kept outside powers from intervening.

I think the real problem here is that Israel's long-term strategic position is bad, and the Israelis aren't willing to use their short- or medium-term advantages as bargaining chips to improve it.  As an American, I am hardly in a position to criticize short-term thinking, but it is hard to imagine how a strike on Iran could have any lasting benefit for Israel. How much is it worth to postpone an existential threat for five years?  It could be worth a lot if you are planning to spend that five years encouraging your population to emigrate, but I don't think that is the idea.

For the record, the last paragraph of this note expresses more concisely what I've been trying to say on the Israel-Iran issue. From another reader who objects to the Korean analogy:

The implication... that the stagnant stalemate in North Korea was a product of their nuclear status belies the fact that they were without such means for more than 50 years after the armistice that still holds... and that the resolution of the conflict via military action was deemed far too costly and uncertain by the United States and its allies - including, if I am not mistaken, by the South Koreans, too.

And:

Your reader seems to forget that North Korea has engaged in repeated acts of terrorism worthy of sparking a legitimate war against them long before they somewhat successfully detonated a nuclear weapon in 2006.  Here are but a few of many examples:

- 1983 - North Korean agents attempt to assassinate South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan in Burma.  Chun survives, but multiple members of his cabinet are killed
- 1988 - North Korean agents plant a bomb on Korean Air Flight 858 killing 115 people
- 1976 - North Korean soldiers brutally murder two American officers with an axe in the DMZ, nearly igniting the second Korean War.

At no point during these times was North Korea anywhere close to developing a nuclear weapon, much less possessing one, yet their regime was in no danger of being toppled.

The reason for their continued existence isn't nuclear weapons, it's because of China (are you prepared to fight another war with them to end North Korea's vile regime?  I'm certainly not.) and an all-too-understandable desire from South Koreans to not launch another devastating war on their peninsula resulting in the deaths of millions of their countrymen (both Northern and Southern).  Remember, the Korean War - which was entirely conventional - is estimated to have killed 2 million Korean, or nearly 7% of the population.  One need not nuclear weapons to try avoid repeating this horrible tragedy at all costs; hence why North Korea continues to get away with what it does. 

I'm sorry, but using North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons to demonstrate the futility of trying to contain Iran is a bad example. 

One more, in response to the reader-in-Texas's claim that "the continued existence of the North Korean regime... represents one of the greatest moral failures in global affairs since probably World War II":

In a way, these kind of guys worry me more than the true warmongers.  These "Humanitarian Interventionists" who seem to believe that the world could be made a better place if a coalition of self-appointed judges were free to ignore international laws and convention and any concept of national sovereignty and wage war against any nation they deemed a "moral failure".  Oh boy.  I'm sure THAT would lead to a better world.

We have arrived at a point in human history where we recognize that wars are destructive and wasteful, and are to be avoided.  Under the current operating principles, the only justification for war is in self-defense if attacked or if decided upon by the United Nations.  Sadly, the United States disregarded this principle and unilaterally attacked Iraq in what was unfortunately described as a "preemptive" war. Now that dog is truly out of the kennel.

The simple, and to me, obvious truth is that STARTING wars is always wrong.  Remember when Iraq invaded Kuwait?  Or when North Korea invaded South Korea?  They were wrong, and the world came together to roll them back.  This is a simple principle, and one the human race will become increasingly dependent upon if we are to survive just our second industrialized century....

OK, I will ease off this theme soon, and return to more varied topics, after dealing probably tomorrow with some of the more interesting mail that has arrived in response to this and preceding items. To summarize the inflow:

- From people in places other than Israel, the increasing theme is: "Why do you keep talking about a fantasized Israeli raid on Iran that no sane government would consider?" Or, "Aren't you just shifting the 'Overton window' and making a strike more conceivable, by talking about it so much?"

- From people in Israel and a few other places, the increasing theme is: "Why do you keep dismissing the existential threat from a regime sworn to remove the 'cancer' of Israel's existence and that could carry out that threat with one or two bombs?"

I'll go into these issues at least once more -- including with some informed military analysis of worst-case scenarios of an Iranian attack on Israel.

(Also, to answer a question from many people in Israel and a few elsewhere: Yes, I have been there, and I understand how small, exposed, and vulnerable Israel can seem and feel. I was in fact in Israel during the 2003 Iraq war, in Tel Aviv and Haifa, staying for some time near where Iraqi Scud missiles had hit during the 1991 Gulf War. My hotel in the incredibly beautiful town of Haifa was equipped with gas masks and had mandatory drills on use of the bomb shelters. I wrote this article after that stay.)

For now, a long message from a reader in Austin, Texas, who makes a point different from those I have quoted before. He also is a big fan of Jeffrey Goldberg!

Your latest reader responses, about the apparent logical contradictions in Israel's analysis of an Iran strike, illustrate for me a fundamental problem in how this debate is unfolding among commentators.  The trend seems to be to frame it as a war-gaming exercise, where tactical military decisions are made logically and sequentially, and in a very short time frame.  And typically in these commentaries, the danger of Iran attaining nuclear weapons is defined solely by its use of those weapons, as if that is their only possible value.

