But, personally, I think there’s another domestic element at play here. Chirac is reminding voters that the president has his finger on the button. It’s the subliminal beginning of a message he will be sending for the next 17 months that this arsenal should not be put in the hands of a hyperactive man who can’t control his temper and has “issues” with his wife: Nicolas Sarkozy.

You read it here first.

And if the Irianian theocrats really believe they can weather the return blow the term “MAD mullahs” would be entirely appropriate.

*And unlike the tsunami, this disaster would be man made.

This is very unlikely. Nuclear bombs in general are one thing. “Suitcase bombs” are an entirely different and much more difficult technology. They are difficult to build and very difficult to maintain. (That is why scare stories of a suitcase bomb stolen from Russia are much less scary than stories of a standard nuclear weapon stolen from Russia. Suitcase nukes haven’t been maintained for almost a decade in Russia. They wouldn’t work even if somehow stolen).

I’m not at all suggesting that Iran would attack Israel before testing nukes. Why would that be necessary? They can test nukes in the desert and once that happens no one is going to risk stopping them because they will claim to have built multiple nuclear weapons before they tested the first one. At that point they will build what they want. At that point, I worry that they will attempt to destroy Israel. You need maybe 12. Four for each target so that at least two get through. Once you have tested the technology your main worry is fuel. The way things are going diplomatically, fuel is going to be no problem at all for Iran.

As for the Palestinian hostage issue, are you talking about people living in Tel Aviv, or the West Bank? Iran doesn’t need to target the West Bank, and the radiation issue isn’t as big of a deal as people seem to think when you only need to hit three targets. Radiation fears during the Cold War (where tens of thousands of bombs were contemplated in a continent-destroying exchange) are one thing, but are totally different when you only need to hit three targets. Iran could totally destroy Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Be’er Sheva and cities as close as Jerusalem should still be quite livable almost right away. (This is partially in response to the wind comment).

The problem isn’t that they will act to destroy Israel within minutes of the first publicized test. The problem is that they would act to destroy Israel within years of the first test. Their willingness to do so, and even risk a nuclear counterstrike since they know it won’t be a MAD situation, has been expressed multiple times, over multiple years by multiple presidents and high-ranking clerics. If it was once, decades ago, by a former president and no one else, I wouldn’t be so worried. It isn’t. It has been mentioned by Rafsanjani (one of the highest level clerics and a former president) and current president Ahmadinejad as well as alluded to by a number of lower-level people. It has been mentioned and alluded to when these people were at the height of their power, not when they are down in the depths. The West just doesn’t respect the influence of religion in people’s lives. We may think it is superstitious nonsense, but it really does motivate a vast number of people. It just isn’t wise to ignore the repeated religious pronouncements of a country which doesn’t recognize a difference between church and state. Often, crazy people mean what they say–even though it is obvious to everyone else that what they say is crazy. It strikes me as unwise to act as if high level people in Iran just don’t mean what they repeatedly say.

It’s also unlikely that bomb no.1 is going to be a megaton-plus beast. It’s also not terribly likely that the first bomb of the first type developed in rush conditions would work perfectly. It’s a fact that Israel maintains effective air defences and effective civil defence, and the Palestinians are a sort of nuclear hostage. You betcha they don’t have access to the shelters..

So..as soon as the first two bombs are done you fire them at Israel, one gets shot down, one fizzes at 2/3 of intended yield, several thousand Israelis die, several tens of thousands of Palestinians die..and urban Iran (yourself included) gets vapourised by 200+ megaton level deliveries. Great prospect, no?

Chirac’s speech seems perfectly clear to me. It’s a warning that if a nuke goes off in Europe, perhaps as part of the asymmetric warfare strategy of a state being attacked with conventional weapons (eg Iran), France will retaliate. The element of uncertainty concerns just how much proof of such a linkage France would require, but the objective is deterrence.

Ok, point taken. I think we can certainly agree though that there are still two issues: how to explain what Chirac said, and how others will read it.

Some interesting quotes here:

“It is shameful for the people of France that their president brandishes atomic weapons on the pretext of fighting terrorism,” said Gholam Ali Hadad-Adel, speaker of Iran’s right-wing parliament.”

“The French need to make an effort to remove the shame of the the massacre of millions of Algerians, France’s support for Saddam Hussein and the massacres in Africa and Rwanda,” Hadad-Adel said in a speech to deputies carried by state radio.”

Amongst other issues I think it is fascinating that the Iranians should be riled up with Chirac since they see him as a supporter of Saddam Hussein. This may be an indication of how the Teheran regime is eyeing what is happening in Iraq, and indeed how recent US attempts to incorporate the Sunnis in the political process and de-criminalise Baathism may be being perceived by Iraq’s Shia population.

