Unthinkable (48 page)

Unfortunately, there is no magic solution to the problem of Iranian efforts to destabilize U.S. allies, but neither has the problem proven insurmountable. The United States and its allies have been trying to deal with
it since 1979, with mixed but mostly positive results. Iran has not been able to overthrow any of the other governments of the region despite its efforts to do so, and Iran cannot be held solely responsible for any of the terrorist groups, insurgencies, civil wars, or even popular unrest that Tehran supports. All stem principally from the deep economic, political, and social problems of the states of the region, and the Iranians have merely tried to exacerbate these problems as best they could. But Iran has found ways to enflame problems across the region, and at times, these problems have boiled over into more serious crises for the United States and its allies. Israel's wars against Hizballah and Hamas, various crises in Bahrain, the Iraqi civil war, and even Yemen's most recent internal conflict have all been aggravated by Iranian support.

PLAYING DEFENSE.
Many of Iran's gains in recent years have had less to do with their skill than with our mistakes. The best way to keep the Iranians from gaining a foothold in other countries of the region and stoking unrest is to eliminate the causes of the unrest in the first place. The more unhappy the populace, the more willing they are to listen to Iran and its agents in the region. The happier they are, the more likely they will be to tell Iran and its allies to get lost.

A critical element of containing Iran in the future will be addressing the messes in the region as best we can. It is another reason for the United States to help those Arab states that have already undergone major political upheavals—Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, and Iraq—to build viable governments able to secure their territory, get their economies moving, and provide basic services for their entire populations. Likewise, it will mean pressing those Arab states that have not undergone a major transition to embrace and actually implement meaningful long-term reforms to address the popular demands for political, economic, and social change that have swept the Arab world since 2011. It will also mean doing what we can to prevent new failed states, new civil wars, and new insurgencies. The more chaotic these places are, the more Iran will be able to exploit that chaos.
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The unfortunate paradox is that the fear of Iranian subversion growing all across the Arab world is liable to make the remaining Arab dictators and monarchs
less
willing to embark on new reforms, for fear that doing so will cause the kind of dislocation and unrest that Iran typically tries to exploit. This ambivalence will be yet another challenge for the United States and its allies, and just as in the 1990s, when we tried to help Israel, Jordan, Syria, and the Palestinians take risks for peace, so in the future must we try to help the Arab regimes take risks for reform.
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Of course, this is easier said than done.
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The needs of the emerging Arab democracies are huge and the determination of the Arab monarchies to resist further change is deep. Some, like the kings of Morocco and Jordan, have made modest efforts, if only because they feared that to do otherwise would push them off the same cliff from which Mubarak, Ben Ali, and Saleh all tumbled. Others, such as King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia, recognized the potential for revolution long before, and so, in the Saudi case, the king began his own gradual shift in favor of reform in a way that has so far immunized the Kingdom from the unrest elsewhere sweeping the region. Yet it is just not clear that even Abdallah's reforms are moving quickly enough. The Saudis are hard-pressed to move any faster and they are facing an imminent transition in leadership that could derail Abdallah's gradual reforms.

The obvious alternative to a process of reform is a greater emphasis on counterinsurgency techniques to augment the already formidable counterterrorism capabilities of many of the regional security services. Since 9/11, both the United States and the governments of the region have invested a tremendous amount in counterterrorism, principally to combat the threat of al-Qa'ida and like-minded terrorist groups. There is still more that could be done. The United States could organize a more coordinated effort to neutralize Iranian-backed terrorist groups. In the past, this was difficult for the Arab states because many of the most important groups that Iran supported were also the principal opponents of Israel. One of the great benefits of the Arab Spring and the civil war in Syria, however, has been that most of these groups have been forced to choose
sides: the Sunni fundamentalists of Hamas have distanced themselves from Iran, whereas Shi'i Hizballah has not and has lost considerable support among the majority Sunni Arab population as a result. An effort to coordinate opposition against Iranian-backed terrorist groups would not have to make Hamas a principal target (and if the Arab states could be persuaded to join, it would put additional pressure on Hamas to cut its ties to Tehran altogether). The Sunni Arab states would probably have little compunction about targeting Hizballah and other Shi'i groups much closer to Iran, like Asaib ahl al-Haq and Kataib Hizballah in Iraq.

The Iranians also like to support militias and insurgencies, which—because they are bigger and can often control territory—tend to be far more dangerous to regional governments than terrorist groups. Although counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations have a great deal in common, they also have important differences, ones that regional militaries often flub when they confront an insurgency or militia because they tend to fall back on inappropriate counterterrorism practices. In contrast, after a decade of honing (or relearning) its low-intensity conflict (LIC) skills in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States Armed Forces now have unparalleled experience in these operations, which they could pass on to other Arab states to buck up their ability to combat an Iranian-backed insurgency should they face one.

Now, there is a catch. The regional governments take the training, techniques, and weaponry we provide them to deal with terrorists, insurgents, and militias but they often use them against their own legitimate, internal opposition. This problem is significant in its own right, but equally so in the context of trying to strengthen the ability of regional governments to resist Iranian subversion, because employing repression against legitimate internal opposition groups will simply make the anger and frustration of the populace worse, creating just the kinds of political and social divisions upon which Iran preys. Consequently, the U.S. government should only embark on such a program to bolster region-wide LIC capabilities and coordinate inter-state counterinsurgency campaigns if these programs are tied to tangible progress on political, economic, and
social reforms in the participating states—a practice with which we have had some important successes in Latin America.

