I’ve long wondered why President Bush has failed to repeat the reasoning for invading Iraq. The logic is simple and beliefs were shared by many, including those who became critics after the fact. September 11th made clear that terrorists were no longer intent on using small scale violence or tactics such as hostage taking andh hijacking to draw attention to their political goals. A new breed of terrorists known as al-Qaeda is intent on destroying the West and killing as many people as possible in its attacks. The deaths of over 3,000 people was unmistakable. Terrorist bent on mass-casualties were naturally drawn to weapons of mass destruction.

Thus, counterproliferation quickly moved to the top of America’s national security priorities. A short list of countriesinvolved in WMD and support for terrorism was easily made: Iraq, Iran, North Korea. The undisputable fact is that Saddam had a proven history of producing and using WMD as well as supporting terrorism. Leaving him in power was a risk the President could not take anymore, which he reiterated in a recent speech.

Bush defended his decision to go to war against Iraq in March 2003 and topple Saddam Hussein, saying that after the September 11, 2001, attacks the United States could not risk the threat Baghdad posed at that time. “It is true, as I have said many times, that Saddam Hussein was not connected to the 9/11 attacks,” Bush said.

But after nearly 3,000 people died in the September 11 attacks, the United States had to decide whether it could tolerate an enemy that supported terrorism and was believed to have weapons of mass destruction, and found “this was a risk we could not afford to take.”

Sadly, I doubt anyone is listening now.

In the spirit of my last post, I’d like to pose a very simple question to readers: Is Iran attempting to acually acquire nuclear weapons or employing the tried and true strategy of nuclear hedging?

The acquisition of nuclear weapons needs no explanation so let us begin with a definition of “nuclear hedging” taken from Ariel Levite’s article Never Say Never Again: Nuclear Reversal Revisited, namely that [...] “nuclear hedging” is a national strategy lying between nuclear pursuit and rollback. It is an appealing and surprisingly common strategy whose “greatest appeal is the ‘latent’ or ‘virtual’ deterrence posture it generates towards nuclear weapons aspirants or potential aggressors, and the leverage it provides in reinforcing a state’s coercive diplomacy strategy, particularly against the United States.” What exactly does this entail? Simply put, it involves advancing a state’s nuclear programs to an advanced stage short of weaponization, leaving the state in a position in which it could easily and quickly build nuclear weapons in a short period of time should the need arise. Some examples of countries who maintain this posture include Japan, Germany, Switzerland, South Korea and Taiwan. Levite’s article goes into explicit detail of Japan.

Japan provides the most salient example of nuclear hedging to date. The Japan case illustrates how a state signatory to the NPT and a champion of nonproliferation and disarmament can legitimately maintain a nuclear fuel–cycle capability and possess huge quantities of weapons-grade fissile material. Moreover, according to an official British government report, Japan “has key bomb-making components, including plutonium and electronic triggers, and has the expertise to go nuclear very quickly.”

With that in mind, let us briefly consider the reasons why states decide to go nuclear. They include a desire to intimidate and coerce rivals, the search for enhanced security against regional or international rivals, status and prestige, domestic politics, and bureaucratic self-aggrandizement. In the book The Nuclear Tipping Point, the authors list several reasons which leads states to rethink earlier decisions to forgo nuclear weapons. They are:

– Change in direction of US foreign & security policy
– breakdown of global NPT
– erosion of regional or global security
– domestic imperatives
– increasing availability of the necessary technology (both know how and physical components)

With those in mind, we must now ask another key and often overlooked question. When considering Iran’s goals, are we focusing too much on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as an individual? Should we not spend more time on the individual organizations within Iran’s government? Could their be either some or even significant disagreement with the government as to whether to pursue nuclear weapons, or nuclear technology at all?

I ask these questions not with answers already in mind but merely because I feel a dangerous consensus in the blogosphere and MSM that Iran’s strategy is definitely one of nuclear acquisition and not nuclear hedging and that President Ahmadinejad and the radical religious views ascribed to him, is likely to employ these weapons. Both of these assumptions are subject to doubt though again, this post does not claim to be sure about Iran’s nuclear policy. However, should the U.S. decide Iran is pursuing a strategy of nuclear hedging, our options and goals become very different.

Readers, I invite your thoughts, firstly on what you believe Iran’s nuclear policy to be, and secondly, how that changes or confirms existing US policy and goals.

One major and poorly explained reason for the invasion of Iraq was not the the physical presence of WMD but the willingness of a state with WMD capability and/or weapons to train and equip terrorists and possibly provide them with said weapons. While little serious diplomacy had been attempted with Iran and North Korea, Iraq showed itself time and again unwilling to cooperate. Additionally, it actively maintained WMD programs and was trying to both undermine and get the sanctions against it lifted.

The nexus between terror networks and rogue states is an issue poorly explained by the right and poorly understood by the left. Today’s further revelations about the A.Q. Khan network highlight why this is a very serious and very real threat. The Washington Post reports that

An international smuggling ring that sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran and North Korea also managed to acquire blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon, according to a draft report by a former top U.N. arms inspector that suggests the plans could have been shared secretly with any number of countries or rogue groups.

