Thinking the unthinkable on Iran

A report by a coalition of UK organisations has rejected the idea that military action against Iran may be necessary if the Islamic Republic pursues its nuclear ambitions. The issue has set two former Labour MPs on opposite sides of the argument. Opposed to the possibility of military action is Stephen Twigg, now director of the Foreign Policy Centre:

"The consequences of military action against Iran are not only unpalatable; they are unthinkable. Even according to the worst estimates, Iran is still years away from having a nuclear weapon. There is still time to talk and the prime minister must make sure our allies use it."

On the other side, Lorna Fitzsimons, chief executive of the Britain-Israel Communications and Research Centre:

"What we are talking about here is Iran reaching the ability on an industrial scale to manufacture highly enriched uranium. That is the watershed. There is no return from that point. You can't get the genie back in the bottle technologically once they have sorted out the problem they currently have with their centrifuges. I don't think you can stop it. You might be able to disrupt it. It's a question of looking at how far you can go down the line where you lose the ability to disrupt it."

Ms Fitzsimons is right, Mr Twigg is wrong. Regardless of whether the Iranian bomb is one year away or ten, to foreswear the option of military action at this point would be diplomatic illiteracy of the first order. Any official indication that the West, and in practice this would mean the United States and very probably the United Kingdom, would not intervene militarily in any circumstances would virtually guarantee the failure of any diplomatic initiatives. Weakness, as Donald Rumsfeld used to say, is a provocation.

And Lorna Fitzsimons is also right about the time frame. Once Iran gains the capability to produce enriched uranium on an industrial scale, the question of when or whether Iran will actually produce a bomb becomes largely academic. Potentially it could happen at any time. Indeed, it may already be too late to stop Iranian production of weapons-grade uranium even by military means. The BBC reports tonight that Iran's programme of installation of atomic centrifuges continues apace. 300 centrifuges are already installed at the Natanz complex, with three thousand to be in place by the end of the year - in other words, enough to be able to produce a nuclear weapon within eleven months.

Simply to refuse to think about an intractable problem such as this is profoundly unhelpful, but it is a response which is far too common in Western countries today, especially with regard to foreign policy. There is a strand of public opinion which would rather countenance the possibility of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons than take any action to stop it. The Iranian regime has funded terror worldwide and, through its President Ahmedinejad, has declared an intention to remove Israel from the map of the world. Given the recent conference held in Iran, ostensibly to discuss the historicity of the Holocaust, but in practice to celebrate Holocaust denial worldwide, there is no reason to suppose that this threat would not be carried out if the opportunity were to present itself. The threat to the world in general and Israel in particular is immediate and grave. In such circumstances a refusal to think the unthinkable will not do. This is not the time to be ruling out any options. The consequences of a failure of western will may be catastrophic. Iran must not be allowed to become a nuclear weapons state.