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Nuclear War in the Middle East
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei visits the Iranian centrifuges in Tehran, Iran, June 11, 2023. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Israel’s “Iran nuclear problem” is not principally about enemy leaders who might go mad. The more worrisome existential problem for Israel is sane, rational enemies who experience miscalculation, poor reasoning or mechanical/electrical/computer malfunction. Other nuclear hazards that could coincide with Iranian sanity and rationality include accidental firing, unauthorized launch and coup d’état.
While it is true that decisions made by a mad Iranian nuclear adversary could have catastrophic consequences for Israel (even, indeed, by a mad pre-nuclear Iran), the likelihood of such decisions is lower than what could be expected of a sane and rational Iranian enemy. Because a nuclear war would be a unique event, such a likelihood cannot be expressed numerically or statistically but is still supportable by analytic argument.
Logic-based calculations suggest that the dispersion of nuclear dangers among multiple Iranian decisionmakers would be more perilous for Israel than the threat posed by a single authoritative Iranian leader who is mad or irrational. Here, madness and irrationality would include Iranian decisionmakers driven by jihadist theologies and principles.
In all circumstances, whether the greater danger to Israel is Iranian decisional madness or Iranian decisional sanity, Jerusalem must stay mindful of a possible “black swan” event. This need will be much greater if Iran is allowed to become a nuclear weapons state. Even at this late date, Israel should remain preemption-ready.
For Jerusalem, there are also time-urgent geopolitical considerations. Iran is approaching nuclear weapons capability concurrently with the acceleration by its jihadist proxies – Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, Islamic Jihad and Fatah – of terrorist crimes against Israel. Iran, which is steadily expanding its ties with Russia, China and North Korea, repeatedly declares its genocidal intentions toward Israel. And Israel is a state with no “strategic depth.”
Prima facie, Middle Eastern geopolitics are a system. Potentially related scenarios of superpower conflict may be dense or even opaque, but they remain relevant. Among other things, the continuously changing iterations of “Cold War II” could embrace international conflicts that involve Israel with North Korea, China, India or Pakistan. Such a dangerous embrace could be sudden or incremental.
For Israel to proceed purposefully, some primary and subsidiary distinctions need further clarification. One concerns the vital differences between a deliberate or intentional nuclear war and a nuclear war that is unintentional or inadvertent. Without considering this distinction, little of value can be determined about the likelihood of a nuclear conflict.
The greatest dangers of an unintentional nuclear war are decision-making errors, underestimations or overestimations of enemy intent, or simple miscalculations. As classical military theorist Carl von Clausewitz observed, “Everything is very simple in war, but even the simplest thing is difficult.”
There are other nuances to be considered. With regard to growing nuclear war risks in the Middle East, no concept could prove more clarifying than “synergy”. Synergistic interactions are those wherein the whole of nuclear war risk effects is greater than the sum of its parts. Unless such interactions are accurately assessed and evaluated in time, Israeli leaders could either underestimate or overestimate the cumulative impact of superpower competition on risk-taking. This suggests circumstances in which Russia and the United States (and perhaps China) struggle for escalation dominance in extremis – that is, during high-value crisis situations.
In the United States, allegedly reliable safeguards have been incorporated from the beginning into all operational nuclear command/control decisions. These safeguards do not apply, however, at the presidential level. In 1976, to gather informed policy clarifications regarding madness, irrationality and nuclear war, I reached out to retired General Maxwell D. Taylor, a former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Taylor sent a handwritten reply in which he concluded: “As to those dangers arising from an irrational American president, the only protection is not to elect one.”
In today’s convulsive world order, General Taylor’s succinct 1976 warning takes on even greater meaning. Based on both ascertainable facts and logic-based derivations, it is reasonable to assume that if an American president were to exhibit signs of emotional instability, irrationality or “mad” behavior, he/she could still lawfully order the use of American nuclear weapons. More worrisome, an American, Russian or Chinese president could become emotionally unstable, irrational or delusional, but not conspicuously exhibit such liabilities.
In all matters concerning nuclear war in the Middle East, there exist no histories from which to draw inferences. This is a fortunate absence, of course, but it still stands in the way of rendering reliable conflict predictions. The irony of this situation is obvious and problematic. Still, whatever the science-based obstacles to reliable prediction in this explosive region, Israel should approach the problem as an intellectual rather than a political challenge.
It must always be remembered that a nuclear war in the Middle East could occur as a spillover effect of nuclear war in Europe. To protect Israel’s survival, an American president should avoid strategic postures that neglect potential synergies with Russian, Chinese and/or North Korean postures. North Korea is a nuclear ally of Iran that built a nuclear reactor for Syria – the Al Kibar reactor, which was destroyed by Israel’s Operation Orchard on September 6, 2007. In law, that operation was a permissible act of anticipatory self-defense.
