Can We Live with the Persian Bomb?
As Iran under Ahmadinejad accelerated its pursuit of nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them, a growing chorus of voices in the foreign policy community suggested this might not be such a terrible thing, claiming that the West would be able to successfully deter or contain a nuclear-armed Iran much as we did with the Soviet Union during the Cold War and have done with the People’s Republic of China.
Michael Eisenstadt, senior fellow and director of security studies at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, delivered testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on February 1, 2006, entitled, “Deter and Contain: Dealing with a Nuclear Iran.”
Barry R. Posen of the MIT Center for International Studies wrote an op-ed for the New York Times on February 27, 2006, entitled, “We Can Live with a Nuclear Iran.”
In a column published in National Journal on May 19, 2006, journalist Paul Starobin wrote, “In thinking about a new deterrence structure, some analysts advocate a global approach in which nuclear states—including the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, and China, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council—would in effect cover the greater Middle East region with a protective nuclear umbrella. The proposition would be simple: If the mullahs [of Iran] use or even threaten to use nukes, they would face the prospect of retaliation from these powers.” Starobin also argued that “Iran’s acquisition of a bomb would probably improve the chances of the U.S. and Iran renewing a dialogue after all these years” because, as one Mideast analyst told him, “they see acquisition of a nuclear weapon as a precondition of having talks with the U.S.”
In the fall of 2007, former CENTCOM commander John Abizaid joined the growing crowd as well, saying, “There are ways to live with a nuclear Iran. I believe we have the power to deter Iran if they go nuclear,” just as we deterred the Soviet Union and China. “Iran is not a suicidal nation,” he added. “Nuclear deterrence would work with Iran.”360
Throughout the 2008 presidential primaries, deterrence and containment were the themes of the Democratic contenders. As I noted in chapter two, Senator Barack Obama dismissed the seriousness of the Iranian threat during his campaign, saying it was nothing compared to the threat the Soviet Union posed during the Cold War and arguing that we had successfully deterred Moscow from doing something catastrophic.
Former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson made a similar case, stating during one of the debates, “As we know from the Cold War, deterrence is above all a matter of clarity and credibility. We need to be absolutely clear that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable, and we need to be absolutely credible when we say what we will do about it if the Iranians continue to disregard the will of the international community. The clear message must be this: develop nukes and you will face devastating global sanctions.”361
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was even more explicit during an interview on ABC’s Good Morning America on the morning of the Pennsylvania primaries. She threatened to wipe Iran out after an Iranian nuclear attack, hoping that such strong language would deter the Iranian regime from launching such an attack.
“You said, ‘If Iran were to strike Israel, there would be a massive retaliation,’” noted host Chris Cuomo. “Scary words, Mrs. Clinton. Does ‘massive retaliation’ mean you go into Iran, you would bomb Iran? Is that what that’s supposed to suggest?”
“Well, the question was if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, what would our response be?” Clinton replied. “And I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran, and I want them to understand that, because it does mean that they have to look very carefully at their society. Because at whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program, in the next ten years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. That’s like a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish, and tragic.”362
It certainly sounded tough, and it may have helped Clinton defeat Senator Obama in the Pennsylvania primary that day, 55 percent to 45 percent. But there were two serious flaws in what Clinton said.
First, by offering a reactive rather than a proactive military strategy vis-à-vis Iran, she was allowing for the possibility of another Holocaust. If Iranian leaders get nuclear warheads and can attach them to the high-speed ballistic missiles they already have, Ahmadinejad could kill some six million Jews in about six minutes. What good is it to say that the U.S. would obliterate Iran after Ahmadinejad or a successor accomplishes another Holocaust?
Second, Clinton and her like-minded colleagues believe their tough talk will deter Iran’s leaders from launching a nuclear attack against Israel. But will it? Remember, Iranian leaders believe they are supposed to create global chaos and carnage in order to bring about the optimal conditions for the return of the Mahdi. They believe they have been chosen by Allah to annihilate the U.S. and Israel and export the Islamic Revolution. Is it not true that the only way that is remotely possible, humanly speaking, is for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them against America and Israel? How then could the West successfully deter or contain them? If they die, these Radicals believe they are going directly to paradise. What could we possibly offer them as either carrots or sticks that would keep them from what they see as their God-given duty when their failure to obey could, in their minds, be disobedience punishable by an eternity in the fires of hell?
Many in Washington cannot or will not see the problem here. Delaware Senator Joe Biden, for example, said during his presidential campaign, “My concern is not that a nuclear Iran some day would be moved by messianic fervor to use a nuclear weapon as an Armageddon device and commit national suicide in order to hasten the return of the Hidden Imam. My worry is that the fear of a nuclear Iran could spark an arms race in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and others joining in.”363
That second issue is certainly a real concern. But based on the evidence, why would Biden be so quick to dismiss the first issue? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not just another power-hungry dictator in the mold of the Soviet or Chinese leaders of yore. Neither is the Ayatollah Khamenei or the Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi or their many colleagues in the upper echelons of Iranian leadership. They are not Communists. They are not atheists. They do not believe that this world is all there is. They are Shia Islamic fascists. They believe they are Shia John the Baptists, forerunners of the soon-coming Islamic messiah. They believe their life mission is to kill millions of Jews and Christians and usher in an Islamic caliphate. If they die, they are convinced they know where they are going.