Let's put aside for a moment other (legitimate) reasons for preventing Iran from going nuclear, such as the detrimental effect to global non-proliferation, a new Middle East arms race, etc. -- and focus just on the Israeli perspective:

It doesn't seem to factor for most people that Iran and Israel have been in a de facto state of war for decades now; the latest tensions did not begin with the election of Netanyahu, as is often lazily implied.  The fact of the matter is that Iran has been fighting Israel through its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza for many years, and it is a conflict that is sustained mostly by Iran's choosing. 

My fear for Israel's long-term survival has less to do with a nuclear strike on Israel, and more to do with Iran enhancing its immunity from reprisal.  With such immunity, Iran can choose to significantly heat up those proxy conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah.  And there is every reason to believe they will choose this route -- proxy wars against the Jewish state are an invaluable tool for cementing Iran's place as the dominant power broker of the Muslim world.  It is just like Meir Dagan said in his 60 Minutes interview: the Iranians are rational.....just not our kind of rational.

This brings us to the subject of containment.  From the US and European perspective, containment seems like a workable solution.  And they are correct in reaching this conclusion.  It works in North Korea, after all -- a seemingly stable "balance of terror" exists between North and South, and aside from the rare skirmish, the war between them is entirely a cold one.  Wouldn't containment work just as well with Iran?  After all, Iran is utterly outmatched by the US militarily, and is utterly dependent on Europe for trade.  Logic dictates that Iran would never dare flex its nuclear muscle against the West.

Speaking as an American living comfortably in distant Austin, Texas, it appears to be sound policy.  And yet it completely misses the big, ugly picture. 

North Korea is anything but an example of containment at work.  In my view, the continued existence of the North Korean regime -- with the starvation, subjugation, cruelty, murder, and brainwashing of its entire populace, numbering almost 25 million -- represents one of the greatest moral failures in global affairs since probably World War II.  And yet the stalemate there is somehow acceptable, so long as North Korea refrains from selling nuclear know-how or overtly attacks its neighbors.  Any serious observer has to acknowledge that the possession of nuclear weapons has made it infinitely easier for North Korea to maintain the horrific status quo within its borders.

It is in this context that the promise of containment becomes unconvincing to many Israelis.  It also allows the concept of preemption to be seen for once as something other than a product of extreme Israeli paranoia. 

I'm not suggesting that a nuclear Iran could make life in Israel a hell on earth like anything approaching North Korea.  Nor am I advocating preemption as the best course of action.  But it should be noted that Iran's attainment of nuclear weapons would enable it to engage in a long-term war of attrition against Israel with much greater ferocity than it employs today.  Through perpetual nuclear threats and occasional proxy wars, Iran will have immeasurably greater power to disrupt Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, arm fundamentalist allies, induce emigration and "brain drain" from Israel, and generally prevent Israel from normalizing its relations and place among nations -- all tools Iran will use to serve its eliminationist goals.  And this is just the best case scenario, when you consider that outright war is yet another plausible scenario.

Israel's survival in the Middle East powder keg already requires constant vigilance and has clearly engendered a bunker mentality.  The volatile Arab uprisings have so far proven to be a major strategic setback for Israel in terms of basic national security -- and have even had the lamentable effect of de-prioritizing negotiations with Palestinians, and the West Bank settlement issue, from Israeli consciousness in a significant way.  Adding a nuclear Iran to the calculus brings a very real and very rational fear to the fore among Israelis: that Israel will be the victim of another global moral failing of existential proportions, whether it takes 50 days or 50 years to come to fruition.

There are many other complexities of statecraft and psychology at play here, and I don't presume to come even close to conveying them all.  But it is important to study and acknowledge them when constructing policy generally, and when analyzing Israel's threats of preemption specifically.  Because very little of this debate is conducive to game theory, and logical contradictions are bound to surface.

I, for one, think Jeffrey Goldberg has set the bar for outstanding reporting on this debate.  Those who see his writings as "alarmist" or as "cheer-leading for war", in my view, are either blinded by ideology (after all, he has repeatedly rejected preemption as a good idea) or simply do not possess the knowledge and historical context necessary to add value to the debate.

A reader in Israel strongly disagrees with my argument that there is a "contradiction" in the current Israeli government view of Iran. On the one hand, the Iranian regime is (said to be) irrational and undeterrable -- and therefore might launch a suicidal nuclear attack on Israel. On the other hand, the Iranian regime is (thought to be) cautious and survival-minded, and therefore would not respond to a preemptive Israeli strike with broad retaliation against US or Israeli people and assets. When these views are combined, they mean that an Israeli attack on Iran can seem to be (a) necessary and (b) workable.

The reader writes (emphasis added):

As an Israeli, let me just make it clear to you.  At the moment, it may be possible to strike Iran, and that it is possible that the Iranian response to the strike is rational (ie minimal, based on previous experience with Iraq and Syria) or not -- it really doesn't matter.  The issue is that the future action of the Iranians cannot be predicted, and add that to the possibility of a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, and the safety of Israel is certainly unclear.  Add to that the possibility of a future Iran proliferating nuclear weapons to terrorist groups and the situation becomes even worse.  Thus, in the future, it will be impossible to strike Iran (due to nuclear deterrence) and the possibility exists that the Iranian government in the future may not be rational. 

