Back in November, I tuned into the Republican primary debate on foreign policy, my favorite political topic. When the debate inevitably turned to the subject of Iran, I listened with piqued interest. With the exception of Ron Paul, the candidates were falling over one another to present themselves as the toughest person in the room. Newt Gingrich projected a particularly cavalier attitude, adding regime change to his long list of threats to the Iranian government. Rick Perry upped the ante by advocating a no-fly zone in Syria to thwart those pesky Iranians. (How a no-fly zone over Syria has anything to do with Iran is beyond me, but it sounds really tough!) Since the debates, the Republican candidates, save Paul, have been beating their war drums and increasing their vitriolic anti-Iran rhetoric. Gingrich has compared Iran to the rise of Nazi Germany with only America able to stop its leaders' diabolic schemes. Mitt Romney has desperately tried to paint necessary cuts in military spending as insouciance by the Obama administration. However, lost in all this gung-ho hyperbole is an incontrovertible reality no one is going to war with Iran over nukes, and I can give you three reasons why.
First, Iran is not seeking to attack Israel with a nuke. This may seem presumptuous, but stick with me for a minute. Israeli security is the number one reason the candidates claim that Iran must not have a nuke. Former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann went so far as to claim, "Without a shadow of a doubt [Iran] will use it to wipe our ally Israel off the face of the map." Sounds scary. We should probably be screaming towards Tehran guns blazing, right? Not so fast. In the words of seminal Western military strategist Carl von Clausewitz, a country engages in war to provide advantageous outcomes for themselves. If Iran found a way to hit Israel with a nuke, Israel would respond so quickly with their own superior nuclear arsenal that American F-22s and nuclear submarines would arrive with little left to do. The developed world would be seething at the Iranian regime, and there would be no stopping the U.S. and Israel from reconstructing a devastated Iran as they saw fit. The only policy outcome of attacking Israel is regime change, and what is the only thing every regime wants other than more power? To stay in power.
Second, Iran doesn't have the ability to project nukes into Israel. Iran is currently trying to increase its ballistic missile capabilities, but at this time, it does not have the ability to strike Israel using long-range missiles. Iran has even resorted to Photoshopping the results of missile tests to the amusement of the global intelligence community. There is no foreseeable change to this fact in the near future, and even if there were, America would have ships equipped with interceptors floating around the Mediterranean. Iran could try dropping a bomb from a fighter plane. However, that too would fail as it would require Iran to take paths through either Saudi Arabia, Iraq or Turkey, which all either detest the Iranian regime or would not want to get caught up in the ensuing whirlwind. On top of this, Iran does not possess the electronic attack capabilities to bypass Israeli surface to air defense systems. Israeli units would be playing Duck Hunt with Iranian fighter jets.
Third, the U.S. does not want war with Iran. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been costly enough, and war with Iran would only increase the economic strain on America. Gingrich can talk about using the minimum force required for regime change in Iran, but the minimum force required would be a counterinsurgency. We saw this once we toppled the Iraqi regime, and it would be the same story in Iran. War in Iran would also guarantee strikes in Israel, as Iran would pull the trigger on both barrels, Hamas and Hezbollah. The spillover in violence across the Middle East and Afghanistan would be a nightmare no president would want.
So why the rhetoric? Sadly, it's meant to fire up the voter base. Most Republicans do not want to appear "weak" on defense. The nuances of military statecraft escape most Americans who only see a loud-mouth Mahmoud Ahmadinejad making threats that in truth are idle. Some of the candidates might be tempted into making a missile strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, but in the end this would only be a small setback for the Iranians and would risk escalation into an all out war. In the end, the candidates don't want war they want votes.
