From this morning’s Times:
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that the United States would consider extending a “defense umbrella” over the states in the Persian Gulf region if Iran does not bow to international demands to halt its nuclear program.
This could mean one or both of two things:
1. I have argued before that one of the main consequences of nuclear Iran is an arms race in the Middle East as Sunni nations—and Israel—scramble to build up deterrence capabilities while demanding guarantees from the United States. Clinton’s comment may be an attempt to prevent the arms race by ensuring US allies that they will be protected—a serious concern which they have been voicing since the Iraq invasion gave Iran regional dominance.
2. Or, this could also be a weak attempt to change the cost-benefit calculus for the Iranian regime. Clinton is arguing that, when Iran goes nuclear, the payoff to the regime is not as high as Tehran is expecting since the US will simply balance Iran’s regional power.
Neither objective is likely to address the serious geopolitical consequences of Iranian proliferation.
The commitment of US defense required by allies will likely include some form of missile defense in addition to conventional forces—certainly more than Clinton is willing to offer right now. At the extreme, it may even be like the demands of the European leadership in the Cold War: that the US place considerable military assets in the region—Iraq does not count—to guarantee US involvement in a possible conflict and thereby deter Iran with assured US mobilization. At any rate, the comment may actually undermine this strategy by showing that Obama lacks the will to prevent proliferation altogether.
The second notion—that this may change Tehran’s calculus—has certainly already been considered by the regime, which still sees proliferation as a key interest. While a US umbrella dilutes some of proliferation’s threat credibility, it does not lower the cost of proliferating and may not even be relevant to the purposes for which Iran is arming. Said Kissinger, “A statesman can always escape his dilemmas by making the most favorable assumptions about the future” (818). Hopefully Obama has a realistic view of the consequences of proliferation.
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