There is no 'contradiction'. The bottom line is that no country which threatens Israel can be permitted to have nuclear weapons.  This is a basic, red line, no negotiation concept and is clearly understood by every nearly Israeli and every Jew who supports Israel.  If you don't understand this, then it is unfortunate, but there really is no amount of argument or discussions about how 'rational' or 'irrational' an actor or state is that can change this concept. 

The bottom line is that nobody who goes on the world stage claiming that Israel is a 'cancer' can be allowed by Israel to have nuclear weapons.  And this is why, at base, every Israeli knows that Iran will have to be prevented from doing this.

I make no claims for this being a representative view. But it does certainly support Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting (and this in Haaretz) suggesting that "rational" talk about consequences really "doesn't matter."

As I said the last time, no outsider can tell Israelis or their government what they need to do to feel "safe." But outsiders can point out that by this same logic, India should have bombed its enemy Pakistan to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, South Korea should have bombed its enemy North Korea, and of course the United States should have bombed its enemies the Soviet Union and China -- as some hotheads proposed in the early nuclear age but as presidents Truman and Eisenhower declined to do.

The half-century-plus of the nuclear-deterrence era is chilling in its fundamental logic: that the only thing that keeps us from being destroyed is the threat of reciprocal destruction. Because some day that logic might fail, I support the "Global Zero" goal and oppose Iranian nukes, on anti-proliferation grounds.

But the implication of the current Israeli position is that any country can be deterred, except Iran -- and any country can rely on deterrence, except Israel. I understand the argument that the unique experience of the Holocaust translates into a unique inability to rely on deterrence, even for an Israel that is already nuclear-armed. I recognize that this belief may lead Israel's government to attack. I am stating my position, which I think is also the American-interest position, that this would be a reckless and, yes, "irrational" thing to do.

Jeffrey Goldberg is away for the week, so I won't pose this as a third-round question, following our previous two rounds, on Israel's thinking about the "existential" threat from Iran. Though I'll welcome his views when he's back!

Instead I'll pass on one message that represents many reader responses I've received. It's about an obvious internal tension in the Israeli government outlook, as Jeff Goldberg describes it. This one comes from an academic in Texas, with emphasis added:

I really appreciate the back and forth you are having with Jeffrey Goldberg....  One item that frustrates me about the beliefs of Israeli leaders he describes is an apparent logical contradiction.
 
He concludes his latest response to you by saying, "What people don't understand is that Netanyahu and many other Israelis view the Iranian regime, which is committed ideologically to Israel's destruction and seems to be seeking a weapon of mass destruction, as an extinction-level threat."
 
Just above that, however, in discussing a potential Iranian response to an Israeli attack, he states that Israeli hardliners believe that, " The Iranian leadership is interested in its own survival. If Israel strikes Iran, the regime will believe that America had a direct hand in the attack. But Iranian leaders will also think hard about lashing out directly against America, because they know that America can actually bring about an end of the regime if it chose to, through a punishing bombardment that destroys Iran's military infrastructure. So I think the Israeli leadership is counting on a rational, regime-protecting response from the ayatollahs."
 
These beliefs do not seem to be compatible.  If the regime is concerned with its survival and is semi-rational, it must understand that using a nuclear weapons against Israel would almost certainly result in a nuclear counter-strike or, at the very least, a devastating conventional response.  Why would it be so rational as to not respond forcefully to an Israeli attack so as to not antagonize the Americans, but irrational enough to attempt to destroy Israel with a nuclear attack?  Is it that those who believe the first statement do not believe the second?

Another note, to similar effect:

Interesting that, according to Goldberg, the Israelis think the Iranians are rational enough to cover up Israeli strikes, and to be restrained in response.  So, should the Iranians acquire the nuclear weapons, where does all of that rationality go?  They just up and decide to commit suicide by nuking Israel?  Clearly the Israeli leadership is not thinking rationally. (I'm not endorsing the idea of a nuclear Iran; I'm just looking at the lack of consistency in the thinking.)

Jeff Goldberg too is aware of this contradiction. The hawkish factions in the Israeli government, as he describes them, are "rationally" thinking -- more likely, rationalizing -- their way toward confidence that a strike on Iran would "work" in all senses of the word. They are convincing themselves that:
 -in tactical terms it would be feasible;
 -in strategic terms it would set Iran's plans back by a meaningful period; and
 -in the most sweeping grand-strategy calculus it would improve Israel's long-term position and not undermine its one crucial alliance by dragging the United States into a war it does not want.

Then after detailing these "rational" factors, he says:

But (and here's the key point): It doesn't matter. Not much of the preceding conversation matters. What people don't understand is that Netanyahu and many other Israelis view the Iranian regime, which is committed ideologically to Israel's destruction and seems to be seeking a weapon of mass destruction, as an extinction-level threat. The entire ethos of Israel is: "In every generation, someone rises up who wants to murder the Jewish people, but this time, we're not going down without a fight." That's in the DNA of the military and the political leadership.

In his most recent Bloomberg installment, under the headline below...

This is little bit "old" -- it came out a week ago, which means that it is ancient history in Internet terms. But I just saw it now, in my return to online life, and it is valuable enough that I want to highlight it for anyone else who may have missed it.