But they do not really believe they are going to die—not at the hand of the infidels, at any rate. They believe instead that they have been chosen for a divine appointment and that nothing can stop them. That is what makes them so dangerous. Unfortunately, too many Washington politicians—Obama, Clinton, and Biden included—do not understand this.
And that is a serious problem. To misunderstand the nature and threat of evil is to risk being blindsided by it. To misunderstand the nature and threat of the Second Iranian Revolution could be the prelude to genocide. We dare not be blindsided.
Chapter Thirteen
The Road Ahead
My conversation with the former director of Central Intelligence
It was a beautiful Sunday morning in downtown Baghdad when a boy named Amar entered a crowded polling station without attracting much attention. Though he was nineteen, Amar had been born with Down syndrome and was believed to have the mind of a four-year-old.
This was an exciting day in Iraq—January 30, 2005—the day of the first truly free and democratic elections in the country’s long and troubled history. Despite intense sectarian violence that had plagued the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003, there were long lines of people waiting to c
ast their ballots, and there was a buzz of excitement around the voting boxes. This was a big deal. People wanted to be part of it. Indeed, more than eight and a half million people all across the country—58 percent of those eligible to vote—showed up that day at neighborhood polling stations like this one to make their voices heard. No one in their wildest imaginations would have ever worried that Amar might be a suicide bomber.
But before anyone realized what was happening, Amar disintegrated in an explosion that could be heard for miles.
His parents were at the home of some friends, celebrating the fact that they had just voted for the first time. But they heard the explosion, and soon they heard a rumor moving quickly through their Shia neighborhood that the bomber had been a disabled boy. Panic-stricken, they raced home, only to find Amar missing. “They got neighbors to search, and one of them identified Amar’s head where it lay on the pavement,” the boy’s cousin told an Australian reporter. “His body was broken into pieces. I have heard of [the jihadists] using dead people and donkeys and dogs to hide their bombs, but how could they do this to a boy like Amar?”364
Iraqi authorities suspected that insurgents had kidnapped Amar when his parents went to vote, quickly fitted him with a suicide bomber vest, then sent him to the polling station. “They must have kidnapped him,” his cousin said. “He was like a baby. He had nothing to do with the resistance, and there was nothing in the house for him to make a bomb. He was Shiite—why bomb his own people? He was mindless, but he was mostly happy, laughing and playing with the children in the street. Now, his father is inconsolable; his mother cries all the time.”
Iraqi interior minister Falah al-Naqib was beside himself with anger. “A handicapped child was used to carry out a suicide attack on a polling site,” he seethed. “This is an indication of what horrific actions they [the followers of jihad] are carrying out.”365
Unfortunately, this was not the first time Radicals who say they want to become martyrs for Allah had preyed upon those unable to choose their own fate. Nor would it be the last.
On the morning of February 1, 2008, two mentally handicapped women strolled through the crowded streets of Baghdad. Unbeknownst to those around them, under their full-length Islamic body coverings they wore suicide bombers’ vests. One entered the bustling al-Ghazl market in the center of the city. The other made her way to a bird market in a neighborhood in the southeastern section of the capital and gathered people around her, saying she had birds to sell.
At precisely 10:20 a.m. local time, the first woman blew up, killing forty-six people and injuring at least one hundred others. Twenty minutes later, the second woman blew up, killing twenty-seven people and wounding another sixty-seven.
“Police initially said the bomb . . . was hidden in a box of birds,” reported the Associated Press, “but determined it was a suicide attack after finding the woman’s head.”366
As the investigation unfolded, the police realized that both bomber vests had been detonated by remote control, suggesting that these poor women probably did not even realize what they were doing—or what was being done to them in the name of Allah. Rather, authorities said they were likely used by Radicals precisely because they were women, unlikely to be searched at checkpoints where male soldiers and police officers are forbidden by Islamic law to search women and where there are simply too few female officers to do the job.367 The fact that these particular women were mentally challenged just made the Radicals’ job that much easier.
“By targeting innocent Iraqis, they [the jihadists] show their true demonic character,” said a military spokesman in Baghdad. “They care nothing for the Iraqi people. They want to subjugate them and forcefully create a greater Islamic Sharia state.”368
I agree, and I hope that spokesman got a promotion and a raise for telling the truth. Too many innocents have died for us to remain quiet. How dare the world keep silent about what is being done by Radicals in the name of God? Silence betrays and dishonors the memories of the innocents who were killed without cause.
