Afghanistan wave 4

Iran prolif advantage / addon

Consider the timelines of the Afghan and Iranian policy portfolios, as President Obama must. Whether or not Iran parts with some of its fissile material in coming months in accord with the recent Geneva deal, it will still have enough nuclear “stuff” for one at least bomb within 18 months. (It may have more than that if, as looks increasingly likely, the recent Qom revelation displayed the tail end of a significant and protracted effort.) It will probably have overcome its weaponization and delivery-system challenges within 36-48 months. In 36-48 months U.S. and NATO forces will probably still be fighting in Afghanistan, whether Obama decides on a minimalist, counterterrorism-plus approach or General Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency-minus one.

Both problems are consequential, but an Iranian nuclear breakout poses more serious long-term security dangers to the region and to the United States than any likely fallout from the Afghan war. Losing in Afghanistan could boost the morale of Islamist extremists worldwide, harm NATO and possibly exacerbate the situation in Pakistan. But acquiescing to an Iranian nuclear capability would spell the collapse of the Non-Proliferation Treaty regime and likely set off a proliferation race in and around the region that could catalyze a regional nuclear war. Unlike the Cold War deterrence relationship many of us remember, which involved just two sides with mostly secure weapons and command-and-control systems, a multifaceted nuclear Middle East without stable second-strike arsenals would be extremely crisis unstable and accident-prone, and could “leak” dangerous materiel to terrorists, as well. It is facile to assert that a deterrence relationship which worked in one context will also work in others; that assumption with respect to Iran is a textbook example of the “lesser-included case” fallacy.

There are only two alternatives to preserve a credible military option, and hence a credible diplomacy, with regard to Iran: accept defeat in Afghanistan, whatever we may call it, and leave; or surge militarily to reverse the perception of Taliban ascendancy, and then drive a new political arrangement there to end the war within the next 18-24 months.

Either option is preferable to a protracted and inconclusive bloodletting, but the latter option—depending more on air power and avoiding the massive (and counterproductive) garrisoning of the country with foreign forces—is preferable. It would avoid the optic of defeat. A new Afghan coalition government, blessed by a Loya Jirga within and supported by high-level contact-group diplomacy from without, would have at least a chance of creating a stable environment over the longer run—something that cannot reliably be said about the current regime in Kabul.

A success in Afghanistan also would lift the admittedly modest prospects that diplomacy can persuade the Iranians to step back from the nuclear precipice, just as failure to turn the tide would likely tempt them forward. And if the Iranians do not step back, a success in Afghanistan will better undergird the diplomacy that must accompany any military operation directed toward them.