The Best Way to Stop an Iranian Nuclear Weapon is to let Syria fester

Over the last week there has been an increasing cacophony of calls for aiding the rebels in Syria not just diplomatically, but militarily in a fashion similar to that of our recent Libya campaign. The primary justifications are the nebulous "responsibility to protect", a totalitarian notion that will be discussed elsewhere, and the assertion that liberating Syria will undermine Iran.

This sounds logical, and the loss of its ally in Syria would cost Iran. However, it is not black and white. Russia and China are backing both Iran and Syria. Both have protecting Syria in the UN. Russia has a port in Syria has ships off Syria in a show of force. Would these fire on NATO warplanes; probably not. But, there will be repercussions. Depriving them of Syria will only make their ties with Iran closer, making any move to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon that much harder. Compared to the increase in power and prestige that come with nuclear weapons, the loss of Syria is a pittance to Iran.


If the benefit of overthrowing Assad is questionable, what are its costs? For all the cute "liberal" intelligentsia put up by Western foreigners as the spokesmen of the rebellions, the fact remains that the most organized contingent is the Muslim Brotherhood. If Syria falls to the Sunni majority, the leadership will go to the Muslim Brotherhood just as it has in Algeria, Libya and Egypt. It is no co-incidence that Al Qaeda has come out in support of the Syrian opposition. Are we to wage war for Al Qaeda in Syria as we did in Libya? Shall we blithely hand over Damascus, home to two caliphates, to the fundamentalist Sunnis who wish to create a new one?
In the name of human rights, are we going to help the Syrian Salafis and other angry Sunnis slaughter Alawites, Druze and Christians, just as we helped the Libyan Salafists settled their ethnic grievances, and the Egyptian Salafis to kill Coptic Christian and formally re-impose Dhimmitude upon them? What of President Al-Assad's threat to attack Israel if NATO attacks Syria alone or with the help of Hizbollah? Will NATO be forced to bomb Hezbollah to protect Israel, or will Israel respond angering the Muslim world? And what happens if Al-Assad uses one of his weapons of mass destruction? The price for Israel would then be an end to deterrence or a nuclear response. The implications of that are mortifying, not least of which would be a justification for an Iranian nuclear weapon program and a Saudi and Egyptian one as well.


So in exchange for helping the Muslim Brotherhood encircle Israel and helping Al Qaeda take another state, Israel will be attacked and Russia and China may seek stronger ties to Iran and Iran's nuclear program would be protected.

As callous as it may sound, the best option for the US is to do nothing. The worse the situation becomes in Syria, the harder it becomes for the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda to work with Iran. In fact, the more bloodshed there is between the Muslim Brotherhood and any Iranian Quds militia operating in Syria, the less the proverbial Arab (Sunni) Street will care about US and NATO actions to pre-empt Iran's nuclear program.

A nuclear Iran means a nuked American city

A nuclear Iran would lead to a nuclear attack on the US because it makes sense according to realist and ideologically based assumptions. Let's say Iran gets nuclear weapons. Then, let's pretend Iran is not run by suicide bomber supporters, whose eschatology holds that the Mahdi will come only after the Muslim world is purified by fire and that the stated role of Ahmadenajhad is to bring the Mahdi. In other words we are running a scenario with a "rational Iran". If Iran gets nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia and Egypt follow. Already these countries have responded to Iran's boasts, it "civilian" nuclear program, and open ICBM program with their own "civilian" nuclear programs. Saudi Arabia home of and exporter of the Salafist Wahhabi movement and the decadent Saudi clan is a spark away from revolution. Egypt is home of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian Islamic Jihad (now part of Al Qaeda), and Gamaat Islamyia (the folks who assassinated Nasser). Hosni Mubarak is not healthy and the dictatorial regime only slightly more so.
An immediate result of Iran having nuclear weapons would be the retreat of the US from Afghanistan and Iraq. Our position would be untenable as Arab states would lose the will to go along with us. Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups would launch attacks through out the region to overthrow the regimes and there would be terrorism against American targets. (I'm not even touching Israel's situation here.) In a few years, emboldened by American retreat from the Near East and after a string of "conventional" terrorist attacks, nuclear war on America, Israel and Europe become rational. An attack though proxy is hard to trace and the regime in Tehran or an Islamist one in Cairo could easily decide that given their ability to respond, the destruction of Middle East oil facilities in a war, and the difficulty in proving culpability, the US may not respond with nuclear war.
This may sound far fetched, but is it any less rational than the belief of Japanese militarists that they could cripple our fleet in a surprise attack, and then conquer and secure most of the Pacific rim to such a degree that the US would enter peace negotiations in 1942? Is it less reasonable than Saddam Hussein's gamble that the US would not intervene in Kuwait? For 6 years, Iran has been arming our opponents in Iraq and Afghanistan. And we have sat idly by trying to negotiate. Why wouldn't they think us a paper tiger or hollowed empire ripe for destruction?

And this is assuming rational actors, not the Jihadists in Tehran. Assuming that the Islamists in Iran are serious, they've already stated their intent to destroy the US. The question isn't why a nuclear Iran would lead to a nuclear attack on America. The question is how long will it take and what will the consequences be?