Speak softly and carry a big stick?

Who will conceivably want to invade Iran? Nobody! Will it give them a permanent seat at the UN Security Council, asks Bhaskar Dasgupta.

I was sitting in the rather surprisingly well appointed general lounge at London City Airport, waiting for the rubber band powered plane (otherwise known as the Fokker 50) to arrive, and was idly watching the TV with glazed eyes as the newscaster was talking about the Iranian nuclear crisis. So it was the evening, and it had been a long tiring week, but I simply gave a cynical snort at the machinations of the EU 3 and USA. Why cynical?

Well, here's my reason. Iran WILL get its nuclear weapons and there is simply nothing that the world can do about it, not a thing. Secondly, if Iran thinks that having nuclear weapons makes one invincible, then those mullah's have another think coming. Allow me to explain.

One thing that we have noted with these Iranian chaps is that they are bombasts and blowhards with big huge speeches, shades of Baghdad Bob and so on and so forth. But these chaps now want nuclear weapons and they are approximately half way down their nuclear weapons programme if not even more. (I wrote about this a while back, check out http://piquancy.blogspot.com/2003/11/inevitability-of-logic-of-nuclear.html).

This will make for an interesting situation. They don't speak softly and they will carry a big stick eventually. Iran is well known for supporting various international terrorist and militia groups, ranging from the groups in Iraq to the ones in Lebanon, Palestine and other places. Israel and USA are the two big enemies, or Small Satan and Great Satan as per the Mullah's rhetoric. Leaving the theological inconsistencies aside, they know that their mouldy and ramshackle arms and tired army will not be able to take on the Satan Brothers and Co. Ah! But nuclear weapons are the superpower suit, put it on a weakling and the weakling turns into Superman. Nobody can kick sand in his or her face any more.

USA has learnt its lesson from the spectacularly ill managed Iraq war. Except for the actual invasion phase, the overall strategy, the diplomatic game, the post war phase and the withdrawal phase have all been strangely badly managed. A recent report quoted that the overall cost of the Iraq war will be more akin to $2,000 billion (coincidentally, I read this in the Financial Times Martin Wolf column of Jan 11, 2006 ). The cost of waging war on Iran will be considerably more and if USA thinks that only air power can be used, let us not forget that the Iranians have hundreds of thousands of US troops hostage next door. Hence the polite emphasis on diplomacy, EU-3 efforts, mutterings about sanctions, IAEA fluttering around like an arthritic chicken, etc. will simply not cut it.

Guess what? This issue will go to the Security Council, then long deliberations will happen for months and months on end, people will argue till they are palsied about word selection and comma placement. Afterwards a silly little resolution will be adopted, which Iran will use for toilet paper, sorry, fig leaf. All this time, enrichment will proceed. Don't forget, their friendly neighbour has already given them a weapons design, and they already have delivery capability through their friends in China and North Korea. Nice cosy little club. Then the UNSC will huff and puff a bit more, another year down the drain, and gasp, shock, horror, awe, sanctions will be imposed. I can just see the Iranian diplomats at the table reacting with stoic faces, and as soon as they get back to their hotel rooms, they will start rolling about on the floor laughing their heads off.

Another couple of years of sanctions, screaming headlines and the rest, but with no effect of the sanctions at all, ummm, then some vague threats of military action. At the sound of the words, "military action", everybody who is anybody will suddenly remember a prior engagement on Mars. At the end, if something does need to be done, it will be USA and the UK. Nobody else will even raise a peep. I quite expect that Iran will announce that they have weaponised their nuclear arms. Bingo, all the air will be taken out of the military action plan. After some mutterings here there and everywhere, I suspect that the NPT will be recalibrated to allow more nuclear powers.

The Iranians will have a huge rush and viola they are a nuclear power, have joined the big kids on the block, swaggering around the place. On the other hand, as I have said before, Iran having nuclear weapons will have no effect. It is like the dog which runs barking after every passing car. Just what will happen if the dog does catch the car? Ummm, what exactly will the dog do with the car? That will be exactly the same situation with Iran. What will Iran do with its nuclear weapons? Reject invasions?