Strategist Herman Kahn wrote in the early 1960s that in the aftermath of a nuclear conflict, “survivors might envy the dead”. This is true whether the catastrophe was intentional or unintentional – in other words, whether it was spawned by base motives or by miscalculation, computer error, hacking, or a weapon system or infrastructure accident. Whatever else can be determined by Israel’s national security decisionmakers, they should understand that nuclear strategy is ultimately a high-stakes struggle between intentionality, uncertainty and calamity. Even if both Israel and a newly nuclear Iran were to undertake “sane” risk-taking measures during a crisis, the cumulative effect could still be mutually unwanted and “mad.”
For Israel, the only successful outcome of protracted military conflict with Iran would be a tangible reduction of Iran’s nuclear war-fighting capabilities and intentions. Optimally, this point will be understood and operationalized while Iran is still pre-nuclear.
Once it is at war with either a nuclear Iran or a pre-nuclear Iran with a willing nuclear proxy (e.g., North Korea), Israel could be mortally wounded by rational decisions made by sane enemy leaders. Even now, though Iran is not yet nuclear, it could use radiation dispersal weapons against the Jewish State and/or launch non-nuclear missiles at Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor.
In world politics, the most significant risks of nuclear war are not those of madness or irrationality. They are the cumulatively catastrophic risks of sane and rational decisions. For Israel, this means the worst-case Iranian nuclear war scenario is not the popular narrative of mad leadership in Tehran, but one of sane adversaries operating in opposition to sane adversaries in Jerusalem.
In this bewildering world order, the accumulated risks of a mutually sane search for escalation dominance could include nuclear war. Israeli leaders should be wary of mad or prospectively mad Iranian leaders, but even more wary of the nuclear consequences posed by sane and rational Iranian decision-makers.
Prof. Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books and scholarly articles dealing with international law, nuclear strategy, nuclear war, and terrorism. In Israel, Prof. Beres was Chair of Project Daniel (PM Sharon). His 12th and latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd ed., 2018). A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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Anti-Israel Protesters Swarm New York City Fundraiser for Kamala Harris, Several Arrested
Illustrative: A scene from the anti-Israel protest that took place outside the exhibit “Nova: Oct. 7 6:29 AM, The Moment Music Stood Still” in New York City on June 10, 2024. Photo: Screenshot
Anti-Israel protesters crashed a Democratic Party rally and fundraiser for US Vice President and 2024 presidential nominee Kamala Harris on Wednesday night.
Roughly 300 protesters lined the streets of W. 135th St. and Broadway in New York City, brandishing signs accusing the Biden administration of supporting a so-called “genocide” in the Gaza Strip and demanding a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group.
Footage circulating on X/Twitter showed the agitators storming inside the event, harassing attendees including New York City Mayor Eric Adams and accusing them of endorsing “genocide.”
“Make sure you vote! Make sure you vote!” Adams said as security escorted some of the demonstrators out of the event.
“I don’t mind you being across the street. I don’t mind that you want to raise your voice,” the mayor added. “Hold onto all of that anger until after November. November you need to be laser-focused on one thing.”
Watch: pro-Palestinian protestors broke inside the DNC fundraiser and began harassing Mayor Adams and other politicians.
This is political intimidation and goes against the fundamental principles of our democracy.
Have we learned nothing after the assassination attempt? pic.twitter.com/wtdRtuiELV
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) August 15, 2024
The demonstration escalated into violence when around 50 agitators stormed the rally’s afterparty in a nearby restaurant. Roughly 25 participants of the rally were in attendance at the afterparty, according to the New York Post. The angry protesters screamed and pointed fingers at the event’s attendees, demanding that they support a “ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas.
Other protesters physically confronted, attacked, and screamed obscenities at police officers. Swarms of protesters surrounded the officers, banging drums, blowing whistles, and chanting slogans such as “no justice, no peace!”
A corral of officers subdued and arrested a handful of the agitators. Officers clashed with the swarm of anti-Israel demonstrators, struggling to clear out the area. Some of the protesters reportedly tossed smoke bombs towards officers.
Authorities were recorded chasing down one protester after he initiated a violent encounter with the officers. Another demonstrator was seen on video posted to social media assaulting an officer with a cardboard sign, causing officers to apprehend and handcuff her on the ground.
The New York City Police Department (NYPD) ultimately took 14 demonstrators into custody, according to the New York Daily News.
BREAKING: Pro-Palestine Protesters STORM into Democratic After party event following Kamala Harris Campaign, SMOKE BOMBS set off at the outdoor restaurant, MASS ARRESTS pic.twitter.com/5BVEGhzrq0
— Oliya Scootercaster (@ScooterCasterNY) August 15, 2024
Within Our Lifetime, a radical anti-Israel activist group, took responsibility for the demonstration and condemned the NYPD for arresting violent agitators.