I am talking about an essay by Stephen M. Walt, on the Foreign Policy site, listing the "Top 10 Lessons of the Iraq War." Lesson-drawing is, deservedly, a suspect enterprise. In looking back on either successes or failures, we tend to discover exactly the "lessons" that fit our preexisting views. But even allowing for that possibility in Walt's case -- and for my own inevitable bias in favor of "lessons" that largely match what I've concluded myself -- I still think that this is one of the better efforts to think clearly and practically about what happened in Iraq. And if it has implications for the ongoing war in Afghanistan, and the potential one with Iran -- well, you can draw those lessons yourself.

Read the whole thing, but here is one sample point with obvious current-day relevance. The embedded link is in the original, and is to a "threat inflation" analysis, by Chaim Kaufmann, that is worth reading as well:

Lesson #3: The United States gets in big trouble when the "marketplace of ideas" breaks down and when the public and our leadership do not have an open debate about what to do.

Given the stakes involved, it is remarkable how little serious debate there actually was about the decision to invade. This was a bipartisan failure, as both conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats all tended to jump onboard the bandwagon to war. And mainstream media organizations became cheerleaders rather than critics. Even within the halls of government, individuals who questioned the wisdom of the invasion or raised doubts about the specific plans were soon marginalized. As a result, not only did the United States make a bone-headed decision, but the Bush administration went into Iraq unprepared for the subsequent occupation.

I hope that the somewhat-greater degree of public, political, and media debate about whether the United States should be contemplating a strike on Iran, compared with the herd-impulse rush toward war with Iraq a decade ago, indicates some absorption of Walt's Lesson #3.

This follows our first round of Q-and-A exchange, and my second-round question earlier today. Jeffrey Goldberg replies, in a message sent on early Friday afternoon but that I saw (while on the road) only now. This is it for a while, but there is a lot to digest here.
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Dear Jim,
That's quite a lot of writing from a Tasmanian truck stop. Imagine what you achieve if you were parked at an American truck stop. Or an Iranian truck stop, for that matter.

There's a lot to unpack here, so I won't, though I agree with most of what you've written. Let me try briefly to answer the crucial question about Israel's two principal leaders, Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, Ehud Barak: "What version of reality are they seeing that lets them think this way?"

By "this way," you mean, of course, the thought that a preemptive strike on Natanz and other Iranian nuclear facilities will a) work in some meaningful way; b) protect Israel in the long-term, or medium-term, at least; c) not cause a regional war; d) not cause blowback against Israel's foremost ally, the U.S.; e) not cause catastrophic death-by-counterstrike in Israel.

Let me start with a), which slides into b). When the Israelis attacked the Osirak reactor in Iraq in 1981, they said they hoped to delay Iraq's nuclear program by a year. In fact, it stopped forever (though it's not clear if the Israeli strike was the principal reason why -- though it certainly didn't hurt). I mention this only to note that Israeli leaders privately say they'd be happy to buy a year. But: They think they'll buy more than a year. They have drilled on this for years (and according to American military sources, they've drilled successfully on this) and they believe they can set back the Iranian program for several years. Moreover, they are somewhat convinced -- and I am most definitely not -- that an attack could set in motion an uprising against the regime. (I tend to think that this is the weakest best-case scenario of all, because I assume that the regime would use an Israeli strike as an excuse to come down hard on every semi-dissident not already in jail, and I assume many Iranians won't be happy with an Israeli strike, even those who are unhappy with the regime.) The Israeli leaders believe that every year they buy against the Iranian program is another year that would allow the regime to collapse. I, too, believe it will collapse. It's the "when" that's the problem.

As to c), the Israeli leaders believe that -- and this is obvious -- the Arabs will quietly applaud the Israeli strike, and certainly, in the event of a technically successful strike, not line up with Iran (quite the opposite -- Persian Gulf officials have told me compromise with Israel on other matters is at least slightly more likely if Iran is neutralized as a threat). They also believe, and this makes a certain amount of sense, that the Iranians may choose to cover-up a strike, or partially cover-up a strike, which is to say the following. Many facilities are not located in the center of cities (though one very important one is in Tehran). The attack will happen on a moonless night. The Iranians will have some ability to control what their own people hear about the strikes, and of course they will control access to these sites. They may choose, this line of thinking goes, to hush-up the strike, in the manner of the Syrians after the Israeli strike in 2007, or at most announce that the Zionists unsuccessfully attempted to strike at their facilities, and then fire a few missiles at Tel Aviv. Again, this seems to me to be a plausible scenario, but not likely.  But you asked me how the political echelon was thinking, and this is what they're thinking (the army, I'm led to believe, is planning for a worst-case scenario).

On d), the Israelis actually believe that the Iranian regime is semi-rational, if not reasonable (the argument I heard from hardliners is that Hitler pursued an unreasonable goal, the murder of all Jews, in a rational way). The Iranian leadership is interested in its own survival. If Israel strikes Iran, the regime will believe that America had a direct hand in the attack. But Iranian leaders will also think hard about lashing out directly against America, because they know that America can actually bring about an end of the regime if it chose to, through a punishing bombardment that destroys Iran's military infrastructure. So I think the Israeli leadership is counting on a rational, regime-protecting response from the ayatollahs. And one more thing: Not to overstate it, but some Israelis in leadership positions believe that they would actually be helping the U.S. by neutralizing an Iranian threat. Again, maybe, but certainly not something a prudent person would bank on. 

