The Iran decision: the pros and cons of the military option -- I

is unlikely that the leading Sunni states in the region – Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey – would allow their Shi’a neighbor to build a nuclear arsenal without building their own nuclear arsenals to balance Iran. Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons should thus be seen not in isolation, but as a first step toward a regional nuclear arms race.

5. If more countries in the region acquire nuclear weapons, then conflicts in the Middle East will more likely escalate to the nuclear level sooner rather than later. During the cold war it was known as the use-them-or-lose-them syndrome. The nuclear arsenal of Israel is small, and the arsenals likely to be built by Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, will be small as well. The states in the region will not have secure second-strike capabilities, or robust command-and-control systems. Moreover, countries in the region either border on each other or the distance between them is short. This means that a missile launched from one country against another takes very few minutes to arrive on target. These, and other, facts will create a situation in which each nuclear-armed country will be terrified of a surprise attack on its small nuclear arsenal, predisposing it to use its few nuclear weapons at the outset of any conflict.

Why containment and deterrence is not an option
Opponents of a military attack on Iran say that the United States could use vis-à-vis Iran a regime of containment and deterrence similar to that used against the Soviet Union and China during the cold war.

Kroenig argues that the deterrence option is not viable, for three reasons.

1. The United States would have to invest billions of dollars in bolstering the defenses and command and control systems of countries in the region in order to persuade Iran that attacking or pressuring these countries would not be useful.

2. In addition, the United States, just as it has done in Europe and east Asia, would have to extend a nuclear umbrella to countries in the region. Such a nuclear umbrella – and a massive investment in these countries’ defense – would be necessary not only to dissuade Iran from attacking these countries, but would also be necessary to persuade these countries not to build their own nuclear arsenals, plunging the volatile Middle East into a nuclear arms race in the process.

3. To make U.S. deterrence credible, the United States would have to station tens of