So let’s call a spade a spade: What was unleashed upon humanity by the Islamic Revolution of 1979 was sheer, unbridled evil in the form of cold-blooded, ruthless killers who feast on death, who are aroused and energized by the thought and sight of human blood, and who privately—and increasingly publicly—fantasize about unleashing another Holocaust because murdering mere hundreds or thousands no longer slakes their unholy lust.
Three decades later, this evil has not been contained. Nor has its threat diminished. Rather, it has worsened, for today the Radicals—be they Shia disciples of the Ayatollah Khomeini or Sunni disciples of Osama bin Laden—are on the verge of acquiring the very technology necessary to make their genocidal fantasies come true.
Why is the West sleeping? Can it be awakened? What does the future hold, and what should we be watching for on the road ahead?
“There Is No Sanctity of Life in Their Playbook”
A few days after the February 1 attacks in Baghdad, I had the privilege of discussing these very questions with one of America’s most experienced and highest ranking intelligence officials.
Born in 1938, Porter Goss began his post-Yale career in 1960 as a U.S. Army intelligence officer during some of the coldest years of the Cold War, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, before being recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Operations. There, he served as a clandestine operative in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe from 1962 until 1972, when a serious illness forced him to retire.
He and his wife, Mariel, resettled in southern Florida, where Goss ran some businesses, was elected mayor of his town, and eventually won a seat in Congress in 1989. For eight of his sixteen years in the House, Goss was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, before President Bush nominated him to be the director of Central Intelligence in August of 2004, replacing George Tenet. Goss retired from the Agency and political life on May 26, 2006, after nearly a half century of service to his country.
Lynn and I first met Porter and Mariel over dinner in December of 2007 at a quaint little country inn not far from the Shenandoah mountains in rural Virginia. Mutual friends of ours had arranged the evening after learning that the Gosses not only had a copy of my book Epicenter but had both read it several times. When they called to see if we wanted to get together, we did not hesitate for an instant. To the contrary, we considered it an honor.
The Gosses could not have been more gracious or down-to-earth as Lynn and I plied them for stories and insights of their remarkable years of knowing what few others know and seeing what few others see.
Porter told us that, as chairman of the House intelligence committee, he had been to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border with Pakistani intel officials in August of 2001 to learn more about the terrorist risks coming from the region. Then he described how he had been in a meeting with the director of Pakistani intelligence in a secure conference room in the U.S. Capitol on the morning of 9/11 when an aide slipped him a note saying a plane had just hit one of the World Trade Center towers. Like many, he did not think much of it at first, believing it was probably a small private plane gone astray. But when an aide stepped back in the room a few moments later to slip him another note, one that said the second tower had just been hit, Goss instantly knew it was terrorism. He gave the note to his committee cochair, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, who then handed the note to the Pakistani intel chief. All color drained from the man’s face. This was al Qaeda. There was no doubt in their minds. The Radicals’ war to destroy the United States had finally come home.
When we sat down in February 2008 for an interview in a room overlooking the Capitol, I asked Goss just how serious he believed the threat from Radical Islam and the followers of jihad was to U.S. national security.
“It’s an extraordinarily serious threat,” he replied. “It’s something that we have been very slow to address as a nation—and it’s going to take generations to solve. . . . I think that t
he Beirut bombings is when we began to suddenly think about terrorism as a national security threat, along with hostages being taken in Lebanon, including a chief of station who was badly treated and brutally murdered back in the early ’80s.369 Suddenly the lexicon of national security included the words terrorism and terrorist.
“Then we’ve had a whole litany of other attacks, all the explosions and bombings, the attack on the Cole, attacks on our embassies. The jihadist threat is different and more dangerous in some ways from other historic threats—most notably the suicide martyr. They use suicide bombers in this asymmetric warfare that they have. Human ordnance—especially young women—is a new experience for us. Think of that—human ordnance. They’re spending human lives to go out and blow up other people. There is no sanctity of life in their playbook. Martyrdom and its rewards trump the U.S. Code of Military Justice, to say nothing of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. It’s all about Allah and whatever is the will of Allah in their eyes. We don’t know how to cope with that. We have to learn new ways to deal with what the Radicals do, but first we have to begin to understand how they think, and we haven’t got that first step done.” 370
Goss told me that “the ingredients are all in place for the Radical Islamists to recruit and expand and do damage. They generally understand our vulnerabilities. Their desire to hurt us will not abate. Radical teaching will continue. Resources will flow—including money from oil—to arm and train martyrs. They will continue to take advantage of our open society to attack us, and they will continue to exploit our sensitivity to tolerance and human rights to brutalize us, all the while claiming they are the ‘victims’ of the ‘Evil Satan.’ The jihadists seek to destroy our core values and beliefs and to replace them with their own. They are energized and determined, and they know how to exploit asymmetric warfare to their purpose. They have resiliency, substantial support, timeless patience. If they are allowed more strength, particularly some form of WMD, we face a fatal and urgent time.”
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