As to e), the threat of a deadly counterstrike, Ehud Barak is on record saying that he thinks Israeli casualties in a combined Iranian/Hezbollah missile strike might top 500, or hit the low 1000s, but not be devastating. I find this aspect of the conversation Strangelovian. But the truth is, Israel has fairly good missile defenses, and its Air Force could handle Hezbollah in Lebanon. And Iran's missile force is not overwhelming.

But (and here's the key point): It doesn't matter. Not much of the preceding conversation matters. What people don't understand is that Netanyahu and many other Israelis view the Iranian regime, which is committed ideologically to Israel's destruction and seems to be seeking a weapon of mass destruction, as an extinction-level threat. The entire ethos of Israel is: "In every generation, someone rises up who wants to murder the Jewish people, but this time, we're not going down without a fight." That's in the DNA of the military and the political leadership. I asked President Obama if he thought Israeli leaders had overlearned the lessons of the Holocaust. He reminded them, through the interview, that they were running a modern state which has a need for a reality-based foreign policy, but he also acknowledged the awesome power of history to shape a worldview, and he treated that history very respectfully. This is a roundabout way of saying that if Israeli leaders see on the horizon an eliminationist anti-Semite who may be moving to acquire a nuclear weapon, they will try to stop him. This is why I think they are not bluffing. The problem with much of the analysis of Israel's actions in this area is in the mirror-imaging: Many people outside Israel wonder why the country would take the military, political and diplomatic risks associated with attacking Iran's nuclear program. But what they don't remember is that the worst thing, from Israel's perspective, has already happened: The murder, 70 years ago, of one out of every three Jews on the planet.

By the way, just so we're clear, I think this is a precipitous way to think, and I think very definitively that 2012 isn't 1938, and not only because of the existence of a nuclear-armed Jewish state. But I certainly understand the mentality.

I hope this is helpful.

Best,
Jeff

My colleague Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting about Iran's nuclear ambitions, and what Israel and the United States might do in response, has drawn tremendous attention over the past two years, most recently after his interview with President Obama on this topic. It has also generated controversy, especially after his latest reporting trip to Israel with its updated assessments of the Netanyahu government's possible intention to attack.

Jeff Goldberg's office is right next to to mine at The Atlantic, and in normal circumstances we would talk in person about what he has reported, how his views have changed, and how his reports have been received. But we're both out of Washington at the moment -- he is on the road in the US; I have, improbably, arrived just now in Tasmania -- and he has agreed to (in fact, suggested) a public Q-and-A email exchange with me about what he has written and how he has come to the conclusions he has drawn.

I sent him a very long opening "question" a few hours ago, and he has now sent back his first-round reply. With his approval, I'm putting this round up now. Tomorrow I will follow up with more questions, and I'll post those and his reply when they're ready. For now, here is the initial round.
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Dear Jeff:

Thanks for being willing to discuss the background and circumstances of your reporting on the Iran-Israel-United States showdowns of the past two years.

You are in a very important position to talk about this story, because your reporting, mainly for The Atlantic, has had significant international effects. Two years ago, you did a famous cover story saying that Israel was deadly earnest about striking Iran's nuclear facilities -- unless it was sure the United States would do the job on its own. Last month, President Obama called you to the White House for an interview in which, among other things, he signaled a tough line against Iranian nuclear ambitions as well.

Then this month, during a trip to Israel, you reported for Bloomberg that maybe Netanyahu had been bluffing all along! Maybe "he has never had any intention of launching air and missile strikes against Iran's nuclear program, and is working behind the scenes with Obama to stop Iran through sanctions." And finally, just two days ago, you reported also for Bloomberg that -- on the contrary -- some Israeli officials had started to believe their own "best-case" scenarios and were back to planning an attack.

My first question is, very simply: can you put these stories together for us? We reporters operate in real time, making the best of what is always imperfect information. As you have said recently on our site, when the facts change, we do our best to adjust our reporting to the new realities. But as you look back over these two-plus years, can you give us some narrative of how you think facts have changed? Or your assessment of them? Has the degree of "existential" concern -- and therefore determination to attack -- changed in Israel? Has its assessment of US intentions changed? Has the group of people you've talked with in the US or Israeli governments -- or who have made themselves available or unavailable -- changed? We've seen each of your reports, but they have more or less stood alone. Can you give us an idea of whether you think these changed assessments reflect real changes in Israeli (or US) policies, or different emphases you heard, or changes in your own gut instinct about who is telling the truth?

Second, I'll ask what I call my "Usual Suspects" question. I'm thinking of the last few minutes of that famous Kevin Spacey / all-star-cast movie, in which the Chazz Palminteri character finally understands what has really been going on. He then replays all the preceding events of the movie in an entirely different light, seeing with the benefit of hindsight connections he had not recognized before.