“After a noise demo disrupting the Democratic Party’s NYC campaign launch for Killer Kamala on 8.14, the NYPD ruthlessly beat and arrested protestors in Harlem,” Within Our Lifetime wrote on X/Twitter. “Dems want you to believe they support us. They are just waiting for you to look away before cracking down on our movement and continuing the genocide in Palestine.”
In the months following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre throughout southern Israel, pro-Hamas agitators have disrupted political events, fundraisers, speeches, and rallies, calling for an end to the ongoing war between the Jewish state and the Palestinian terrorist group.
Radical anti-Israel groups are expected to hold massive demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week, demanding that Harris support a ceasefire in Gaza as well as an arms embargo against the Jewish state.
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American Comedian Proclaims He’s ‘Anti-Bully’ After Israeli Couple Heckled Out of Venue Following Anti-Israel Joke
Reginald D. Hunter. Photo: Screenshot
American stand-up comedian Reginald D. Hunter apologized on Thursday for an “unfortunate” incident that took place at his show this week during the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland after the comedian made an anti-Israel joke.
“As a comedian, I do push boundaries in creating humor; it’s part of my job,” the comedian, 55, said in a post shared across his various social media accounts. “This inevitably creates divided opinions but I am staunchly anti-war and anti-bully. I regret any stress caused to the audience and venue staff members.”
Hunter also re-posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, messages of support, including one that said in part: “Stop saying ‘antisemitism’ to shut down criticism of the actions of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu/Israel.”
During his Sunday night stand-up comedy show “Fluffy Fluffy Beavers” at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Hunter joked that having an abusive wife who complains about being abused herself is “like being married to Israel.” While most of the audience laughed at the joke, a couple in the front row shouted “Not funny.”
The Daily Telegraph‘s chief theater critic Domenic Cavendish, who was in the audience reviewing the show, reported that when the couple said they were from Israel, other audience members began shouting expletives at them like “f—k off,” told them to leave the gig, made booing sounds, and verbally targeted them with barbs such as “genocidal maniac,” “you’re not welcome,” and “free Palestine.” The incident took place five minutes midway into the show and the “theater full of people erupted in vocal animosity at an Israeli couple who had briefly heckled Hunter,” according to Cavendish.
Hunter doubled down by telling the Israeli couple, one of whom is disabled: “I’ve been waiting for you all summer, where the f—k you been? You can say it’s not funny to you, but if you say it to a room full of people who laughed, you look foolish.” After the Israeli women “remonstrated with the audience,” according to Cavendish, Hunter responded, “Look at you making everyone love Israel even more.”
The Israeli couple were still being heckled by audience members as they left the venue. “That tells me that I still got voltage,” Hunter told spectators after the couple left the venue, seemingly satisfied with the outcome.
Hunter afterwards made a joke about needing a subscription to access the website of The Jewish Chronicle, which is not true. “Typical f—king Jews, they won’t tell you anything unless you subscribe,” he said before adding, “It’s just a joke.”
Police in Scotland told the BBC that it is “reviewing the circumstances” of the incident.
Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), a British charity, said Hunter’s comments were “extremely concerning” and although comedians are “rightly given broad latitude, they also have a responsibility to their audience.”
“Watching on and cracking jokes as Jews are hounded out of your show is a sickening low that cannot be disguised as comedy,” CAA added.
At the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Hunter made a joke during his show about it being illegal to deny the Holocaust in Austria. Hunter joked that he had “a good mind to go to Austria, stand in the street, and say the Holocaust didn’t happen,” only to end up getting arrested and then telling a judge in court that he was talking about the Rwandan holocaust.
In a separate incident that took place at the festival this year, Jewish actress Miriam Margolyes stirred controversy when she described the fictional Charles Dickens character Fagin as “Jewish and vile.”
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Columbia University President Minouche Shafik Resigns Amid Numerous Antisemitism Scandals
Columbia University administrators and faculty, led by President Minouche Shafik, testified before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17, 2024. Photo: Jack Gruber/Reuters Connect
Columbia University president Minouche Shafik resigned on Wednesday, becoming the third Ivy League president in just the last year to leave office amid criticism of what many observers perceived as a refusal to protect Jewish students from antisemitic discrimination, harassment, and assault.
“I write with sadness to tell you that I am stepping down as president of Columbia University effective Aug. 14, 2024,” Shafik said in a statement announcing her decision. “This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community. Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and have decided that my moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead. I am making this announcement now so that new leadership can be in place before the new terms begins.”