Also try this one:

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a decree on Saturday, appointing Brigadier General Hossein Salami as the new commander of the Air Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Another senior Guards commander, Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Zahedi, was put in charge of the IRGC Ground Forces.

Salami is known as the father of the IRGC’s “asymmetric warfare” doctrine, which he helped to develop in the months preceding the war in Iraq. The military doctrine is based on two components as strategic tools in any military confrontation: the massive use of suicide operations to target U.S. and Western interests around the world, and the use of weapons of mass destruction.In his new position as commander of the IRGC’s Air force, General Salami will be in charge of the country’s ballistic missile development project, a key component of the asymmetric warfare doctrine….In the July 2004 speech, Salami had argued for the use of oil as a weapon by Muslim countries to put pressure on the West.

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5412

So I think I find myself in quite substantial disagreement with the thrust of Sebastian’s comment, which seems to imply that the Iran nuclear capacity will be directed principally at Israel.

I think this is a non-starter for them. No clarification was needed from Chirac to make the Iranians aware that any moves in this direction would bring them in direct conflict with nuclear capacity in the UK, France and the United States. This has been clear since the old days of the cold war. It has also been clear that this is an effective deterrent.

So I think we need to look elsewhere:

“In the July 2004 speech, Salami had argued for the use of oil as a weapon by Muslim countries to put pressure on the West.”

I think the battle ground is going to be our vulnerability to energy pressure, in particular since others (Russia?, Venezuela? Nigeria?) may be mobilised to play ‘footsie’ here.

The perceived weakness of the United States following the Iraq war, and the shield offered by having a nuclear capacity will probably encourage Iran to try its hand in extending its influence in Southern Iraq and Western Afghanistan. The nuclear threat will probably increasingly be used, as Salami indicates, asymetrically. That is to say they may well use uncertainty as to whether they have a nuclear capacity to deliver a “suitcase bomb” in the heart of one of the major nuclear powers (read UK, France and United States) as a central plank in their disinformation war.

Incidentally the Afghan destination has the added attraction of being the centre of the poppy industry, and Iran does seem to be a high-road along which this lucrative and hard to control trade moves. In the event of oil santions there are still other ways of making money.

So my guess is that Israel will only play a role in all this at the rhetoric level. I doubt the Iranian leaders have any serious intention of ‘messing’ with Israel, and in any event (unless anyone else has a better idea than I do), aren’t you still liable to fluctuations in wind direction here. I mean, a nuke on Israel, apart from hitting the extensive Israeli arab population could also wipe out significant numbers of Palestinians I think. Not, then, a very practical proposal.

Sorry, totally inane comment, but I like this figure of speech very much. Nice writing, Bert.

Oh, I didn’t say Iran didn’t figure, in fact I was careful not to say that.
My comments were prompted in part by those - AMac credibly, John F.Opie crassly, others too - who held that the speech could only be interpreted as a response to recent developments in the Iran problem, and should be praised (or damned) on that basis alone.

The context struck me as wider than that. And also shallower too. Remember that one of Chirac’s first acts as President, and the first of his many miscalculations, was an essentially meaningless reassertion of French nuclear status at Muraroa.

Giscard’s been quoted recently as saying “For the first time in 50 years, France no longer has a project for Europe.” Gaullist nuclear diplomacy has always encouraged European neighbours to shelter under the French nuclear umbrella. The independent deterrent remains an asset, in part because of its uniqueness among the core Europe group Chirac still dreams of coalescing around himself. So he brashly busks through one of the old tunes to ingratiate himself with a hostile or at best indifferent crowd.

I don’t doubt that a strategic review will have discussed Iran intently. Discussions on energy security will have featured Iran, alongside Russia and the Caucuses, Saudi stability, and even West Africa and Chavez too. Iran will have appeared prominently in the counterproliferation dossier as well. It’s just that I can’t make the logic of nuclear deterrence make sense in this case. Others in both threads have struggled to do so too. So I reach for another explanation. Chirac’s sparse toolkit contains a hammer. With the grave conviction of a practised ham, he explains the nail-like qualities of the world’s problems.

One last thing. In one sense I think we absolutely should be reading Chirac’s speech in an Iran context. It’s a point I thought you nailed, and which didn’t need me repeating: the forceful assertion of a nuclear strategy, with the bogus innovation of “low yield” turning deployment into an active proposition, makes further proliferation virtually inevitable, and settles Iran implacably on its course to nuclear status.

Whether it can be stopped is still an open question, but Chirac ain’t helping.