You've raised, in your recent reports, the possibility that the Netanyahu government has actually been carrying out an elaborate high-stakes bluff. Eg, "How has Obama convinced the world that these sanctions [on Iran] are necessary? By pointing to Netanyahu and saying, 'If you don't cooperate with me on sanctions, this guy is going to blow up the Middle East.' Obama's good-cop routine is then aided immeasurably by the world's willingness to believe that Netanyahu is the bad cop."

If it was a bluff, it's one you've had a unique opportunity to see and assess. If they really were bluffing, presenting you with the evidence and data for your 2010 cover story would have been a very important step. As you think back, Chazz Palminteri style, on what you heard and saw in 2010, knowing what you now know -- about two years with no attack, and about the "bluff" hypothesis you've now raised -- is there anything that seems different to you in retrospect? Anything that now increases your suspicions that they were bluffing at the time? We report what we know in real time -- but every so often there is a chance to look back and see how it worked out. I would be fascinated to know how your notes and instincts from 2010 look to you, as you review them in light of developments since then.

Thanks, Jim
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Here is his reply:

Dear Jim,

Thank you for doing this. I'm glad you're interested in understanding the development of my reporting over the past couple of years. First, a correction: You write: "During a trip to Israel, you reported for Bloomberg that maybe Netanyahu had been bluffing all along." First, in that column, I wrote that I still suspected Netanyahu wasn't, in fact, bluffing, but then I explained why it was a plausible scenario. I promise never to think out loud in that way again -- it seems to offend Andrew Sullivan when I do. Also, I wrote that column before I went to Israel, not when I was in Israel. I went to Israel to update my reporting in part because I wanted to test out this notion. After a week in Israel, I came to the conclusion that there is nothing much to the idea that Netanyahu is bluffing, and this is what I wrote in my column this week.

In any case, I've always believed that the Israeli leadership is sincere about contemplating a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. This is why I wrote that cover story in 2010. As you know, I wrote in that story that if current conditions at the time of writing pertained, there was a better than 50 percent chance that Israel would strike by the fall of 2011.

After the story appeared, I spoke, as I often do, with figures in the American national security establishment, who told me -- not to a person, certainly -- that they thought Israel was serious about its intentions, but they were unsure of the timeline I suggested. Then, about six to nine months after the story appeared, I began hearing from American officials that they believed Israel was ramping-up its plans, and accelerating its timeline. Of course, by late 2011, and certainly early 2012, the Obama Administration was seized by the fear that Israel would strike Iran sometime this spring. Leon Panetta, of course, said that he believed an Israeli attack would come by June of this year. One thing people misunderstand about my reporting is that they think I'm making my judgments based only on what Israeli officials tell me. On the contrary, I test everything I hear in Israel with American officials, and non-governmental experts, and I ask them to judge the sincerity of Israeli intentions. Panetta's answer -- first reported by David Ignatius -- is one of the main reasons I also judge the Israelis to be sincere.

You ask if my interpretation of the facts have changed over the past two years. Actually, no, not that much. I think the crisis has intensified, but I think we're on a kind-of straight line here. Sometimes I try to second-guess myself, as I did with the column last week, but obviously there's a danger in doing that because ideologically driven readers expect consistency. I'll probably still do it, however.

One thing that has changed for me is that I more firmly believe now that an Israeli strike, especially this year, would be a mistake. I've written that repeatedly, of course. I understand Israeli motivations, and I take the fear of an Iran with nuclear weapons seriously. But let me put it this way: I didn't disagree with very much at all of what President Obama told me when I interviewed him on February 29th. The White House position on this seems like a sound one.

You've packed a lot of questions into one question, so I'm sure I've missed something, so maybe we can revisit in later questions, but to answer your Chazz Palminteri question, I don't think I've been bluffed, and I don't the U.S. government has been bluffed. Certainly, no one in the Administration or the Pentagon is acting as if Israel is bluffing.
___

More to come.

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, in his Bloomberg View incarnation, reports just now from Israel that Prime Minister Netanyahu's administration is "growing confident" about the necessity, the desirability, and the feasibility of an aerial strike against Iran's potential nuclear installations. Please read the whole thing, but here are representative samples:

A widely held assumption about a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities is that it would spur Iranian citizens -- many of whom appear to despise their rulers -- to rally around the regime. But Netanyahu, I'm told, believes a successful raid could unclothe the emperor, emboldening Iran's citizens to overthrow the regime.

And:

Another theory making the rounds was that Obama has so deeply internalized the argument that Israel has the sovereign right to defend itself against a threat to its existence that an Israeli attack, even one launched against U.S. wishes, wouldn't anger him. In this scenario, Obama would move immediately to help buttress Israel's defenses against an Iranian counterstrike.

And:

Finally, and even more disquieting, was the contention I heard repeatedly that an Israeli strike in the next six months - - conducted before Iran can further harden its nuclear sites, or make them redundant -- will set back the ayatollahs' atomic ambitions at least five years. American military planners tend to think that Israel could do only a year or two worth of damage.

I am not capable of sorting through the elaborate layers of bluff and counterbluff that may lie behind the Israeli assumptions, or assertions, that Jeff Goldberg reports. And neither I nor anyone else can prove what I strongly believe: that such "best-case" predictions, assuming that the Israeli officials really hold them, are wildly unrealistic. The first, in particular, smacks unmistakably of Dick Cheney's "we will be greeted as liberators" forecast about invading Iraq, or the earlier CIA fantasies that the downtrodden people of Cuba would rise to welcome the Bay of Pigs landing party in 1961.

