Nuclear war against Iran?
Toine Van Teeffelen
In response to a question from journalists yesterday, Trump stated that Israel would "never" use the nuclear bomb if the conflict with Iran were to escalate. In doing so, he not only ignored Israel's long-standing policy of not explicitly acknowledging that it possesses nuclear weapons, but also raised the question of whether he was speaking on Israel's behalf.
The war between Israel, the United States, and Iran has already produced many victims, locally, regionally and globally. The use of nuclear weapons would multiply the number of casualties many times over, especially in Iran. For the moment, scenarios of nuclear war are not directly likely; however, they have become more concrete. More analysts or "experts" seem to be speaking out about them. Broadly speaking, three scenarios can be distinguished.
A first scenario is a US nuclear strike on underground-stored nuclear material at the two locations in Iran where it is believed to be located: Natanz and Fordow (although it is not entirely excluded that Iranian authorities have moved this material through deeply excavated tunnels). According to US military circles, conventional, extremely large bunker buster bombs are not powerful enough to completely destroy these installations.
Advisers to Donald Trump stated last year that possibly only a tactical nuclear weapon would be capable of destroying the material at Fordow, which lies very deep underground. During the previous Israeli-American war with Iran, last June, the White House explicitly did not rule out this nuclear option.
The American "escalation trap"
A second scenario is an American escalation trap. The logic here follows what is known in so-called realist political science as the military escalation ladder: how to climb it further when one is "obliged," while at the same time it becomes ever more risky. When conventional military options are exhausted, only large-scale bombardments remain, targeting increasingly scarce or hard-to-reach military objectives. And beyond that: massive attacks on civilian targets. That is the step toward nuclear war.
Iran appears willing to continue the war over a long period. The consequences for the global economy thus become increasingly severe. Trump could find himself in a situation in which he does not know how to end the conflict without suffering major loss of face. Given that he decides to a large extent on his own-and especially given Trump's sensitivity to the kind of loss of face that would brand him a loser-it is not inconceivable that he would choose an extreme step on the escalation ladder. For example, a nuclear "demonstration," such as a nuclear explosion in the Iranian desert, with enormous and dramatic consequences for people and the environment.
Escalating rhetoric can also take on a dynamic of its own. On March 10, Trump wrote on social media:
"If Iran stops the flow of oil we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back as a Nation again - Death, Fire and Fury will reign upon them - But I hope, and pray that it does not happen!"
The phrasing Death, Fire and Fury has a clear biblical, apocalyptic resonance. And what exactly does "impossible to be rebuilt as a nation" mean? British opinion maker Owen Jones of The Guardian remarked on this: "Isn't this simply a nuclear threat?" The apocalyptic all-or-nothing rhetoric is also evident in what Trump said yesterday: "You can't let the most violent, vicious country in the last 50 years have a nuclear weapon, because the Middle East will be gone. Israel will go first without question."
Existential danger
Trump's AI and crypto adviser David Sacks warned a few days ago about the possibility that it might be Israel that escalates the war by considering the use of nuclear weapons.
At some point Iran may deploy the most advanced missiles it has so far not used, while Israel at the same time could run through its stockpile of expensive defensive weapons. Israel consistently denies the latter, but this may be part of the propaganda war. There are reports that a few days ago Israel urgently requested additional anti-missile systems from the U.S. In his video, Owen Jones shows conversations with Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell under the Bush administration, and the war expert Douglas Macgregor, both of whom consider Netanyahu quite capable of using a tactical nuclear weapon.
Should the US withdraw from the war, Israel could frame this as finding itself in an existentially dangerous situation. As Gaza, and now also Lebanon and Tehran, demonstrate, there are hardly any restraints within the Israeli government against large-scale or genocidal use of force against civilian populations.
Global trends
In the background, a number of dangerous global trends are at play that make nuclear escalation conceivable:
At present there are significantly fewer authoritative normative "guardrails" against nuclear threats and nuclear use, such as the United Nations, international law, or no-first-use declarations. Illustrative is the ease with which new START negotiations between the US and Russia on limiting nuclear arsenals have in effect been "forgotten" by Trump and Putin.
In addition, the nuclear trajectory is being ideologically paved by biblical exceptionalism and end-times thinking, which is gaining popularity, among other places, in technology circles. Think of Trump's apocalyptic language above. In the context of a Crusader-like holy war, in which religion is deployed to legitimize violence, compromises become impossible and all means are permitted. Grand, seemingly elevated narratives then displace attention from what a nuclear war would mean for ordinary people-especially when those people have been dehumanized or portrayed as demonic. The Middle East has traditionally been a locus of end-times fantasies.
Finally, there is the dangerous element of war play in contemporary Western tech culture. Think of Trump's remark a few days ago about bombing Kharg Island in the Gulf "just for fun," or the video released by the Pentagon at the start of the war, mixing fantasy-like game aesthetics with historical war scenes. Apocalyptic war is depicted lightly. This plays into the fact that current generations have no direct experience of the immense human suffering caused by the use of nuclear weapons.
Toine van Teeffelen, an MA graduate in social anthropology and PhD holder in discourse analysis from the University of Amsterdam, moved from the Netherlands to the occupied West Bank in 1994. Alongside working as a guide, he conducted workshops for universities, schools, and educational NGOs, and served as the development director at the Arab Educational Institute, a Pax Christi Partner in Bethlehem - where he is based now.
LINKS
Owen Jones Could They NUKE Iran? - Why The Danger Is Real: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTxJM-SWHXU
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Print
Email
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn
Pinterest