[...] The A.Q. Khan smuggling ring was previously known to have provided Libya with design information for a nuclear bomb. But the blueprints found in 2006 are far more troubling, Albright said in his report. While Libya was given plans for an older and relatively unsophisticated weapon that was bulky and difficult to deliver, the newly discovered blueprints offered instructions for building a compact device, the report said. The lethality of such a bomb would be little enhanced, but its smaller size might allow for delivery by ballistic missile. “To many of these countries, it’s all about size and weight,” Albright said in an interview. “They need to be able to fit the device on the missiles they have.”

Both In addition to the obvious danger of other rogue regimes acquiring such information, it is currently unknown whether terrorists groups acquired any of the information. As the article notes, the design for a compact nuclear device in the hands of both rogue states or terrorists represents the clearing of a major hurdle allowing them to build weapons far easier to deploy than the clunky older designs.

While both rogue states and terror groups would surely like to acquire both a nuclear capability and weapons, each actor has a different set of advantages and disadvantages. States enjoy legitimacy (to varying extents) and international recognition, have sovereign territory and have a variety of reason and fear based national interests. Critically, states are also subject to deterrence through retaliation by sometims deterrence by denial (more here). Terror groups, on the other hand, have less power, resources and people than states do. Yet, terrorists are more difficult to deter by retaliation often lacking any clear target to retaliate against. In addition, some follow radical ideologies unrestrained by reason or straight up political goals.

While it wouldn’t have served the IRA’s interest to crash planes into London, it did serve al-Qaeda’s. And regarding nuclear terrorism, deterrence by denial is a far more difficult and costly option. Hence, an aggressive strategy against rogue states aims to both uncover, disrupt and neutralize threats, it also brings traditional deterrence to bear on potential collaborators with terrorists thereby deterring states not only from aiding terrorists but also motivating them to fight such networks themselves in the interest of their state’s and their own survival.

While details continue to slowly emerge, one thing remains certain, America’s breakup of Khan’s network and aggressive pursuit of rogue states and proliferaters has been an important unsung success of the Bush Administration which suffers from the typical dynamic that success means nothing happens.

On a side note, The Washington Institute has an article up discussing the strategic threat of nuclear terrorism (Hat Tip to Counterterrorism Blog).

Five years and going, the Iraq War has been subject to more spin, hyperbole and misinformation that anything else in our time. According to Douglas Feith, in his new book War and Decision, the two biggest errors of the Bush administration were: (1) Not communicating clearly the multifaceted reasons for going to Iraq and (2) allowing an occupation government (i.e. the CPA) to be set up, something which we had intentionally avoided in Afghanistan.

He notes that although the issue of physical stockpiles of WMD have been the main point of criticism, it was one of many reasons for neutralizing Saddam’s Iraq. Until 9/11 the aim of terrorism was primarily political and thus attacks were generally small in scale and in body count. However, 9/11 changed marked the beginning of a new phase, namely, that terrorists sought mass-casualties for their own sake. With that in mind, WMD and state support became central issues as WMD were the most attractive means of a massive attack. Hence, the Axis of Evil speech, in which the President outlined the three states of most concern in both areas. Iraq came to the forefront because diplomacy may still have a chance with Iran and North Korea, two states with which the United States has had little diplomatic contact whereas Iraq had defied over a decade of UN sanctions and had clearly demonstrated that no amount of reason, bargaining or diplomacy could disarm Saddam.

On the issue of a massive failure of public relations and strategic communication, contrast the following quote, which according to Feith, were the reasons for eliminating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, with conventional wisdom (page 460):

“We aimed to bring into being an Iraq that would seek peace, remain unified, develop its economy, abandon Saddam’s WMD and long-range missile programs, and oppose terrorism. We did not promise to put in place a stable democracy for the Iraqis; rather, we stated the more realistic aim of ‘a representative government that builds democratic institutions and is respectful of its diverse population.’”

He notes that the reasons for liberating Iraq were that he maintained WMD capability (different from stockpiles) including numerous dual use facilities, teams of scientists researching biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, actively intended to produce WMD, was actively working to undermine sanctions after which he could continue his programs, was actively attacking British and American planes patrolling the no-fly-zone and actively supporting (including direct training and allowing them to use Iraqi territory) terrorist groups (Mujahedin-e Khalq, PKK, Abu Nidal organization, PLF, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Arab Liberation Front) and much more[1]. All these, however, have been obscured by the failure to find physical stockpiles of WMD.

Readers, with 5 years of hindsight, an Iraq which is beginning to make progress and new memoirs by figures such as Feith, Paul Bremer, George Tenet and Tommy Franks, how do you feel about Iraq, the decision to remove Saddam, our progress and the future of the war on terror.?

• To download a 3 hour interview with Douglas Feith about his book, click here.

[1] To view a detailed but not exhaustive list of Saddams many illegal activities click here for “A Decade of Deception and Defiance.”