What I can say is this: if Israeli officials really have adopted best-case-ism as their military "planning" doctrine and basis for decision-making, we are fully into "March of Folly" territory, and the "psychological inversion" that a reader described recently has in fact taken place.

When Barbara Tuchman coined the phrase March of Folly, she meant self-destructive behavior on a collective, organizational scale, as a group walked into a disaster it could easily have avoided.To qualify as epic-scale folly, by her standards, a ruinous decision had to:
  -arise from a sustained set of policies, not just one instantaneous wrong choice;
  -involve many people's agreement and collaboration, not just the excesses of one madman;
  -prove clearly destructive to the long-term interests of the group involved; and
  -have been warned against in real time, before the bad consequences happened, not just in retrospect.

If Netanyahu's team goes ahead, they will have met those tests.

The same day's news cycle of course contains this  lead item in the New York Times, at right. Nearly eight years ago, the Atlantic commissioned a similar war game, which led to similar conclusions. 

Ido Oren, of the University of Florida, whom I quoted several days ago on the bureaucratic struggle between hawks and doves within both the U.S. and the Israeli governments (with the military establishment of both countries mainly dovish), says that this Times story can easily be interpreted in the same way:

I wonder if the significance of the story is not in its substance so much as in the very fact that this substance was leaked to the Times, apparently by sources in the Pentagon and/or the military. The leaking can plausibly be interpreted as a political act designed to put a brake on the pro-war momentum.
 
Here's what I take to be the story's key passages [emphasis added by Oren]:
"A classified war simulation exercise held this month to assess the American military's capabilities to respond to an Israeli attack on Iran forecast that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials.
. . .
"the game has raised fears among top American planners that it may be impossible to preclude American involvement in any escalating confrontation with Iran, the officials said. In the debate among policymakers over the consequences of any possible Israeli attack, that reaction may give stronger voice to those within the White House, Pentagon and intelligence community who have warned that a strike could prove perilous for the United States.
 
"The results of the war game were particularly troubling to Gen. James N. Mattis, who commands all American forces in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia, according to officials who either participated in the Central Command exercise or who were briefed on the results and spoke on condition of anonymity because of its classified nature. When the exercise had concluded earlier this month, according to the officials, General Mattis told aides that an Israeli first-strike would likely have dire consequences across the region and for United States forces there."

Making life-and-death decisions in full, grave awareness of the tragic potential is something that leaders, and commanders, must finally do. But to make such decision in a blithe "what could go wrong?" spirit -- that is what ruinous folly means.

A few days ago I argued that a U.S. strike against Iran would be a more reckless step than any modern President has taken, and therefore is unlikely -- and that the threatened Israeli strike would be so self-destructive of Israel's long-term interests that "even" PM Netanyahu was likely to hold back. One reader replied that a "psychological inversion" may have already occurred within the Israeli government, biasing policy toward attack; and the veteran war-gamer Sam Gardiner likened the situation to the irrational-but-nearly-irresistible drift toward disaster before World War I.

Now, readers on the evidence pro and con. First, a reader who studies the naval deployments:

It smells like rain to me. The Enterprise Strike Group has sailed, which will make 3 carrier groups on station with the 5th Fleet. Back in 2006-2007, Col. Gardiner repeatedly said that 3 carriers meant war...  These deployments speak more loudly to me than anything else.

When the 3rd Army HQ deployed to Kuwait in early 2002, I knew war with Iraq was coming, as an Army HQ would only forward deploy if a big troop movement was planned. Carriers are more ambiguous but right now it looks like the Vinson, Lincoln, and Enterprise will be on station together from early April till mid to late June. Could be insurance against an Israeli strike but if so there's more in motion than is visible....

While I hope you're right, my gut says no. Hope it's wrong.

This reader also points to a Maariv report saying that a majority of the Netanyahu cabinet is now in favor of a strike -- and another analysis of naval deployments:

For years I've dismissed the topic of war with Iran. I just never thought it would happen....

Today [March 15], mentioned in passing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee - without a word or question on the topic from any supposedly well informed Senators - Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert told the Senate committee that the US Navy is going to deploy 4 minesweepers to the Persian Gulf (which will double the number of US Navy Minesweepers in the Persian Gulf) and also send additional mine hunting helicopters to the region....

In other words, the Chief of Naval Operations announced to the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning specific details about preparations for war with Iran, and in response the Senators drooled on themselves in silent capitulation. The only thing missing from that scene from this mornings Twilight Zone moment in the Senate was the CNO knocking on the microphone asking "is this thing on" for dramatic effect.

Emphasis in original. For the record, one comment on that site offers another explanation:

This may not be a 'prelude to war' per se, but perhaps a response to a (perceived) Iranian mine threat; it's too easy for Iran to just claim it laid mines to rattle merchants and the (oil) market. Remember that it's election time in Iran.

We have to look for more signs besides those minesweepers if a strike (against nuclear facilities?) is on the horizon; additional USN escorts for protection against small boats and of course Iranian (midget) subs. Never mind additional (carrier) aviation assets to - if needed - destroy shore based anti-ship missiles.

