We learn that the Foreign Office and doubtless the State Department are most concerned that Iran is fast approaching the ability to produce nuclear weapons. Let us suppose that on this occasion the intelligence is correct. We know that intelligence about weapons of mass destruction was false in the case of Iraq.
We learn that the authorities argue that once Iran has these weapons there will be a rapid arms race to have them elsewhere in the Middle East amongst the neighbours of Iran. This leads some to argue that the west has to seek to stop Iran from arming, by threats, sanctions and diplomatic pressure. If all else fails, they cannot “rule out” military force.
It is true that diplomatic threats are more likely to succeed if the country on the wrong end of them thinks the west may invade. There is plenty of form to leave enough doubt in the minds of such a country for the threat of force to have some impact. Any dictator will have learned something from the end of the Iraqi and Libyan dictators.
The ideal outcome is that Iran backs down from making such weapons, faced as she may think she is by an ultimatum. The worst outcome is if the west threatens too far, Iran does goes ahead, and the west is left with the dangerous choice. Invasion may bring a war too far. Failure to act undermines future use of threats as a means of coercing better behaviour.
History is no simple guide to what might happen. Kennedy’s threat of force if the USSR kept pouring missiles into Cuba was believed and the Soviet ships belatedly turned back, ending a very dangerous crisis. The Soviet suppression of democratic rebellions in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland was ignored by the west. The USSR had correctly worked out there would be no western military support for the rebels. The west took no action to take various states from gaining access to nuclear weapons. The west allowed Pakistan to remain as an ally, despite harbouring anti western terrorists and holding nuclear weapons. In Iraq and Libya the dictators took a gamble about western action, and lost.
The problems for the west are several if the west continues to take a strongly interventionist approach. Intervention does involve killing a lot of people. It means backing one side in a civil war which may include a number of groups that are no more desirable by western standards of civil liberties and democracy than the groups they are fighting. There is no guarantee for the west that once the task of evicting the old government is accomplished, there will be a smooth passage to a new government which meets with the approval of the west and has sufficient consent at home to be credible and successful.
I understand that the world is an even more unstable place if Iran has nuclear weapons. Using military force to stop that might not make it a more stable place. Maybe the best we can hope for is enough uncertainty of our intentions for diplomacy and pressure to have a chance of success. Pulling the trigger on another military intervention in this dangerous part of the world is not something I would want to do myself. Isn’t it time that the threat of force was made by countries nearer to the problem, with more money than we have to spend on such things? All of this is best carried out by the UN, with the forces supplied by countries most closely involved with Iran. The UK has shed all too much blood and treasure in recent Middle Eastern wars. There is no need for the UK to seek to lead world reactions to Iran.