GOING ON THE OFFENSIVE.
In the parlance of deterrence theory developed during the Cold War, the steps above constitute what is called “deterrence by denial.” This idea means convincing an adversary not to take an action because it is bound to fail to achieve its goal. Another approach is “deterrence by punishment,” in which an adversary is convinced to desist by inflicting pain on it in a variety of other ways. In the case of the Iranians, we need to play defense to prevent them from making gains where they are strongest—in subverting regional governments and destabilizing the region. Given how low-cost it is for the Iranians to support terrorist and insurgent groups, we should not expect that the defensive measures treated above are going to be enough to convince them to stop or even diminish their efforts.

This is where the flexibility of a containment strategy is an asset. The United States can and should also choose from a wide variety of methods to impose costs or inflict pain on Iran depending on the circumstances. There are tactics that the United States and its allies could employ on a sustained basis to make Iran feel pain for its overall support of various subversive, terrorist, insurgent, and other violent groups. The most obvious example of this is economic sanctions. Although the current panoply of sanctions might need to be revised to make them sustainable over the long term, it would be helpful if not crucial to carry them over from the carrot-and-stick strategy to a longer-term containment regime, including to ensure that Iran continues to pay a price for supporting terrorists, insurgents, and other violent extremists.

There are also discrete actions that the United States could take in response to specific Iranian moves. Conditional arms sales to American allies in the region is a good example. One question we will have to try to answer in the context of containment is how we could help deter various Iranian-backed terrorists from attacking Israel more aggressively
after Iran has acquired a nuclear capability and feels safe from retaliation. One way to do so could be to make clear to Tehran that the United States would be willing to sell additional weapons to Israel and the GCC states that would be discomfiting for Iran. Contrary to popular opinion, there are weapons systems that the United States has never sold Israel, and does not plan to in the future—such as the F-22 Raptor stealth air superiority fighter. The Israelis also want more bunker-buster bombs, aerial refueling tankers, and intelligence collection platforms to enable offensive operations against Iran. Similarly, the United States could sell the GCC states and other regional allies additional arms that Iran would find threatening.

In addition, Washington could launch specific covert actions, including both cyber operations and support to Iranian opposition groups, in response to specific Iranian moves. Especially to the extent that the United States is able to maintain its edge over Iran in cyberwarfare, covert action responses could prove a useful tool with which to combat the unconventional threat from a nuclear Iran. So far, at least as the press reports it, the United States appears to be employing cyberattacks to hinder Iran's nuclear program and convince Tehran to agree to compromise on that program. In future circumstances where a deal is no longer in the offing—and Iran may even possess a nuclear arsenal—these same cyber weapons can be employed to different ends. Although, under a policy of containment, the United States ought to be considering means of effecting regime change in Tehran at all times, Washington's willingness to act on those impulses may vary over time based on both Iranian behavior and the likelihood of success. On the former point, the regime is highly sensitive to any external (particularly American) support to its many dissidents. Whenever Iran began to stoke regional instability or mounted a particularly dangerous effort to subvert an American ally, the United States could respond with its own clandestine efforts: cyber blows and increased support to Iranian opposition groups, thus striking at Tehran's worst fears.

The most dangerous problem that the United States and the world would face in attempting to contain a nuclear Iran is crisis management.
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In their superb study of the challenges of containing a nuclear Iran, Tom Donnelly, Danielle Pletka, and Maseh Zarif make the point that Iran has pursued a nuclear weapons capability in the face of international opposition that is both broad and deep, indicating a willingness on Tehran's part to run risks to advance its more expansive goals, even if the regime's leaders are not irrational, millenarian, or suicidal.
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Similarly, Iran's likely willingness to increase its support to terrorists, insurgents, militias, and other violent extremists will undoubtedly provoke the countries they are targeted against. Thus, if a nuclear Iran remains both aggressive and risk-tolerant, as seems most likely, crises are sure to follow. What's more, there is a high probability that some (perhaps most) of these crises will involve other nuclear states, or states allied with other nuclear powers, like the United States.

After the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy famously estimated that the chances of that crisis escalating to a nuclear war were somewhere between one in three and even odds. His national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, felt that they were more remote—more like 1 in 100.
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We will never know what the true odds were, but post–Cold War revelations that the Soviets had deployed tactical nuclear weapons to Cuba and that the Politburo considered delegating launch authority to the local military commander in the event of an American attack—which most of the American National Security Council favored—suggest that Kennedy may have been somewhat closer to the mark than Bundy.
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The Cuban Missile Crisis may be the closest that the world has ever come to a nuclear exchange, but it is not the only moment when the danger lurked: the Berlin crisis of 1961, the Sino-Soviet clashes of 1969, the October War of 1973, the Kargil War of 1999 all qualify as moments when the world came uncomfortably close to nuclear war. If Iran acquires
a nuclear capability, there will almost certainly be crises with Iran and these will be the moments of great anxiety.

The example of the October War of 1973 is also important because it suggests that although Iran's behavior would be an important determinant of the frequency and severity of crises after Tehran crosses the nuclear threshold, it will not be the only variable in play. On October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel that stunned the Israelis. Nevertheless, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) regained its balance and counterattacked, quickly routing both Arab armies. With their armed forces on the brink of disaster, the Arabs called on the USSR to secure a UN cease-fire that would halt the Israeli counteroffensives before they lost even more. When Israel and its American ally ignored Moscow's demands, the Soviets responded by alerting a half dozen airborne divisions for immediate deployment to the Middle East. The White House was itself surprised by this move and by the implication that the Russians were going to intervene in the conflict. In response, President Nixon alerted U.S. nuclear forces to warn the Russians against sending in their troops. Neither the United States nor the USSR had sought the 1973 nuclear crisis, nor was it caused by the designs of either. At worst, both had done nothing to restrain the offensive actions of their allies. Both superpowers were passive, and their intentions effectively benign, at least toward each other, yet they found themselves enmeshed in a frightening nuclear crisis.