[UPDATE: Another informed reader cautions against reading too much into the deployments:

I really like the Information Dissemination blog [source of the cites above]... Just be aware that carrier deployments -- actually carrier strike group deployments, are planned months or years in advance. No one gets on the phone and says, 'get ENTERPRISE underway tomorrow.'

Also, LINCOLN won't be out there long. She's running out of fuel and needs to get to the shipyard in Hampton Roads ASAP. Yes, nuclear powered ships run out of fuel every 25 years or so. Plenty of stuff out there open source on her scheduled homeport change.

The 5th Fleet carrier schedule is a mess, maybe due to maintenance more than anything else. Some people haven't noticed that we've had at least one or two of them running live combat missions over IRQ and/or AFG every day for over 20 years now.]

Another reader cites this Haaretz report on Netanyahu's attempts to mobilize the Israeli public in support of an attack: "What looks like a preparation for war, acts like a preparation for war, and quacks like a preparation for war, is a preparation for war."

On the other hand, a reader in North Carolina returns to the central question of deterrence. The claim by Netanyahu et al that Israel faces a unique "existential" threat in the nuclear age -- different from the threat South Korea faces from the nuclear-armed North, Pakistan from India, the Soviet Union from the United States through the cold war, etc -- rests on the idea that Iran, uniquely, could not be deterred from a strike. The reader disagrees:

Here's what I can't help thinking about the whole issue of Israel and "existential threats" from Iran or other countries...

Israel has nuclear weapons, and is well aware that the surrounding Islamic countries would prefer that Israel did not exist.

Geography is of particular importance to Islamic faith--with a primary focus on Mecca of course.

It seems trivially obvious to me that if Israel is driven to the point of destruction by its Islamic neighbors, its final act will be a nuclear strike on the Islamic holy sites.  And it seems likely that Israeli weapons are configured and located such that this final strike will be made no matter how quickly or thoroughly Israel is overwhelmed and destroyed by an attack.

If I can figure out this Israeli deterrence strategy from my armchair, I think it highly likely that the leadership of Iran, Syria, and every other country in that region has figured it out as well.  It is hard for me to believe any of these countries would actually be willing to push Israel to the point of destruction knowing what that would entail.

After the jump, an academic argument that we may be examining the signs of war in the wrong way.

More »

Back in 2004, when the idea of preemptive strikes on Iran was getting attention, the Atlantic conducted a "war game" to explore the feasibility of such an enterprise. To run the exercise, we turned to Sam Gardiner (right), a retired Air Force colonel who had specialized in war-gaming at the National War College and elsewhere. You can read the results here. Taking part in this analysis is part of the reason I have been so down on the whole bomb-Iran concept ever since.

So what does Col. Gardiner think about the current Iran drumbeats? An intrepid reader suggested that I ask him; I did; and he replied. It turned out that he had just finished sending a friend answers to a similar set of questions, thus:

- How likely is an Israeli attack on Iran this year, from 1 (low) to 10 (high)?

Would give it a "4" now [after the AIPAC sessions and the Netanyahu visit].  I sense Israel has achieved its objective.

The President has publicly committed to not allowing Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.  He has announced he will use a strike to prevent that from happening.  He said he will not adopt containment as a strategy for dealing with a weapon.

And, Syria has taken on new importance.  The stakes have changed.

I would say Israel has climbed down from its hair on fire position.

- If Israel attacked, how broad will Iran's response likely to be?

Iran has said it would not separate the United States and Israel in its retaliation.  But, I have made an argument that Iran might decide to go slowly. I have written a paper on Iranian options for response....

On the other hand, I don't believe it possible for the US not to be pulled into finishing the job even if Iran does not choose to respond immediately.  I've also written a paper on the logic.

The two papers Gardiner mentions are long but certainly worth examination. In a sense -- and I mean this as a compliment -- both of them, especially the second, are extensions and updatings of the exercise Gardiner carried out for us so long ago. They are also sobering, regardless of your view on the bomb-Iran frenzy. Samples from the summary of the second paper:

The [Iran-Israel] situation has a quality of inevitability about it. It has the feel of Europe prior to World War I. The United States moves forward with a vague notion of containment, failing to recognize that containment as a strategy has not curbed and in all probability will not curb Iranian influence in the Middle East. Containment will certainly not stop Iran's nuclear program, and it will not eliminate Israel's security concerns.

Iran moves forward with its nuclear program seeing it as a component of its status as an important power but failing to recognize that the ultimate product could be a great loss of influence. Israel moves forward with its exaggerated view of the threat from Iran, failing to recognize that the cost to be paid because of this view may be more of a threat to Israel's security interests than Iran is....

If Iran responds [to an Israeli strike] even in a very limited way, as it has threatened, Israel can pull the United States into finishing the job on the Iranian nuclear sites and destroying Iranian military capabilities. Europe would be pulled into the fight....

Although there are some leverage points for the United States on Israel to prevent Israel from striking Iran, they are limited.

Iran is the only country with the leverage to prevent the seemingly inevitable movement towards disaster for itself, for the region, for Europeans and for the United States.

Not encouraging reports, but valuable ones; worth reading.