Ummm, who will conceivably want to invade Iran? Nobody! Will it give them a permanent seat at the UN Security Council? Nope. I will tell you exactly what it will do to the Iranians, just like what it did to the Pakistani's. It will make them even more vulnerable. Supporting a nuclear weapons programme (along with delivery vehicles) is horrendously expensive. Do not forget that Iran has internal enemies as well and the revolution is not really that well bedded down. Safeguarding your nuclear assets will be terribly important and throw in a monkey in the usual calculations.

In addition, having nuclear weapons does effectively mean that you are willing to be annihilated as well. Remember Iraq and June 7, 1981? Israel went ahead and bombed the 70-megawatt uranium-powered and French-built, almost complete, nuclear plant (the Osirak reactor) 18 miles south of Baghdad, on the orders of the then Prime Minister Menachem Begin. In 1981 the Israelis said they bombed Osirak because they believed it was designed to make nuclear weapons to destroy Israel. And that was one reactor, now what about Iran 25 years later? Specially with all the speeches of President Ahmadinejad against Israel, the Jews and his accusations that the Holocaust was just a myth? Israel has been vociferously complaining about the Iranian nukes, but my personal opinion is that they always knew this day will come.

The question was when one of their enemies will get nuclear weapons. The more they delay it the better it is. It is more difficult now but yes, there is a chance Israel takes a unilateral step. A small chance, because I simply cannot see USA allowing Israel to do this while there are hundreds of thousands of American soldiers next door.

Israel has the ability for a second strike even if it has been hit by nukes. This is through their air launched as well as submarine launched weapons. So even if Iran drops 3 large nukes (that will be enough frankly) on Israel, Israel can react with a minimum of 10-15 nuclear weapons. Besides the point that this Iranian nuclear strike will also wipe out the Palestinians (on whose behalf, the President has been making his foaming speeches), using nuclear weapons on Israel means the potential destruction of Iran as well.

This argument of mutual or joint annihilation is not frequently stated, but it is indeed the case. It's all right talking about dying for your faith, but when the time comes to actually face the possibility of facing the real music, most of these religious leaders slither off (as we have seen in Kashmir and in Palestine). If they do employ these nuclear weapons, they will get annihilated and that, in my opinion, is something which they will not countenance. Suicide bombing for an individual is fine, national suicide/immolation isn't part of it, Sir.

Given this major limitation, they will immediately open themselves up to constraints on their actions. The concept of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) means that while they cannot go into full fledged battle, but and this is where they will be in trouble, they will be open to indirect conflict. And the Satan's are particularly good at indirect warfare and the Iranians are particularly bad at it. Open societies such as Israel and USA are more vulnerable to terrorism and indirect warfare, but their technical and military power is such, that they can direct it to a much greater degree. In other words, if the two Satan's do decide to go down this route, they will and can keep the Iranians in a constant state of panic and terror.

This is where the flip side comes into play. Almost all of Iran's neighbours are US allies and there are thousands of kilometres of near unguarded borders.

Hence my cynicism about both sides! Non-proliferation seems to be the stated objective behind the EU-3 and USA. Nuclear hypocrisy is very high with all of them except for Germany. When did you last hear any of these countries promising or even discussing the possibility of giving up their nuclear weapons as the NPT asks for? Then USA decided to drive a Mack truck through the NPT by its treatment of India and North Korea. On the other hand, Iran's mealy mouthed and diplomatic lies to hide its nuclear weapons programme are so transparent, that it is frankly cringe-worthy. On top of that are the wild and woolly statements uttered by Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

This is the chap who will have his finger on the nuclear button? Then again, if you can live with North Korea and Pakistan as nuclear weapon states, what's wrong with Iran? One is ruled by a totalitarian megalomaniac and the other is ruled by a generalissimo known for military misadventures and backed by Islamic jehadi's. Iran should fit right into this august group. Hence my cynicism, both at the attempts to stop Iran from have nuclear weapons as well as Iran's hopes for nuclear weapons. It reminds me of a line from the movie Cabaret, where Liza Minnelli commented on her father's remoteness saying: "If I had leprosy, there'd be a cable: "Gee, kid. Tough.

Sincerely hope nose doesn't fall off." because to me this sure looks like Iran is cutting off its nose to spite its own face.

All this to be taken with a grain of salt.