Shafik, who took office in 2023, managed to survive a grating US congressional hearing earlier this year in which Republican lawmakers accused her of capitulating to riotous pro-Hamas demonstrators, who, following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, flagrantly broke rules proscribing hate speech and unauthorized protests. Pledging to correct her alleged failures, Shafik seemed poised to continue leading Columbia University with the full support of its trustees and most of its faculty.
However, two incidents over the summer crumbled what little credibility she had left with the public, the Jewish community, and federal lawmakers who have been investigating her administration. In June, the university reached an out of court settlement with a student who accused it of neglecting its obligation to foster a safe learning environment during the final weeks of last spring semester. While stopping short of admitting guilt, the settlement virtually conceded to the plaintiff her argument that the campus is unsafe for Jewish students, agreeing to provide her and others “Safe Passage Liaisons” tasked with protecting them from racist abuse and violence.
Another scandal in the same month took longer to brew. Days before Columbia settled its student’s lawsuit, the Washington Free Beacon published an explosive report about four university administrators who took turns exchanging text messages which, as Shafik described, “touched disturbingly on ancient antisemitic tropes.” According to the Free Beacon, which obtained the communications from a trove of documents shared by the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, four officials — Susan Chang-Kim, Cristen Kromm, Matthew Patashnick, and Josef Sorett, who is dean of Columbia College — described Jews as “privileged” and venal, reacting to a panel in which Jewish leaders participated to plea for help and explain the link between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
No one was immediately fired after the report went viral. Outraged, Jewish and pro-Israel leaders lambasted what they perceived as a teflon privilege which insulated administrators from the controversy and pointed to the outcome of the matter as evidence that antisemitism at Columbia is institutional. In response, thousands of rabbis implored Shafik to resign.
“The bigotry and double standards are blatant, and entirely at odds with the experiences that I and others had at Columbia in the past. Imagine if something like this had happened during a session when Black, Latino, Pacific Islander, or LGBTQ faculty and students were speaking about hostility they faced on campus,” said Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV) vice president Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, who led the call for Shafik to step down. “Any faculty dismissing their concerns, much less ridiculing them or sharing hateful sentiments, would find themselves unemployed without delay.”
Pummeled by volleys of opprobrium, Shafik attempted to assuage concerns that Columbia University — one of America’s most prestigious institutions of higher education — had become a sanctuary for antisemites and those who proudly described themselves as enemies of both Israel and the US.
“We will launch a vigorous program of antisemitism and antidiscrimination [sic] training for faculty and staff this fall, with related training for students under the auspices of university life,” she said, addressing the administrators’ conduct. “Columbia’s leadership team recognizes this as an important moment to implement changes that will build a stronger institution as a result. I know that you all share this commitment.”
Ultimately, three of the Columbia administrators embroiled in the text message scandal resigned last week.
For many, Shafik’s words rang false, coming too long after the campus had been commandeered by Columbia students who praised Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel and chanted “F—k the Jews,” “Death to Jews,” “Jews will not defeat us,” and “From water to water, Palestine will be Arab.”
Faculty had engaged in similar behavior. On Oct. 8, Columbia professor Joseph Massad published in Electronic Intifada an essay cheering Hamas’ atrocities, which included slaughtering children and raping women, as “awesome” and describing men who paraglided into a music festival to kill young people as “the air force of the Palestinian resistance.” Additionally, Shafik stood by while her subordinates launched an investigation into a vocal pro-Israel professor, Shai Davidai, an action he described as revealing “the depths of [Columbia’s] hostility towards its Jewish community.”
In April, while Shafik testified on Capitol Hill, an explosion of anti-Israel demonstrations on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover forced the administration to shutter the campus and institute “virtual” learning. Prior to that, footage of the protest showed Columbia students — who occupied a section of campus and named it a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” — proclaiming support for Hamas, calling for the destruction of Israel, and even threatening to harm members of the Jewish community on campus. The situation was so severe that security officials deactivated Davidai’s identification card and temporarily banned him from campus because his safety could not be “guaranteed,” a measure which reflected the administration’s belief that the students it hesitated to rein in, as well as the non-students they invited to campus, were prepared to perpetrate violence to make their point.
As of the date of her resignation, a lawsuit alleging that Shafik did nothing after pro-Hamas agitators beat up five Jewish students in the school’s Butler Library and another attacked a Jewish student with a stick, lacerating his head and breaking his finger, had yet to reach trial.
“I have tried to navigate a path that upholds academic principles and treats everyone with fairness and compassion,” she said in Wednesday’s statement. “It has been distressing — for the community, for me as president, and on a personal level — to find myself, colleagues, and students the subject of threats and abuse. As President Lincoln said, ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand’ — we must do all we can to resist the forces of polarization in our community. I remain optimistic that differences can be overcome through the honest exchange of views, truly listening — and always — by treating each other with dignity and respect. Again, Columbia’s core mission to create and acquire knowledge, with our values as foundation, will lead us there.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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