This Is What Nonproliferation Looks Like

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I have no doubt both options are being discussed in Iran. And, on their own terms, both options are rational. Forget the mullahs’ stated desire to wipe Israel off the map, I can see wanting nukes to ensure that such a humiliating ass-kicking by Israel and the U.S. can never happen again. After all, no one thinks about bombing North Korea, because North Korea has nuclear weapons. I can also see the other argument: It’s just not worth it. Israel and the U.S. will do this again—but worse. So let’s move on. 

These aren’t the only possibilities either. Maybe Iran tries to just buy a nuke—or the necessary ingredients—from some pliable generals in Pakistan or North Korea. Unlikely, but not unimaginable. Maybe Iran’s theocracy implodes after this fiasco. Sadly, I think this is unlikely in the near term too. 

My only point is that we can’t know how this decision will look 10 years from now, because those 10 years haven’t happened yet. If Napoleon had been killed before the Russian invasion, we’d remember him much differently. If Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement had worked, Chamberlain would be remembered much better (and, frankly, our opinion of Hitler would be different, too) and a lot of folks would never have heard of Winston Churchill. If we didn’t bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki and instead launched a bloody invasion of the Japanese home islands, the decision not to bomb would be at least as controversial as the decision to bomb. 

Regime change, guns, nukes, oh my!

I have been consistent on the issue of regime change for 30 years. I have zero principled objection to toppling evil regimes that brutalize their own people or seek to subjugate their neighbors. The only issue—for me—is a matter of cost-benefit analysis. Can we succeed? And at what price? If you could convince me that we could topple the Chinese Communist Party and install a relatively benign, normal government at the cost of $1 and a few twisted ankles among our troops, I’d be all for it. But that’s not an option. I have a high degree of confidence that any such project would cost us trillions of dollars and countless American lives even if it were successful—and it very likely wouldn’t be. So I am adamantly opposed to militarily pursuing regime change in China. 

I think a change in Iran’s regime is eminently desirable. I think the current regime is pretty evil. If you don’t think blinding protesters, executing children, throwing women into prison for not wearing a hijab, executing people for drinking alcohol, not to mention the systemic use of torture and the subjugation of ethnic minorities, is evil, that’s on you. I also think the regime is our enemy, not just because they say so, but because they put their money where their mouths are, funding terrorist groups and hit squads that have killed numerous Americans since the Iranian Revolution in 1979 (see my column from earlier today). So, if we can get those “Death to America!”-chanting theocratic fanatics out of there, I’m all for it— if the costs of trying are worth the benefits. And, if we have a sufficient degree of confidence that we can pull it off. 

If we can’t get that done, however, I think it’s perfectly reasonable and desirable to keep them from having a nuclear weapon. 

I often think of international arms control arguments as an analogue of domestic gun control arguments. There are people who think no one should have guns just as there are people who think no one should have nuclear weapons. I don’t think either position is unreasonable in the abstract. The problem is it’s completely unreasonable in reality. Guns aren’t going anywhere and neither are nukes. So then the pragmatic question becomes, who should be allowed to have guns and who should be allowed to have nukes?

Kevin Williamson and David French have many guns. This does not bother me in the slightest. France and Israel have nuclear weapons. This, too, doesn’t cause me any sleepless nights. But I don’t want people like the evil cretins who set Jews on fire earlier this month and murdered Israeli embassy staff last month to have guns. And I don’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons for similar reasons. 

A lot of people on the left think that guns, not bad people with guns, are the problem. I often chuckle or roll my eyes at progressive politicians who talk about guns like they are animate objects with an agency all their own. If guns aren’t going anywhere, then the issue isn’t the guns, it’s the people who misuse them. Law enforcement should work very hard at keeping those people from having guns (and we should severely punish people who use them for illegal purposes). If you’re a known violent criminal, it should be very hard to get a gun, and if you’re a known violent criminal regime, it should be very hard for you to get a nuclear weapon. 

The problem is a lot of people prefer to talk about “systemic” problems and the various processes intended to deal with them. So you have gun controllers pushing ever more laws that create burdens for people who wish to follow the law, but have very little effect on people who seek to break the law. If you’re planning to rob a bank or shoot up a synagogue, the fact that you’re also breaking the law by having an AR-15 isn’t a big deal. Having a sign outside the synagogue or bank that says “No Guns Allowed” is an almost comical deterrence. Do we expect the masked robbers or mass murderers to walk up, armed to the teeth, see the sign and say, “Damn, I didn’t know guns weren’t allowed,” before going home?

As Matthew Continetti noted the other day on the Commentary podcast, the rhetoric from International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi, former Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes (who has been tweeting his fingers bloody in rage lately), and other process fetishists reminds him of the thinking that went into the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the 1928 treaty that “outlawed war.” Matt’s right, and not just because I am always down for some dunking on the Kellogg-Briand Pact. If such a treaty could work, I might be all for it. But if it can’t work, such treaties are dangerous because only the people who take them seriously will abide by them, and the people who don’t take them seriously will exploit the idealism and naivete of the parchment worshippers.  

A lot of people are angry that Trump has done violence to the nuclear nonproliferation process. If I thought that process worked, I would share some of that anger. But I don’t think that process works, at least not very well. More to the point, the reason for that process is to prevent something in the real world: bad actors from getting nuclear weapons. The only reason to demand that the U.S. comply with that process is if you think our compliance will yield that result. If it won’t, then I don’t give a rat’s ass about the process. In fact, the process becomes a problem unto itself because the people invested in it have a deep interest in insisting that the process is working—when it isn’t—and that breeds complacency when urgency is required. It’s like politicians creating Blue Ribbon Commissions to deal with a problem, when the only problem they’re actually solving is the demand for the politicians to fix the problem themselves. Arms controllers have a long history of thinking that the process is an independent good regardless of the result. I get it. If I made good money by participating in conversations in fancy hotels in Geneva or Paris, I too would like the process to continue. Gotta keep that per diem, baby. But if following the process leads to Iran getting a nuclear bomb, then the process was pointless and dangerous. 

Bombing Iran’s nuclear installations may turn out to have been a mistake—if it didn’t work or if it did, but the mullahs respond the wrong way. But it wasn’t pointless, because the point was to stop Iran from having a nuclear bomb. If it was successful, the MAGA crowd has every right to make signs that read, “This is what nonproliferation looks like!”